- Arizona’s Constitutional War Powers
- Emanuel ignores Constitution re nation’s war decision
- NASA’s new project-the Flight to Islam?
- Organized hooliganism, or a dry run for terror?
- ‘Despicable him’, aka NASA’s fractured fairy tale
- No President “entitled” to appoint any SCOTUS Justice he wishes
- Lindsey Graham’s conscienceless covenant of power
- The right test for fiscal conservatism
- What view suppressed reveals false conservatism?
- Obama faction arrogance no surprise
- Is ‘ruling class’ right for America?
- Was Jesus a leader?
- Planned Parenthood’s moral insanity
July 9, 2010-DAILY BRIEFS#1
[Note: In this new feature of Loyal to Liberty I will post short comments on news events and ideas I encounter in the course of the day]
According to an AP story I found at newsmax.com, Rahm Emanuel has joined the chorus of GOP Chair Michael Steele’s critics re the Afghanistan deployment. He says that “it was ‘horrible’ and ‘wrong’” for Steele “to describe the conflict in Afghanistan as a mistaken war of President Barack Obama’s choosing. Emanuel says all of America ends up at war when a president decides to send troops into combat.”
As usual with the Obama faction, this statement ignores the provisions of the U.S. Constitution. All of America doesn’t end up at war simply because the executive commits American troops to battle. In fact, the U.S. Constitution makes it the exclusive prerogative of Congress to declare war on behalf of the nation. This implies Congressional deliberation and judgment about the executive’s decision to commit troops to combat. As I see it, Rahm Emanuel’s false assertion that an executive branch decision is all that it takes to commit the nation to war is part of an ongoing historic process aimed at eliminating all sense of the fact that a president’s commitment of troops to battle does not Consitutionally put the nation at war unless and until it is formally recognized by the will of the people, in a separate and specific vote by their legislative representatives intended to express their will.
The legislators cannot ascertain the will of their constituents unless those constituents are free to articulate their views. It is therefore not wrong and horrible but proper and necessary for citizens to critique a president’s initial or ongoing deployment of U.S. troops, at least until their representatives have voted to declare war.
But for several decades Congress has abdicated its Constitutional responsibility to declare the people’s recognition that a state of war exists. The commitment of troops to action therefore takes place in the absence of any formal national commitment to war. In the case of Afghanistan this is compounded by the fact that the man who presently claims to wield the U.S. government’s executive power entered Office saying that there was no war on terrorism to speak of.
So when Emanuel says America is at war, what war is he talking about? Since Congress never declared war, as the Constitution requires, how does what’s happening in Afghanistan put the nation at war? The fact that Congress funds forces in combat may connote nothing more than the nation’s refusal to abandon the lives of our troops. Unless we are willing de facto to allow presidents to use those live to blackmail the nation into war by executive diktat, this care for our troops is in no way a substitute for the declaration of war the Constitution entrusts, as a separate matter, to the legislative branch. Nor is specific approval of an executive decision to deploy troops tantamount to recognition that the nation as a whole is involved in a state of war.
It has been a grave mistake to allow the practice of declaring war to fall into desuetude. The formal declaration of war is more than a legalistic artifact of international law and practice. Among other things, it signifies that the people recognize and accept the conditional impairment of liberties war necessarily entails. It also assures that the consent of the people will be sought when government plans the sustained exercise of one of its gravest and potentially most destructive powers. It is therefore a barrier against the arbitrary and incessant institution of perpetual war that is one of the standard means of imposing tyranny.
So is the right to criticize the executive’s deployment of forces when no war has been Constitutionally declared. Michael Steele may or may not be wrong in what he says about Obama’s Afghan deployment of U.S. forces. I think he was trying to say something that makes sense. Unfortunately, he doesn’t really understand it well enough to help others make sense of it. However, it is neither wrong nor horrible for him freely to speak his mind. This is still a free country, isn’t it? It would be irony indeed if the pretense of bringing freedom to Afghans means that we no longer enjoy it in these United States.
More From Alan Keyes is Loyal to Liberty
- Arizona’s Constitutional War Powers
- Obama's on the verge of outright dictatorship
- NASA’s new project-the Flight to Islam?
Related posts:
![Recommend [loyaltoliberty]](http://s3.amazonaws.com/arkayne-media/img/badge/logo-recommend-badge-medium.png){kind=icon}
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Declare war? We don’t need no stinking declaration! This is the way its been since the Korean war, excuse me, the Korean police action. The real reason there is no declaration is the congress doesn’t want to give the powers in the war powers act. The democrats would never give GW those powers and NO ONE would give that power to obuma! Quite frankly I would challenge you to make a list of constitutional bills passed by congress over the last ten years. It will be a short list to be sure.
Ken
Are we at war or not? If congress never declared war why are we there? How can a president send troops without congess?
As Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Armed Forces the Constitution gives the President exclusive command over the military. He orders them into combat, and he does not need prior Congressional approval to do so. This makes sense for two reasons: 1) In response to emergencies (surprise attack, etc.) the President must be able to do what’s necessary for the nation’s security. The delay inevitably involved in any legislative deliberation would be unacceptably risky. 2) War demands a unity of vision and purpose ill served by a plural executive (i.e., the committee structure associated with the legislative process.)
With characteristic realism, the Framers therefore left the initiative in matters of national security to the executive, but placed a formal check in the hands of the legislature to make sure there would be a formal opportunity to challenge any abuse of that initiative. They also felt that the power of the purse would enable the legislature to construct procedural safeguards against abuse.
Obviously, when dealing with a system that relies on checks and balances, it’s a bad idea to let one of its vital components (like the legislative Declaration of War) fall away. Both liberty and security are likely to suffer.
In answer to your first question, our forces are in combat but it’s not clear we are at war. That can sometimes be unavoidable, and it isn’t always bad (not every use of force should lead to or involve war.) I believe however that after 9-11 war should have been formally declared, holding then existing Afghan government responsible for the fatal threat to the U.S. it had allowed to fester on Afghan soil.