Mike Pompeo vs. Rand Paul on the President’s Presumed War Powers
by Joe Wolverton, II, J.D.
TheNewAmerican.com
Sunday, 14 April 2019
During testimony at a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo ducked and weaved regarding the question of whether the president has power to make war. Senator Rand Paul corrected Pompeo’s lack of constitutional understanding.
When the question of whether a president has the power to send American troops into combat is avoided by the secretary of state who called the issue a “question for the lawyers,” you know that he’s speaking for the president and that starts with P and that rhymes with T and that stands for “tyranny.”
At a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on April 10, Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) was put in the position of professor, trying to teach Secretary of State Mike Pompeo what the Constitution says about where the power to make war lies.
Paul asked Secretary Pompeo if be believed that Iran had any connection to the people or organization that carried out the attacks of September 11, 2001, specifically referring to al-Qaeda.
“There is no doubt there’s a connection,” Pompeo responded.
As Pompeo continued his commentary, trying tenaciously to tie al-Qaeda to the government of Iran, Senator Paul interrupted him to once again school him on the facts of global affairs and the relationship of al-Qaeda to Iran.
The Iranian government’s not real happy with Sunni extremists. They have Sunni extremists is their country, but it’s not sort of like they’re joining forces to fight the West. They actually would just as soon eradicate Sunni extremists and have actually evicted quite a few and imprisoned quite a few, so I don’t think that dog hunts very well,” Paul informed Pompeo, correcting the secretary of state’s comments regarding the alliance between Iran and al-Qaeda.
Pompeo’s appearance before the Foreign Relations Committee was prompted by President Trump’s designation of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization.
In a Fact Sheet issued on April 8, the president wrote: “The Iranian regime is the leading state sponsor of terror. It exports dangerous missiles, fuels conflicts across the Middle East, and supports terrorist proxies.”
For those paying attention, the United States of America does likewise, including sharing nuclear technology with Saudi Arabia, a country currently involved in a war against Yemen that has left innocent people in Yemen without food, water, and shelter, and with the grim necessity of burying their loved ones who were killed by missiles purchased from the United States and fired by Saudi jets also bought from the United States.
Of course, that’s not to mention the fact that 15 of the 19 terrorists who carried out the attacks of September 11, 2001 were Saudi nationals.
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