Speaker 1: I don't know that I'm doing victory parades for the
Speaker 1: most recent military strikes against Iran just yet. So as
Speaker 1: we all know, on Saturday, the United States participated in
Speaker 1: an operation dropped a bunch of bunker buster bombs at
Speaker 1: the Iranian nuclear facility at FORDAU and two other sites
Speaker 1: also engaged in bombing operations. Go in, bomb get out.
Speaker 1: If that is indeed the end of the story, that's
Speaker 1: great mission accomplished. President Trump did it. He threaded the
Speaker 1: needle between to the scilla and charybdis of our great
Speaker 1: fears regarding Iran. On the one hand, not doing anything
Speaker 1: and letting Iran get a nuclear weapon not going to happen.
Speaker 1: That's on the one side. On the other side, the
Speaker 1: risk of getting drawn into a longer, more involved war.
Speaker 1: I don't know that we can confidently say that we're
Speaker 1: out of the risk of that latter thing. We need
Speaker 1: to wait to see what happens, because there's still a
Speaker 1: lot that could happen. Iran is certainly weakened, it is
Speaker 1: certainly in a much worse place. The Israeli attacks led
Speaker 1: to the decimation of its major military leadership. Worse than decimation,
Speaker 1: by the way the word decimate is really cool. It
Speaker 1: comes from this practice in the Roman Army when the
Speaker 1: Roman Army, when a particular army unit had behaved in
Speaker 1: a horrible, dishonorable, disobedient way, decimation was a punishment meted
Speaker 1: out on that unit of the army, which basically meant
Speaker 1: that every tenth man was just executed and they would
Speaker 1: have to run among their fellows while their fellow soldiers
Speaker 1: beat them to death. Yeah, that'll get your attention. Okay,
Speaker 1: I guess I better straighten up and fly right as
Speaker 1: I'm beating one of my fellow soldiers to death, and
Speaker 1: it could just as well be me anyway. The Iran anyway,
Speaker 1: the Iranian military leadership has been completely decimated. It seems
Speaker 1: that their nuclear development capacity has been decimated. I don't know,
Speaker 1: I would imagine. So there's intelligence assessments sort of indicating that, yes,
Speaker 1: it seems like the Ford out site was completely destroyed,
Speaker 1: or at the very least, if it's not completely destroyed,
Speaker 1: it is very close to completely destroyed. I'm not so
Speaker 1: one hundred percent certain about what Iran's capacity was. I
Speaker 1: don't know that anyone in the West is really one
Speaker 1: hundred percent certain about what Iran's capacity was for actually
Speaker 1: developing nuclear weapons. I feel like we've had people warning
Speaker 1: that Iran is on the you know, on the one
Speaker 1: yard line of developing a nuke. Ohle, They're only a
Speaker 1: month away from a nuke. They've been only a month
Speaker 1: away from a nuke for like, you know, the last
Speaker 1: twenty years. So forgiving me if I'm a little skeptical
Speaker 1: to that point. But I'm not the guy in the
Speaker 1: Oval office. I'm not the guy getting the intelligence directly
Speaker 1: from the Israelis and from American intelligence sources, So I
Speaker 1: don't know Trump does. So that those were the two
Speaker 1: big risks was letting Iran alone and letting them develop
Speaker 1: a nuclear weapon, which I think is intolerable. I think
Speaker 1: it gives even if Iran doesn't use it, it gives
Speaker 1: them an intolerable amount of negotiating leverage within the region
Speaker 1: and gives them standing in status while they continue to
Speaker 1: be the world's chief exporter of terrorism through their various proxies.
Speaker 1: So it stops that from happening, but does it draw
Speaker 1: us into a broader conflict? And this is what I'm
Speaker 1: afraid of, and I don't think we can know that
Speaker 1: right now. Iran is clearly I would say, not going
Speaker 1: to take this lying down, or they have to. I
Speaker 1: think they have to demonstrate some kind of response in
Speaker 1: order for the regime in Iran to maintain some shred
Speaker 1: of credibility. And this is one of the geopolitical things
Speaker 1: about Iran. There's all these people have been saying, all
Speaker 1: these people pushing for regime change in Iran, they've been saying.
Speaker 2: Well, eighty percent of the population doesn't even like the
Speaker 2: Islamic Republic. Eighty percent of the population doesn't even like
Speaker 2: the rule by the Ayatolas. They don't like the current
Speaker 2: Islamic Republic. You know, remember that Iran was under the
Speaker 2: shaw and it was this open, westernized, you know, Middle
Speaker 2: Eastern country in the seventies. It's like, okay, but that
Speaker 2: was in the seventies. We don't know what it's like now.
Speaker 1: We don't have a grasp on what actual Iranian popular
Speaker 1: sentiment is right now, whether that population is actually largely
Speaker 1: satisfied with the Islamic Republic, whether they are largely dissatisfied
Speaker 1: with the Islamic Republic, whether they are maybe dissatisfied but
Speaker 1: unwilling to overthrow them, dissatisfied with the Islamic Republic, but
Speaker 1: maybe also still really hating Israel and really hating America.
Speaker 1: You know. There there was a story someone mentioned on Twitter.
Speaker 1: I think it was Gray Connolly, whom I followed. Was
Speaker 1: a really interesting guy. He's an Australian lawyer and a
Speaker 1: military historian. He was noting that during the Iraq Iran War,
Speaker 1: the son of the Sha who had been oustered. You know,
Speaker 1: the Iran was governed by this guy, the Sha Shaw
Speaker 1: was in charge. He gets thrown out and the Iranians
Speaker 1: replace him with the Islamic Republic and ruled by the Iatolas.
Speaker 1: During the Iraq Iran War, the son of the Shaw
Speaker 1: volunteered to the Islamic Republic to let him come back
Speaker 1: and fly warplanes because he was a pilot, to fly
Speaker 1: warplanes to help the Islamic Republic in their fight against Iraq.
Speaker 1: Because basically, I guess there was sort of this attitude
Speaker 1: of like, Okay, yeah, we disagree about our internal Iranian politics,
Speaker 1: but boy, we don't like these Iraqis, so we're gonna,
Speaker 1: you know, let me come back to I realize you
Speaker 1: oustreed my dad, but let me come back to volunteer
Speaker 1: to fight for you. I mean that's the and he
Speaker 1: brings up that point just to demonstrate the Iranian people
Speaker 1: may not like the Shah. I don't know, maybe they do,
Speaker 1: maybe they are excuse me, the Iranian people may not
Speaker 1: like the existing Islamic Republic of Iran. Maybe they do,
Speaker 1: maybe they don't. But there's no that doesn't necessarily follow
Speaker 1: that they'll be so delighted at Israel and America for
Speaker 1: blowing up all their nuclear sites and decimating Iran's you know,
Speaker 1: capacity militarily as a country, and that they'll be so
Speaker 1: delighted with it that they'll overthrow the Islamic Republic. That
Speaker 1: does not necessarily follow at all. Maybe, if anything, it
Speaker 1: hardens their support for the Islamic Republic. And that's the
Speaker 1: other thing is is this sense that American political sentiment
Speaker 1: can shift very significantly as a result of current events.
Speaker 1: I think popular support for Donald Trump went up after
Speaker 1: the assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania. Stuff happens, and it
Speaker 1: changes Americans' attitudes towards politics. I wouldn't be surprised if
Speaker 1: support for Trump went up a little bit after this
Speaker 1: Iranian strength. So I would say in Iran, probably it's
Speaker 1: the same thing. Do we think that Israel and America
Speaker 1: blowing up a bunch of stuff in Iran. Is that
Speaker 1: going to make the Iranians more inclined towards them and
Speaker 1: less inclined towards their current ruling government. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't necessarily think so. I think, if anything, it's
Speaker 1: going to make them continue to be more angry at Israel.
Speaker 1: It's not like Middle Eastern populations need more of an
Speaker 1: excuse to hate Israel, and they all, you know, they've
Speaker 1: been fairly consistent about not liking the United States. And
Speaker 1: if you hate Israel and you hate the United States
Speaker 1: and they keep attacking you, maybe you retreat to being
Speaker 1: more supportive of the Islamic Republic rather than less now,
Speaker 1: unless the Islamic Republic shows itself to be totally ineffectual.
Speaker 1: And I think that's what we're gonna wait and see. First,
Speaker 1: we heard different stories, reports, indications that the Iranians might
Speaker 1: engage in you know, one of the consistent things that
Speaker 1: happened in Iraq was you would have Iranian backed militias
Speaker 1: operating in Iraq who would fight and kill Americans. And
Speaker 1: that's where Iran had so much blood on its hands.
Speaker 1: It's why President Trump killed their General Solomani back during
Speaker 1: the first Trump administration was because they kept funding these
Speaker 1: different militia groups in Iraq that would attack American soldiers.
Speaker 1: So there was this indication, this thought very shortly around
Speaker 1: the time of the bombing, that Iranians would ramp up
Speaker 1: their attacks on American military personnel currently operating in Iraq
Speaker 1: and in Syria. Maybe that'll happen if they do. What's
Speaker 1: the United States going to do? I mean, sit there
Speaker 1: and take it? Presumably not. And this is where we
Speaker 1: got to see what kind of a involvement, what kind
Speaker 1: of developed involvement takes place after this. That's the rub
Speaker 1: So that's why I'm not at a point of saying, ah,
Speaker 1: yes we did it, we declare victory President Trump perfectly
Speaker 1: thread of the new We're not on the hook for
Speaker 1: regime change. Well, we don't know that. Could these events
Speaker 1: precipitate some kind of toppling of the existing Iranian regime?
Speaker 1: And if it does, what kind of babysitting would whatever
Speaker 1: new thing comes into its place need? And will our
Speaker 1: neocon foreign policy establishment be okay? If say Russia tries
Speaker 1: to come in and nurse whatever new thing comes aboard,
Speaker 1: just as they will not be okay with that. And
Speaker 1: that's the thing with that's the thing I'm so concerned
Speaker 1: about with regime change. I think people are proposing this
Speaker 1: idea that if we do just a couple more air
Speaker 1: strikes we could topple the Iranian regime, that maybe the
Speaker 1: Iranians ready to get rid of the Ayatola, and maybe
Speaker 1: we do a couple more air strikes, maybe we could
Speaker 1: even take Komani out, could take the Ayatola out, and
Speaker 1: then a new regime. And how much better would that
Speaker 1: be if the Islamic Republic was not governing Iran, if
Speaker 1: the Iranians had some other kind of government that was
Speaker 1: going to just not be the world's leading state sponsor
Speaker 1: of terrorism, Well that'd be great. But I think it's
Speaker 1: crazy to think that such a government wouldn't need babysitting
Speaker 1: in the form of American soldiers. Of course it would
Speaker 1: need that. I mean, just think about it. First, If
Speaker 1: they topple the Islamic Republic, it's not like, you know,
Speaker 1: it's not like zero people support the current Islamic Republic.
Speaker 1: Clearly millions and millions and millions and millions of people do.
Speaker 1: Probably a large percentage of the army does of their
Speaker 1: military forces do? And again it is relevant Ted Kruz
Speaker 1: to understand that there are ninety million people in the country,
Speaker 1: twice as many, twice as many people as live in Iraq,
Speaker 1: almost to as many people as live in Afghanistan. So
Speaker 1: if a new good government comes aboard, I find it
Speaker 1: hard to believe that there won't be some level of
Speaker 1: civil war, and then the United States will have to decide, Well,
Speaker 1: it's very much in our national interest not to have
Speaker 1: the Islamic Republic running things, and it's more in our
Speaker 1: interest to have this side win. So what are we
Speaker 1: gonna do? Are we gonna just sit there and let
Speaker 1: a civil war break out? Have these two sides duke
Speaker 1: it out. Russia may very well support one side over another.
Speaker 1: And if the Russians get involved, boy, the pressure will
Speaker 1: be on us to get involved. See this is why
Speaker 1: regime change would have been a terrible idea. I think
Speaker 1: that that there's no way regime change happens quickly. I
Speaker 1: mean I would support regime change too if I knew
Speaker 1: it could be quick, snappy, easy, see you later. Ayatola
Speaker 1: come back in Shaw and the Shaw is greeted with
Speaker 1: garlands of flowers and has one Iranian approval rating. That's
Speaker 1: not gonna happen. It just won't that that that's ridiculous
Speaker 1: to think that that's gonna happen. So now it maybe
Speaker 1: we haven't gotten to that point, And I think that's
Speaker 1: why I've been saying all along. Oddly enough, the one
Speaker 1: person I trust more than anybody in all this is
Speaker 1: Donald Trump. And I feel like this time with Trump,
Speaker 1: rather than last time, he's surrounded by advisors who all
Speaker 1: kind of think simpatico with him. I think Vance very
Speaker 1: much is aligned with Trump. I don't think there's a
Speaker 1: weird thing like there was, you know, under Trump, like
Speaker 1: Mike Pence didn't agree with him about a lot of things.
Speaker 1: I don't think Vance is like that. I think Vance
Speaker 1: is very much believes in Trump on a lot of things.
Speaker 1: Maybe maybe one or two things they might I think
Speaker 1: Vance is probably more socially conservative than Trump. But I
Speaker 1: think Vance is totally on board. I think Rubio is
Speaker 1: totally on board. I think Hegxeth is totally on board.
Speaker 1: If anything, I think Tulci Gabbard as the head of
Speaker 1: the Director of National Intelligence, I mean, she seems to
Speaker 1: be upset and isolated because she didn't even want to
Speaker 1: do this. She didn't even want to do this initial
Speaker 1: military strike. And seems on the outs that way. But
Speaker 1: it doesn't seem like there are too many people that
Speaker 1: It really doesn't seem like there are too many people
Speaker 1: in the administration who are talking about regime change. Everyone
Speaker 1: is afraid of being drawn into a broader conflict and
Speaker 1: doesn't want to do something that would draw into a
Speaker 1: broader conflict. So oddly enough, I feel like I trust
Speaker 1: Trump more than I trust anyone else. But he did
Speaker 1: take this step, and we won't know the ultimate success
Speaker 1: of it. I think you honestly, this is the kind
Speaker 1: of thing. It's like, it's like when a football team,
Speaker 1: you know, has their draft during the NFL Draft and
Speaker 1: they get a slate of players and it's like, Wow,
Speaker 1: what a great draft. It's like, well, you don't know
Speaker 1: if it's a great draft. You've got to wait like
Speaker 1: two or three years. You might have to wait like
Speaker 1: at least a year and maybe two years before you
Speaker 1: can fully assess whether the forty nine ers draft in
Speaker 1: you know, twenty twenty five was particularly good. I mean,
Speaker 1: we got to see how these players develop. I feel
Speaker 1: the same way with this air striking against a ron
Speaker 1: We can't be one hundred percent sure that it was
Speaker 1: successful until we wait a little to assess. All right,
Speaker 1: when we return, We'll have more discussing all of this,
Speaker 1: and I might even dive into the question of the
Speaker 1: constitutionality legality of the president doing this air strike in
Speaker 1: the first place. That's next on the John Girardi Show.
Speaker 1: One thing to note about all this is where do
Speaker 1: the American people stand? And then more specifically, where do
Speaker 1: Trump supporters stand the American people. I feel like this
Speaker 1: is one of the problems about pulling the American people
Speaker 1: about military interventions is do you support a limited intervention
Speaker 1: of just a bombing attack on Iranian nuclear sites? Like,
Speaker 1: if you present the question as, hey, what if the
Speaker 1: ultimate best case scenario happens and we're totally not drawn
Speaker 1: into a larger conflict and it's just a limited, one
Speaker 1: time run and it destroys all of Iran's nuclear capabilities, Yeah,
Speaker 1: overwhelming majority of Americans are like, oh, that's great. Sure. If,
Speaker 1: on the other hand, you pull it as do you
Speaker 1: want the United States involved in another Middle Eastern conflict,
Speaker 1: Everyone's gonna say, well, no, that sounds terrible, and it
Speaker 1: does sound terrible. And that's the problem with how do
Speaker 1: you pull these things to actually gauge American popular sentiment. Now,
Speaker 1: there's one way of pulling. You know. One poll that's
Speaker 1: been brought up is that only thirty one percent of
Speaker 1: Americans actually view Iran as a serious threat. True, but
Speaker 1: it's also the American people don't know much about Iran.
Speaker 1: Our policy makers don't know much about Iran. Ted Cruz
Speaker 1: didn't even know how many people lived in Iran. I
Speaker 1: continue to think, by the way, that that was not
Speaker 1: a gotcha question that Ted Cruz got the idea that
Speaker 1: you're a United States senator, you might be called to
Speaker 1: vote on this. You're on the air saying you want
Speaker 1: regime change, you damn well better understand how difficult that
Speaker 1: would be. And one of the things of understanding out
Speaker 1: difficult that would be is having some sense of how
Speaker 1: big and populous Iran is, which makes the whole regime
Speaker 1: change thing way harder. So this notion that anyway Ted
Speaker 1: Cruz annoys me to no end. I find his shtick
Speaker 1: to be tiresome. He is preachy, preening, self laudatory. I
Speaker 1: can't stand listening to him for more than like five
Speaker 1: minutes anyway, somehow like not that Donald Trump isn't you know,
Speaker 1: it's so weird. I have more like I'm more capable
Speaker 1: of listening to Trump praise himself because I think Trump
Speaker 1: it's part of his it's obviously shtick, like some of it,
Speaker 1: like it's so over the top sometimes about how everything
Speaker 1: he does is the best and greatest that it's like funny.
Speaker 1: But when Cruz does this fun oh oh Shuck's just
Speaker 1: a simple, normal guy who went to Harvard Law School
Speaker 1: and is a very high level lawyer, and it's a
Speaker 1: very incredibly ambitious, high level political operative. But I'm just
Speaker 1: a normal Texan just like you. I just cannot stand
Speaker 1: Ted Cruz anyway. So I'm basically I long and short
Speaker 1: of this is I don't exactly even know where the
Speaker 1: American people are. I think the thing is, in all likelihood,
Speaker 1: the American people will follow success or follow failure. If
Speaker 1: this is all and we destroyed Iran's nuclear program and
Speaker 1: we're not going to really be drawn into any larger
Speaker 1: conflict other than if there's just a few little scraps
Speaker 1: with Iranians trying to attack Americans in one or two
Speaker 1: isolated places and that's it. And long term, we're not
Speaker 1: even thinking about this. Americans will look back on this
Speaker 1: whole episode and think, great, what a success. If, on
Speaker 1: the other hand, we get drawn into a much longer,
Speaker 1: more protracted conflict, Americans are not going to be happy
Speaker 1: about this. And I disagree with some of the sort
Speaker 1: of maga super maga folks who didn't want to get involved,
Speaker 1: who are saying Donald Trump is burning the bridges of
Speaker 1: his magabase. His magabase will be abandoning him for this
Speaker 1: decision to break his promises and get us involved in
Speaker 1: the Middle East. First of all, the only thing, if
Speaker 1: there is one thing that Trump supporters love, it's Trump.
Speaker 1: That's it. They are more inclined to trust him than
Speaker 1: any Trump aligned commentator ever. If you know, they like
Speaker 1: Elon Musk only in so far as he travels with
Speaker 1: Donald Trump. They like Tucker Carlson only in so far
Speaker 1: as he travels with Donald Trump. They like Candess Owns
Speaker 1: only in so far as she travels with Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: They liked Elsea Gabbard only in so far as she
Speaker 1: travels with Donald Trump. If all of those people leave
Speaker 1: and say Trump has abandoned his principles. You know where
Speaker 1: most Trump supporters are still gonna stick with. They're still
Speaker 1: gonna stick with Trump. He's the guy who has their
Speaker 1: loyalty end of the day. That's just the reality of
Speaker 1: how most Trump supporters are gonna go. And again, I
Speaker 1: don't think that most Trump supporters are dogmatic about this.
Speaker 1: I think they broadly don't want protracted, long Middle Eastern
Speaker 1: involvement Middle Eastern wars. But I think everyone on the
Speaker 1: Trump pro Trump side was like, that was awesome when
Speaker 1: Trump took out Sulimani and was worth it and it
Speaker 1: didn't pull us into a much broader conflict and took
Speaker 1: out this guy who was killing a bunch of Americans.
Speaker 1: Good job. I think they're gonna view this if this
Speaker 1: intervention winds up having the limited long term effect that
Speaker 1: the Solamani attack did. I think Trump supporters are not
Speaker 1: gonna give a crap about the fact that, oh, he
Speaker 1: bombed another country. I think think they're gonna be okay
Speaker 1: with it because for one thing, they trust Trump. They
Speaker 1: like Trump, and the thing that they don't it's not
Speaker 1: any intervention in the Middle East that they don't like.
Speaker 1: What they don't like is getting US involved in a
Speaker 1: long protracted nation building project. That's what most of the
Speaker 1: American population doesn't like. So I don't think we're out
Speaker 1: of the woods yet. I think there's still a chance
Speaker 1: of us getting pulled into some broader thing. But I
Speaker 1: certainly don't think Trump supporters are gonna flee now. When
Speaker 1: we return, I want to talk about the legality of
Speaker 1: Trump initiating these strikes. That's next on the John Gerardi Show.
Speaker 1: I want to talk about a point that it's a
Speaker 1: little tired and it's a little hackneyed because it keeps
Speaker 1: happening every time a president decides to initiate a strike.
Speaker 1: The question sort of rises ineffectually from conservatives. Didn't he
Speaker 1: need to, like ask for authorization of military force first?
Speaker 1: Doesn't Congress need to vote on this? And I want
Speaker 1: to think about it, and I want to talk about
Speaker 1: it as far as historical precedents and sort of the
Speaker 1: ideas behind it. Now, the Constitution vests in Congress the
Speaker 1: power to declare war. It is firmly with Congress. Okay,
Speaker 1: Congress declares war now. The president is, however, the commander
Speaker 1: in chief of the military. And it's long been sort
Speaker 1: of established thought that the president does not need to
Speaker 1: wait for Congress in order to engage in defensive activity. Right,
Speaker 1: the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor. The Japanese are attacking Pearl Harbor.
Speaker 1: Soldiers in Hawaii who see the planes coming in and
Speaker 1: dropping bombs. A soldier runs to an anti air gun,
Speaker 1: and the officer says, no, no, no, no, no, you
Speaker 1: can't shoot. Congress hasn't declared war. No. Okay, the Japanese
Speaker 1: drop bombs. The President immediately gets on the horn and says,
Speaker 1: all right, we got to get aircraft carriers over there immediately,
Speaker 1: We got to launch attacks on We know that they're
Speaker 1: Japanese here here. Immediately launch attacks so we can repel
Speaker 1: their advance so that they don't get to the West coast. Okay,
Speaker 1: the President doesn't need to wait for Congress to declare
Speaker 1: war first before he does that for defensive stuff. Everyone
Speaker 1: is pretty much agreed that, yes, if the president is
Speaker 1: repelling an imminent threat, he doesn't need to wait for
Speaker 1: congressional authorization before he acts. However, the decision to declare
Speaker 1: war seems to be a kind of policy decision. If
Speaker 1: it's a decision about declaring war to stop someone who
Speaker 1: is posing an imminent threat that is not yet there.
Speaker 1: Basically the thought is that, well, Congress has to decide it,
Speaker 1: and there are a lot of sort of classical classical history,
Speaker 1: Greek and Roman sort of precedents for that that the
Speaker 1: founding fathers, I think were very deliberately imitating. So in
Speaker 1: the ancient world, in the Mediterranean world of kind of
Speaker 1: Greece and Rome, those cultures, specifically, many of the city states,
Speaker 1: the poll as, the singular polis plural polays, many of
Speaker 1: the individual pollais of the Greek and Roman worlds. So
Speaker 1: you got the Roman Republic over here in Italy, and
Speaker 1: then you had all these individual Greek city states, you know, Corinth, Thebes, Sparta, Athens,
Speaker 1: et cetera. They wound up developing more democratic political systems,
Speaker 1: political systems in which the citizenry, however defined, and the
Speaker 1: citizenry being a citizen was a kivas in the Key
Speaker 1: West in the Roman system, or a polytase in the
Speaker 1: Greek sense. It was a very restricted, small group of people.
Speaker 1: Not everyone was a citizen. It was usually limited to
Speaker 1: adult men, non slaves, and they would extend citizenship only
Speaker 1: very reluctantly. I think in some city states, I think
Speaker 1: it was Athens. You'd only be a citizen if you
Speaker 1: could prove that you had a grandfather who was a
Speaker 1: citizen or something, which is kind of seems how do
Speaker 1: you eventually become a citizen. They were very stingy about
Speaker 1: granting citizenship, and so foreigners living and working in the
Speaker 1: city would be in a different status, and very often
Speaker 1: those people were more concerned with trade. The idea was
Speaker 1: that your citizens, and actually sometimes citizenship was qualified by
Speaker 1: like property qualifications. The people who got to vote. That
Speaker 1: this was the basic rule, with some exceptions, but this
Speaker 1: was the effective thing. The people who got to vote
Speaker 1: were the people who were going to fight. The people
Speaker 1: in the Roman Republic and in the individual Greek city
Speaker 1: states who got to vote were the people who were
Speaker 1: going to fight if it came down to a war.
Speaker 1: So if you were the person, if you were one
Speaker 1: of the people who was going to be fighting, you
Speaker 1: got to be part of whatever sort of deliberative body
Speaker 1: of citizens they had for voting on legislation. And there
Speaker 1: was greater or lesser degrees what the citizen assembly was
Speaker 1: able to vote on. In Greece, the citizen Assembly was
Speaker 1: incredibly powerful and could vote on all kinds of things.
Speaker 1: Greek had a pretty much a pure democracy. Someone would
Speaker 1: propose legislation, it could be debated, and in the broad
Speaker 1: debate of all the citizenry, someone could suggest amendments and
Speaker 1: they could change it. Blah blah blah blah blah. Now
Speaker 1: in the Roman Republican system, their various popular assemblies, they
Speaker 1: could only vote up or down on a piece of
Speaker 1: legislation that had already been debated and proposed, often by
Speaker 1: the Senate. So the Senate got to be the deliberative body.
Speaker 1: They got to decid do we want to do this,
Speaker 1: and they'd fashion some proposal. It would be called the
Speaker 1: sinatus consultum, the proposal of the Senate, and the people
Speaker 1: could only just vote up or down on it. There's
Speaker 1: no no amendments, no free wheeling debate, but the citizenry
Speaker 1: would get to vote on things. And in Rome it
Speaker 1: wasn't one man, one vote. It was basically the weight
Speaker 1: of the vote of someone who had more property was
Speaker 1: greater than the weight of someone who had less property.
Speaker 1: But the idea also seemed very much tied to military service.
Speaker 1: Both in the Greek world and in the Roman Republic.
Speaker 1: The kinds of property qualifications in Rome that you needed
Speaker 1: to have was basically, can you afford your own hop
Speaker 1: light armor? Can you afford your own armor? In Greece,
Speaker 1: it was can you afford your own hop light armor?
Speaker 1: With the hop light armor was the kind of Greek
Speaker 1: armor used in the Greek system that there was a
Speaker 1: certain specific kind of sort of heavily armored infantrymen, and
Speaker 1: the idea was basically, our city state is not going
Speaker 1: to war unless the people say we're going to war.
Speaker 1: We're not going to leave this up to the decision
Speaker 1: of one man, one magistrate. If we're going to war.
Speaker 1: The guys who are going to do the fighting, they're
Speaker 1: the ones who are going to decide. And this may
Speaker 1: have been part of the reason, not just you know,
Speaker 1: the brutalization of human nature that led to slavery or
Speaker 1: the you know, the chauvinism of the ancient world against women.
Speaker 1: The women weren't going to fight, The slaves weren't going
Speaker 1: to fight. The foreign merchants living in the city, they
Speaker 1: weren't going to fight. And the really poor who couldn't
Speaker 1: afford any armor, they weren't gonna fight either. They don't
Speaker 1: even have armor. The people who are gonna fight, they
Speaker 1: were the ones who decided. And this some people think
Speaker 1: this is why Athens actually developed its democracy as a
Speaker 1: more pure democratic form of government. People think Athens was
Speaker 1: able to develop that because, well, the property qualifications for
Speaker 1: fighting as an Athenian were not as great as the
Speaker 1: property qualifications you need to fight as say a Spartan.
Speaker 1: Why because Athens had a navy. Athens chief military might
Speaker 1: was in her navy. You don't need a full set
Speaker 1: of hoplight armor to be in the navy. You just
Speaker 1: got to, you know, pull an oar. But your life
Speaker 1: was on the line just as much as anybody else.
Speaker 1: So that was kind of the classical model. The people
Speaker 1: decide if they're going to vote, and this is part
Speaker 1: This is why for these broad decisional questions of should
Speaker 1: we go to war or shouldn't we not talking about
Speaker 1: an emergency situation of repelling an attack, but something where
Speaker 1: it's a war somewhat of choice. We have received these
Speaker 1: acts of aggression, how are we going to respond? Do
Speaker 1: we resort to diplomacy? Do we resort to this? The
Speaker 1: founding fathers put that decision in the hands of Congress,
Speaker 1: and in two deliberative bodies, one the Senate, the idea
Speaker 1: being the Senate. This was the counsel of wise, experienced elders.
Speaker 1: That's what senate means. It's the gathering of old men,
Speaker 1: the gathering of the elders. Senex is the Latin word
Speaker 1: for an old man. The senatus is the old guys club. Okay,
Speaker 1: it's the old men gathering club. And the Senate in
Speaker 1: Rome was posed of It was usually older men, but
Speaker 1: it was men who had already held some kind of
Speaker 1: public office magistracy within the Roman Republic. And the former
Speaker 1: consuls were, you know, the eldest senator who was a
Speaker 1: former consul was who was called the princept sonatus, the
Speaker 1: head of the Senate, the prince of the Senate, the
Speaker 1: chief of the Senate. He always got to spoke first,
Speaker 1: to speak first. And the idea was, well, why are
Speaker 1: we letting any Joe Schmoe do this. Let's have our
Speaker 1: former generals, former magistrates, officers, Let's let them have a
Speaker 1: first crack at deciding what is whise here. That's our
Speaker 1: Senate in the United States was manifestly patterned off of that. Now,
Speaker 1: the nature of the United States Senate is much different
Speaker 1: from what it was at the founding at the founding,
Speaker 1: senators were picked by the state legislatures. Today they're directly
Speaker 1: voted on by the people of those states. But also
Speaker 1: the decision of whether to go to war was with
Speaker 1: the House. Why is it with the House of Representatives. Well,
Speaker 1: the House repe Andatives the closest thing we've got to
Speaker 1: direct democracy. It isn't purely direct democracy. It's not all
Speaker 1: of the citizens of the United States of America voting
Speaker 1: up or down should we go to war. But the
Speaker 1: House Representatives comes to Washington in a system of proportional representation.
Speaker 1: Every member of the House represents roughly the same number
Speaker 1: of Americans. Members of the House Representatives are up for
Speaker 1: re election every two years. The shifting tides of American
Speaker 1: opinion can be reflected in the House of Representatives and
Speaker 1: its makeup. You could have a huge Republican majority one year.
Speaker 1: Two years from now, it could be completely gone, replaced
Speaker 1: with a huge Democrat majority, or a huge this majority,
Speaker 1: or a huge to that majority. The House is responsive
Speaker 1: to the day to day changing views of the American people,
Speaker 1: and those are the two bodies we put our war
Speaker 1: making decisions on. Now the President will try to argue that, hey,
Speaker 1: I have authorization to do this. In a number of ways,
Speaker 1: the President might try to say, look the two thousand
Speaker 1: and one Authorization for Use of Military Force to Combat Terrorism.
Speaker 1: That justifies my actions. Iran is a constant, continual state
Speaker 1: sponsor of terrorism that they've attacked. They've killed hundreds of
Speaker 1: American servicemen, particularly in Iraq. Their proxies have done all
Speaker 1: kinds of horrible things, including most recently the October seventh attacks.
Speaker 1: More recently than that, the ongoing Houthy attacks that are
Speaker 1: threatening American shipping. Iran continues to be a dangerous, ongoing threat.
Speaker 1: They're developing a nuke, they could be getting close. This
Speaker 1: is a defensive thing. I don't need to wait around
Speaker 1: for Congress. I already have one, a Congressional Act from
Speaker 1: two thousand and one authorizing me to do this, and
Speaker 1: my inherent power to act in a defensive way to
Speaker 1: protect American interest. Okay, I see those arguments. I still
Speaker 1: kind of feel like it would have been better to
Speaker 1: have Congress debate this. I think it was a choice
Speaker 1: whether we went to this war or not, and we
Speaker 1: would have really benefited from Congress debating it. I think,
Speaker 1: so when we return, should we build a new Bulldog Stadium.
Speaker 1: Next on The John Girardi Show, there's a story about
Speaker 1: whether or not if Presno State got a new football stadium,
Speaker 1: and if it was kind of more like the new
Speaker 1: football stadiums that like San Jose State build that Sacramento
Speaker 1: State's about to build, et cetera, if this could be
Speaker 1: a real cash cow for Fresno State. I guess I'm
Speaker 1: just gonna say this, I'd like to see Bulldog Stadium
Speaker 1: more consistently selling out Before I commit to that, I
Speaker 1: feel like too often a lot of folks in Fresno
Speaker 1: just kind of fall away if the team loses two
Speaker 1: or three games, and before I commit more taxpayer dollars
Speaker 1: to that, I'd like to see some pretty committed commitment
Speaker 1: by the city. I don't want it to be another
Speaker 1: Grizzly stadium where they struggle to fill in. That'll do it,
Speaker 1: John Girardi Show. See you next time on Power Talk