“My position is that the United States should not have gone into Libya because again the last chapter isn’t written. This is a snapshot in time,” Bachmann told Christiane Amanpour of ABC’s ‘This Week.’ “Clearly this was about regime change. That is the precursor for the United States’ involvement in another nation’s affairs.”

Bachmann said the result of Gaddafi’s overthrow was a “mess.”

“We don’t know who the next leader will be,” she said, “It could be a radical element. We knew who the devil was that was running. We don’t know that next one.”

She said Libya’s oil revenues could finance a “global caliphate and extremist elements.”

On Iran, Amanpour pressed Bachmann. She had earlier called the plot to assassinate the United States’ ambassador to Saudi Arabia an “act of war.” Iran has denied any involvement in the foiled plot.

Amanpour asked how she would retaliate against Iran if she were elected president.

“I think the one thing that I would do that is very different than President Obama is I wouldn’t take my eye off the fundamental problem in the Middle East and that is an Iran that is seeking to gain a nuclear weapon,” said Bachmann.

Amanpour pressed Bachmann again about what types of force she would use considering Bachmann had already declared the plot an act of war, but Bachmann dodged.

“I would consider the use of everything we need to do,” she said.

Here’s a full clip of Bachmann’s interview:

A stage was set up at the D.C. park with a large-scaled reprint of “We The People” — the first words of the U.S. Constitution — hanging in the background. If that appears vague, the entertainment did little to showcase a cohesive narrative.

David Rovics, a progressive folk musician popular on the protest circuit performed, singing a song that included the lyrics, “This world was made for all us and we’re gonna change the scene.”

Slam poets and hip-hop acts inveighed against police brutality and corporate greed, with one shouting on stage, “America loves to kill…[you] cannot get away from the kill in America.” A chorus of older women calling themselves the Raging Grannies were also on hand.

In the audience, however, were hundreds of protestors with specific bones to pick, and their animus was aimed at institutions beyond Wall Street.

Sheri Morgan, a nurse from Greencastle, P.A., held up a sign calling for higher taxes on the wealthy. She said she came to demand a single-payer healthcare system and more progressive taxation. “Small and large corporations need to pay their fair share,” Morgan said. “Tax attorneys are working hard to keep these people from paying the taxes they owe.”

Labor groups the Communications Workers of America and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters joined the rally. Leslie Miller, a communications coordinator for the Teamsters, said the need for change is simple math and that corporations are not paying their fair share. “Social programs get cut because tax revenues dip, and then workers lose their jobs,” she said.

“Corporations are not creating jobs. They’re sitting on profits,” Miller added. She listed a slew of grievances, from the median wage in 2009 to firms forcing workers to forfeit collective bargaining right and pensions. “This is sadly becoming more and more typical,” Miller said.

Patrick McGann, a member of the Selected Marine Corps Reserve who was activated in Afghanistan in 2009-10, came out because he objects to the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan and Iraq. “We don’t need to spend trillions of dollars on foreign wars,” he said. “Past empires fell because they expanded too far and failed to address their domestic problems.”

McGann added his unhappiness with the amount of time that passed before the repeal of “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.” “Someone’s gay? I don’t care,” he said. “They bleed the same color I do, and I’m in the infantry.”

Critics of the event were also present. At a nearby Starbucks, a Republican lobbyist said: “I don’t even know what they’re protesting over there. Government regulation just encourages corporations to pass the extra costs onto the consumer. I’m not going to pay $10 for tube socks to protest how WalMart does its business.”

Protesters’ criticism of the tax system channels previous exposés on what they call ‘corporate welfare.’ The Nation reported in March that two-thirds of U.S. corporations do not pay federal taxes, which excludes payroll, state, and other levies. In August, The Institute for Policy Studies released a report titled, “The Massive CEO Rewards for Tax Dodging.” While the New York Times ran with the report, Felix Salmon of Reuters took issue with the study’s research methodology.

Correction: This article previously stated Patrick McGann was an active duty Marine. Rather, McGann is a member of the Selected Marine Corps Reserve, not active duty. We regret the error.

“We have to ensure that Iraq and Afghanistan remain anomalies in American history,” Franken said on the Senate floor Wednesday. “And that’s what my resolution seeks to do. It will ensure that future wars don’t make our deficit and debt problem worse. It will ensure that Congress and American citizens must face the financial sacrifice of going to war. And it will force us to decide whether a war is worth that sacrifice.”

“In the last ten years our wars have been paid for by borrowing,” Franken said. “The Iraq War was accompanied by a massive tax cut. That failed fiscal experiment created the impression that war requires no financial sacrifice. We know that is just not true. The question is who will bear the financial sacrifice, the generation that has decided to go to war or its children and grandchildren?”

He said the bill was started months ago, before the U.S. action in Libya. “This did not start with Libya although Libya gives it a sense of urgency,” he said.

In a press release from Franken’s office, he notes that think tanks across the political spectrum, from the Cato Institute to the Center for American Progress support his war budgeting plan.

Watch it:

Responding to the ACLU’s Freedom of Information Act request of “records relating to the use of unmanned aerial vehicles – commonly known as ‘drones’ – for the purpose of targeting and killing individuals since September 11, 2001,” which was submitted July 2010, the Department of Defense told Jonathan Manes of the ACLU’s National Security Project that while this department does possess documents estimating the number of civilian casualties that result from operations involving military aircraft, it does not distinguish between weapons platforms.

“The only documents that address estimates of civilian casualties related to drone strikes are individual battle damage assessments evaluating each military aircraft mission, which the ACLU and DoD have agreed are outside the scope of documents to be processed in this litigation,” writes Mark H. Herrington, the DoD’s associate deputy general counsel.

The letter is dated Dec. 30, 2010, but ACLU spokesperson Molly Kaplan said the department held on to the letter for months, “apparently by mistake,” and it did not make it to the ACLU’s desk until last Friday.

Herrington further writes:

“In July 2010, the Department of Defense (DoD) informed the ACLU that all records related to this section of the request are classified and not maintained in a format that allows searching without significant cost. However, in light of ACLU’s insistence that civilian casualty information was of particular interest, DoD agreed to conduct 40 hours of searching for estimates of civilian casualties caused by such strikes, after which the parties would discuss whether additional searches would be undertaken.

DoD’s search confirmed that DoD does not create or maintain documents to compile estimates of civilian casualties related to drone strikes separately from estimates related to other weapons systems.”

Last year the civil liberties organization sued DoD after it would not fill its FOIA request on unmanned drones used to target killings overseas. The ACLU wanted to know when, where and against whom drone strikes can be authorized, as well as the number and rate of civilian casualties. Generally, the ACLU wanted the government to clarify the legal basis for using unmanned drones.

“It is remarkable that the Defense Department does not compile data about the total number of civilian casualties inflicted by unmanned drones – a new and controversial technology,” said Manes in a press statement. “The public must have accurate information about civilian casualties in drone strikes in order to assess the ethical, legal and strategic concerns that these weapons raise.”

According to the ACLU, the CIA, for its part, has entirely refused to respond to a request for information about the drone strikes in Pakistan.

Because the government has not been much help coming forward with this information, independent organizations and other media have attempted to pick up the slack. Last October, the Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict (CIVIC) released a report that concluded that innocent civilians in northwest Pakistan were being killed by both U.S. drone strikes and the ground and aerial attacks from the Pakistani military, as well as local militants.

The report found that in 2009, an estimated 2,300 civilians were killed in terror attacks alone and noted that “there is no governmental or military mechanism that systematically and publicly investigates or collects data on civilian casualties.” The group also discovered that the Pakistani government runs several compensation programs and suggested that drone victims be included in one of these programs.

On Thursday, CIVIC released a statement calling on the DoD and the CIA to “count and compensate civilians harmed by U.S. drones,” in light of the ACLU’s reveal.

“The US has a duty to know where it has caused civilian harm, including whether it was caused by close air support or unmanned aerial vehicles,” said Sarah Holewinski, CIVIC’s executive director, in the statement. “Let’s say civilian casualties skyrocket. Why the spike? How can the problem be fixed? Without good data, the US is operating with blinders on. After ten years at war, the US should know better.”

The New America Foundation is another organization that has attempted to quantify the civilian casualties of U.S. drone attacks in Pakistan, compiling data and information since 2004 from sources such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, the Associated Press and the BBC and English-language newspapers and media in Pakistan, such as The Daily Times, Dawn, The Express Tribune and Geo TV.

Thus far, NAF has found that the 233 reported drone strikes in northwest Pakistan — including 20 in 2011 – have killed between 1,411 and 2,247 people, of whom about 1,134 to 1,810 have been described as militants. According to the organization: “The true non-militant fatality rate since 2004 according to our analysis is approximately 21 percent. In 2010, it was more like six percent.”

NAF has also created a map with estimated locations of each drone strike.

“The brave men and women of America’s armed forces are fulfilling critical missions around the world. Now, they are participating in a broad international coalition to protect the Libyan people from a murderous tyrant,” McCollum said in a statement on Tuesday. “While I support the current, limited U.S. mission in Libya, I have serious concerns about deepening U.S. military involvement. President Obama must consult with Congress before further expanding America’s commitment in Libya.”

Franken said that the Muammar Qaddafi’s actions against his own people warranted action. “The Libyan government’s violence against its own people is completely unacceptable,” Franken said in a statement on Tuesday. “Innocent civilians in Libya must be protected from massacre by Qaddafi and that is why I support the action the president has taken so far.”

But he added, “While I personally believe that Qaddafi should go, people need to understand that the purpose of the force we’re using is specifically to protect civilians, not to coerce a regime change. The president also needs to clarify how much this operation is going to cost American taxpayers, and how it’s going to be paid for.”

Rep. Michele Bachmann, who has been critical of President Obama prior to the start of military operations in Libya, hasn’t said much since.

“There’s no question that [Qaddafi] is not a great guy, that the people of Libya would be better off without him,” she told Fox Business Network last Thursday.

“However, on that score I’m reluctant to go in, and I’ll tell you why: We don’t know who the opposition is. We have no idea, and no intelligence community will tell you that we know who the opposition is,” she said. “For us to go in with American soldiers on the ground, right now, would be a mistake. We should not go that route. The same with arming — I think that would be a mistake right now.”

Rep. Keith Ellison has been urging aid for protesters in Libya for weeks on his Twitter feed. Three days before operations began in Libya, he tweeted, “Time to act is now! Libyans dying, being killed, Qadaffi is consolidating & moving forward. World can’t allow another Rwanda, Srebrenica”

Sen. Amy Klobuchar told WCCO on Sunday that she supports military action in Libya.

“Well, you have here a madman who’s basically been starving his country and bombing his own people,” she said. “And so that is why we stood with the rest of the world,” she said stressing the need for an international coalition. “This time we just simply, one, can’t afford it; two, need to work with the rest of the world so that they are participating,”

President Barack Obama does not plan to accept any of the Afghanistan war options presented by his national security team, pushing instead for revisions to clarify how and when U.S. troops would turn over responsibility to the Afghan government, a senior administration official said Wednesday.

Obama still is close to announcing his revamped war strategy, most likely shortly after he returns from a trip to Asia that ends on Nov. 19.

The president raised questions at a war council meeting on Wednesday, however, that could alter the dynamic of both how many additional troops are sent to Afghanistan and what the timeline would be for their presence in the war zone, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss Obama’s thinking.

The resolution — drafted by Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), Dan Burton (R-Ind.), Gary Ackerman (D-N.Y.) and Howard Berman (D-Calif.)  — which condemns Goldstone’s work in very harsh terms, is sure to generate controversy in Congress, within the Obama administration and among peace watchers.

Full text of the resolution after the jump.

111th CONGRESS

1st Session

H. RES. 867

Calling on the President and the Secretary of State to oppose
unequivocally any endorsement or further consideration of the `Report
of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict’ in
multilateral fora.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

October 23, 2009

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN (for herself, Mr. BERMAN, Mr. BURTON of Indiana, and
Mr. ACKERMAN) submitted the following resolution; which was referred
to the Committee on Foreign Affairs

________________________________

RESOLUTION

Calling on the President and the Secretary of State to oppose
unequivocally any endorsement or further consideration of the `Report
of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict’ in
multilateral fora.

Whereas, on January 12, 2009, the United Nations Human Rights Council
passed Resolution A/HRC/S-9/L.1, which authorized a `fact-finding
mission’ regarding Israel’s conduct of Operation Cast Lead against
violent militants in the Gaza Strip between December 27, 2008, and
January 18, 2009;

Whereas the resolution pre-judged the outcome of its investigation, by
one-sidedly mandating the `fact-finding mission’ to `investigate all
violations of international human rights law and International
Humanitarian Law by . . . Israel, against the Palestinian people . . .
particularly in the occupied Gaza Strip, due to the current
aggression’;

Whereas the mandate of the `fact-finding mission’ makes no mention of
the relentless rocket and mortar attacks, which numbered in the
thousands and spanned a period of eight years, by Hamas and other
violent militant groups in Gaza against civilian targets in Israel,
that necessitated Israel’s defensive measures;

Whereas the `fact-finding mission’ included a member who, before
joining the mission, had already declared Israel guilty of committing
atrocities in Operation Cast Lead by signing a public letter on
January 11, 2009, published in the Sunday Times, that called Israel’s
actions `war crimes’;

Whereas the mission’s flawed and biased mandate gave serious concern
to many United Nations Human Rights Council Member States which
refused to support it, including Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cameroon,
Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, the Republic
of Korea, Slovakia, Slovenia, Switzerland, Ukraine, and the United
Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland;

Whereas the mission’s flawed and biased mandate troubled many
distinguished individuals who refused invitations to head the mission;

Whereas, on September 15, 2009, the `United Nations Fact Finding
Mission on the Gaza Conflict’ released its report;

Whereas the report repeatedly made sweeping and unsubstantiated
determinations that the Israeli military had deliberately attacked
civilians during Operation Cast Lead;

Whereas the authors of the report, in the body of the report itself,
admit that `we did not deal with the issues . . . regarding the
problems of conducting military operations in civilian areas and
second-guessing decisions made by soldiers and their commanding
officers `in the fog of war.’;

Whereas in the October 16th edition of the Jewish Daily Forward,
Richard Goldstone, the head of the `United Nations Fact Finding
Mission on the Gaza Conflict’, is quoted as saying, with respect to
the mission’s evidence-collection methods, `If this was a court of
law, there would have been nothing proven.’;

Whereas the report, in effect, denied the State of Israel the right to
self-defense, and never noted the fact that Israel had the right to
defend its citizens from the repeated violent attacks committed
against civilian targets in southern Israel by Hamas and other Foreign
Terrorist Organizations operating from Gaza;

Whereas the report largely ignored the culpability of the Government
of Iran and the Government of Syria, both of whom sponsor Hamas and
other Foreign Terrorist Organizations;

Whereas the report usually considered public statements made by
Israeli officials not to be credible, while frequently giving
uncritical credence to statements taken from what it called the `Gaza
authorities’, i.e. the Gaza leadership of Hamas;

Whereas, notwithstanding a great body of evidence that Hamas and other
violent Islamist groups committed war crimes by using civilians and
civilian institutions, such as mosques, schools, and hospitals, as
shields, the report repeatedly downplayed or cast doubt upon that
claim;

Whereas in one notable instance, the report stated that it did not
consider the admission of a Hamas official that Hamas often `created a
human shield of women, children, the elderly and the mujahideen,
against [the Israeli military]‘ specifically to `constitute evidence
that Hamas forced Palestinian civilians to shield military objectives
against attack.’;

Whereas Hamas was able to significantly shape the findings of the
investigation mission’s report by selecting and prescreening some of
the witnesses and intimidating others, as the report acknowledges when
it notes that `those interviewed in Gaza appeared reluctant to speak
about the presence of or conduct of hostilities by the Palestinian
armed groups . . . from a fear of reprisals’;

Whereas even though Israel is a vibrant democracy with a vigorous and
free press, the report of the `fact-finding mission’ erroneously
asserts that `actions of the Israeli government . . . have contributed
significantly to a political climate in which dissent with the
government and its actions . . . is not tolerated’;

Whereas the report recommended that the United Nations Human Rights
Council endorse its recommendations, implement them, review their
implementation, and refer the report to the United Nations Security
Council, the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, and the
United Nations General Assembly for further action;

Whereas the report recommended that the United Nations Security Council–

(1) require the Government of Israel to launch further investigations
of its conduct during Operation Cast Lead and report back to the
Security Council within six months;

(2) simultaneously appoint an `independent committee of experts’ to
monitor and report on any domestic legal or other proceedings
undertaken by the Government of Israel within that six-month period;
and

(3) refer the case to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal
Court after that six-month period;

Whereas the report recommended that the United Nations General
Assembly consider further action on the report and establish an escrow
fund, to be funded entirely by the State of Israel, to `pay adequate
compensation to Palestinians who have suffered loss and damage’ during
Operation Cast Lead;

Whereas the report ignored the issue of compensation to Israelis who
have been killed or wounded, or suffered other loss and damage, as a
result of years of past and continuing rocket and mortar attacks by
Hamas and other violent militant groups in Gaza against civilian
targets in southern Israel;

Whereas the report recommended `that States Parties to the Geneva
Conventions of 1949 start criminal investigations [of Operation Cast
Lead] in national courts, using universal jurisdiction’ and that
`following investigation, alleged perpetrators should be arrested and
prosecuted’;

Whereas the concept of `universal jurisdiction’ has frequently been
used in attempts to detain, charge, and prosecute Israeli and United
States officials and former officials in connection with unfounded
allegations of war crimes and has often unfairly impeded the travel of
those individuals;

Whereas the State of Israel, like many other free democracies, has an
independent judicial system with a robust investigatory capacity and
has already launched numerous investigations, many of which remain
ongoing, of Operation Cast Lead and individual incidents therein;

Whereas Libya and others have indicated that they intend to further
pursue consideration of the report and implementation of its
recommendations by the United Nations Security Council, the United
Nations General Assembly, the United Nations Human Rights Council, and
other multilateral fora;

Whereas the President instructed the United States Mission to the
United Nations and other international organizations in Geneva to vote
against resolution A-HRC-S-12-1, which endorsed the report and
condemned Israel, at the special session of the Human Rights Council
held on October 15-16, 2009;

Whereas, on September 30, 2009, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
described the mandate for the report as `one-sided’;

Whereas, on September 17, 2009, Ambassador Susan Rice, United States
Permanent Representative to the United Nations, expressed the United
States’ `very serious concern with the mandate’ and noted that the
United States views the mandate `as unbalanced, one-sided and
basically unacceptable’;

Whereas the `Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the
Gaza Conflict’ reflects the longstanding, historic bias at the United
Nations against the democratic, Jewish State of Israel;

Whereas the `Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the
Gaza Conflict’ is being exploited by Israel’s enemies to excuse the
actions of violent militant groups and their state sponsors, and to
justify isolation of and punitive measures against the democratic,
Jewish State of Israel;

Whereas, on October 16, 2009, the United Nations Human Rights Council
voted 25-6 (with 11 states abstaining and 5 not voting) to adopt
resolution A-HRC-S-12-1, which endorsed the `Report of the United
Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict’ and condemned
Israel, without mentioning Hamas, other such violent militant groups,
or their state sponsors; and

Whereas efforts to delegitimize the democratic State of Israel and
deny it the right to defend its citizens and its existence can be used
to delegitimize other democracies and deny them the same right: Now,
therefore, be it

Resolved, That the House of Representatives–

(1) considers the `Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission
on the Gaza Conflict’ to be irredeemably biased and unworthy of
further consideration or legitimacy;

(2) supports the Administration’s efforts to combat anti-Israel bias
at the United Nations, its characterization of the `Report of the
United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict’ as
`unbalanced, one-sided and basically unacceptable’, and its opposition
to the resolution on the report;

(3) calls on the President and the Secretary of State to continue to
strongly and unequivocally oppose any endorsement of the `Report of
the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict’ in
multilateral fora;

(4) calls on the President and the Secretary of State to strongly and
unequivocally oppose any further consideration of the `Report of the
United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict’ and any
other measures stemming from this report in multilateral fora; and

(5) reaffirms its support for the democratic, Jewish State of Israel,
for Israel’s security and right to self-defense, and, specifically,
for Israel’s right to defend its citizens from violent militant groups
and their state sponsors.

Update, 7:52 a.m., Friday, Oct. 30: I should have seen that Michael Goldfarb at the Weekly Standard posted link to the resolution last week, so apologies to him. Also, I’ve changed the headline to reflect that Goldstone also criticized Hamas.

I don’t think there’s any question that we are at war, and I think, to be honest, I think our nation didn’t realize that we were at war when in fact we were.  When I look back at the 90s and Tanzania embassy bombings, the bombing of the Cole, I think we as a nation should have realized that at that point we were at war. We should not have waited until September 11th, 2001 to make that determination.

The implications of this statement seem ambiguous.

If Holder means that we’ve always been at war and therefore the current war shouldn’t factor in to how we interpret the Constitution, that’s one thing. But if he’s saying that the idea that we’ve been at war for so long justifies the extremes that have been employed by the Bush administration, that’s another. It wasn’t exactly clear by the way he answered.

I welcome comments on this interpretation, or what readers think Holder meant.

From The Washington Post:

A top Hamas leader was killed Thursday in an Israeli air strike in the Gaza Strip, as violence entered its sixth day and a Hamas rocket destroyed part of an apartment building in the Israeli port city of Ashdod.

Nizar Rayyan, a cleric who was one of Hamas’s most hardline political leaders, had called for renewed suicide bombings inside Israel and refused to go into hiding, as other Hamas leaders had done. His death, confirmed in a statement issued by Hamas on Thursday, marked the first known fatality of a senior leader of the militant group since Israel began air strikes on Saturday. [...]

Israeli aircraft and naval forces attacked about 20 Hamas targets in Gaza Thursday, including a government complex, the Israeli military said. The death toll in Gaza rose to at least 410, including dozens of civilians. More than 1,600 people in Gaza have been wounded.

According to The Post, Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev said a ground assault remains “an option.” The New York Times quotes an unnamed Israeli military official saying that a “limited ground operation aimed at destroying remaining sites was likely once the wet weather cleared.”

When the clock struck midnight on Wednesday, the U.S. returned the palace to the Iraqi government and relinquished formal control over the Green Zone, a heavily fortified six-square-mile enclave on the Tigris River where key U.S. and Iraqi bureaucracies are situated.

The handover is a sign of the shrinking footprint and influence of the United States in a country where it has lost thousands of lives and spent billions of dollars. For many Iraqis, the handover represents a significant step forward in their gradual reassertion of dominion over their own affairs.

What a great way to start the new year.