Story here.
Good idea? To my way of thinking it falls under the heading of “About effing time!” But can you see any counterarguments?
Will it get through Congress?
Will Bush sign it? Considering that it would mostly likely limit his successor’s freedom of action, not his own?
Our Constitution basically makes getting into a conflict easier than getting out of one.
Some see this as a bug. I see it as a feature. There are a lot of wars we’ve fought in the past that we’d never have won had Congress an opportunity to bug out at the earliest opportunity.
Fighting a war is just about the hardest decision a politician ought to make - and I don’t see that monkeying around with war powers (in ways that don’t look constitutionally valid to me, frankly) should enable anyone to duck out of decisions they’ve made. Congress has existing and clear powers when it comes to war authorization - if they have an issue, they ought to use these.
I’m all for restoring Congress’ constitutional powers regarding going to war. But the devil is in the details, of which the linked article gives almost none*. And considering that most of the folks in the Senate envision themselves making a bid for the Presidency at some point, I don’t see how it’ll get through that body. And I doubt any President would voluntarily give up authority (s)he already has. So Bush would veto it, and his successor probably will, too.
*The few that are there look like big enough loop holes that it would change anything from where we are now.
How not?
To which wars are you referring? I can’t think of a single one that meets that description, not even the Civil War.
Oh, BG, how quickly we forget. Its only been twenty four years since our glorious military adventure in Grenada, how we crushed a crack battallion of Cuban commando bull dozer drivers with nothing more than the most massive military force in human history. When it comes to smashing a flea with a sledge hammer, we have no equal!
And would Congress have approved? I daresay not, they are too wimpy to recognize the dreadful facts: that Grenada was expanding its air fields and runways! A dagger pointed directly at the heart of America! Oh, sure, they claimed it was for tourism, but we know that the such airfields could have accomodated Soviet bombers as refueling stops for a sneak attack! We dared not permit such a threat to exist.
Trouble is, we need the President to have authority to act quickly in certain dire and immediate threats. If, for instance, Roosevelt had known that a Japanese task force was steaming towards Hawaii, he should have acted with whatever force the situation required. (Whether we actually possessed such force in the Pacific is an issue for military historians, its too many for me, I fold.)
But we also need to counterbalance that, lest we are helpless whenever a scoundrel seeks to grasp power under the guise of defense. Or, more likely, we need to elect our Presidents more carefully.
I say lets limit the Presidential war powers considerably. If the President sees a dire threat and acts, and is proven wrong, we can chuck the bugger out. If he sees a dire threat and acts, and is proven right, we can forgive.
Too difficult? Too constraining? Tough noogies, its a tough job, but nobody is drafted for it. You don’t want the tough job, don’t run.
Jones’ website has a summary of the major changes available here (Warning: DOC file)
Last I checked Congress has sole power to declare war, and it also has sole power of the purse. If, with those two things combined, Congress doesn’t believe it can decide when wars are started or ended, then I don’t think any amount of legislation can rectify that situation.
In short, Congress already has the power to prevent our entanglement in long wars. What Congressmen don’t have is a willingness to take responsibility for our involvement in long wars.
Slight hijack: What astounds me about this is that the guy behind it is Walter “Freedom Fries” Jones. Remember him?
I gotta give ol’ “Freedom Fries” Jones props for owning up he was wrong, though:
Back to the subject of the OP: Is Jones’ current bill perhaps designed to lean harder on the Executive Branch in regard to truth-telling? I notice that the OP’s link says:
More presidential reporting = better Congressional information? Or just higher volume of Administration bullshit? (And I mean that for any Administration, not just the current one: there is always a powerful incentive for an Administration to bullshit its motives and urgency if it wants to start a war, for whatever reason.)
I think you’re looking at this from the wrong end. Why should the President be able to commit the military to beginning a war that is not necessitated the the defense against an actual threat or attack on our country?
I can’t believe I actually agree with Martin Hyde, but I do. This war was not caused by the President sending out troops and bombers in the dark of night, and telling us all later, “by the way, we’re at war.” They pounded the drum, and Congress marched in time. They gave their approval (and, we now know, they should have looked a hell of a lot harder at the alleged “evidence”) and now they’re too cowardly to end it. Mike Gravel actually laid out exactly how it should be done:
http://www.gravel2008.us/?q=node/386
The Democrats should bring up a bill to unilaterally end the war every single day. They can beat down the fence-sitting GOPers in time, enough to override the president’s veto. Unfortunately, none of the Democrats care to do anything that risky. They’ve weighed the odds, and decided that, so long as they LOOK like they oppose the war, but do nothing to rock the boat, they’ll get re-elected. And that is unfortunate.
Now, if they want to stop the war outright with legislation they may need a veto-proof majority. But they don’t need that to end the war, they only need what they already have, control of Congress. All they had to do is refuse to sign off on funding for the war and the war would end, they’ve signed off on said funding since taking power. Thus the Dems really can’t argue they’re serious about ending the war, because they had a chance and they could have done it. Only they can approve spending, they approved further spending on the war.
Because it’s sometimes in our interest to be involved in wars which aren’t strictly defensive?
It’s also worth point out that Congress gave a full authorization for military force for the current Iraq War.
Can you be more specific? “In our interest” is a bit nebulous, and could, and has, covered a multitude of sins. So very, very many.
Was it in our interest to enter into WWI, quite possibly the single stupidest war in human history, with the possible exception of the War of Jenkin’s Ear (I swear, I am not making it up!) Clearly, the Spanish American war could be said to be “in our interest”, we profited handsomely. (Twain suggested we should alter the Statue of Liberty, to accomodate the sack of loot and plunder slung over her shoulder…).
You seem to recommend a bleak worldview of realpolitik spiced with just a pinch of cynicism, give it zing. Hoping to have misunderstood, I request clarification.
No, it isn’t worth pointing out, its pretty much hamster abuse. Even were it true.
Who said otherwise? That’s quite a straw man you’re posting there: This bill clearly does not pertain to the authorization for the Iraq war, because it is already authorized.
Why should the President be able to decide which wars we get involved in without the consent of Congress? If there’s a worthy war out there that we might consider joining – like the bombing of Kosovo, perhaps – this legislation simply says that Congress must vote to authorize the war.
In your previous post, you pointed out – or at least implied – that the power to declare war is a check on the executive branch. But how can the congressional power to declare war be a a check on the executive if the executive may dismiss that power at his whim?
Like what? The Iraq War was not in our interest. The Vietnam War was not in our interest. The Spanish-American and Mexican-American wars were in our interest but they were also acts of naked aggression on America’s part and exactly the kind of thing we need to avoid in the future.
Korean War for one, the first Iraq War would be a second example. Unless you’re for some reason morally opposed to and independent South Korea/Kuwait.
The Mexican-American War was one of the most important wars in American history, and I think many Americans fail to appreciate that. It was naked aggression, but it won us so much land that there’s no way a reasonable person could be anything but happy that we started and won that war.
These are the major military ventures we, as a country, have gotten involved in over the past 100 years:
-Current Iraq War
-Current Afghani War
-Persian Gulf War
-Vietnam War
-Korean War
-World War II
-World War I
Can you identify any of those wars in which the President got the country involved without some form of Congressional approval? I already know the answer is “no” since in each and every war Congress signed off on the President’s actions.
Now, if you want to go further back in history to say, the Spanish-American War, well, we had an outright Declaration of War there. The Civil War was likewise a war supported by the Congress (at least the portion of the Congress that hadn’t left the Union.)
Pretty much every major, long term conflict this country has ever been involved in, we’ve had cooperation between the legislative and the executive branch.
Theoretically the President could invade another country without the approval of Congress, but any long term military venture is going to require serious financing. So in short order the President isn’t going to have enough money from his current budget to finance such a war, and then he has to go to Congress to ask for more funding. At this point, all Congress has to do is refuse to grant such financing, and the war ends, period.
Furthermore, if Congress was disinclined to grant such funding I’m quite sure that would be something the President would be made aware of long before he ever started hostilities, and since he knew he wouldn’t be getting funding, he’d have to be insane in order to actually go through with an invasion which he knows he’ll only be able to keep alive for a brief period of time. (Dennis Kucinich aside, I don’t think most people believe Bush is insane–however if he were he could be legitimately removed from office)
So essentially, this bill exists to fix a problem that has never manifested itself in American history. If you can point to a single lengthy war in American history that the President got the United States involved in without any form of Congressional approval, then I’ll be impressed. As it is, there is no such war.
I find it interesting that Congress is willing to play around with legislation like this that will almost certainly not pass (since they would need a 2/3rds majority to override Bush’s veto) but they weren’t willing to deny funding for the current war(s) which only required a majority vote. Bush can’t veto a spending bill because if he did, then there would be no budget allocation and it’d have the same effect as if there was no financing for the war.
Maybe we should rethink this whole debate. To those of you who support this legislation, can you tell me:
I suggest you educate yourself before continuing in this debate. If you don’t think Congress gave Bush full authorization for the use of military force against Iraq then you’ve either been asleep for the past four years or you’re simply lying.
Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq
This is a snippet from the resolution:
Perhaps you can show me the authorization for Korea. Or Kosovo. Or Panama. Or Somalia. Or Lebanon. Or Libya. Or the No-Fly Zones which existed over Iraq for 11 years. Or Grenada. Or Haiti. Or the Boxer Rebellion. Or the multitude of interventions in Central America. I could go on.
But you’re turning the war power on its head. The Constitution and the Framers clearly intended the first check on the war power would be that Congress would be involved at the beginning, at the point of decision of whether military force should be used, except in those circumstances where we need to respond to an immediate threat or attack. Instead of the burden being on a majority of Congress to consent to military action abroad, the burden becomes a supermajority of Congress needed to stop military action abroad. That is a view utterly without support in the Constitution.
Where in the Constitution does it say that Congress shall have the power to declare “lengthy” war? You’ve set up a completely arbitrary hurdle to clear.
Congressional involvement at the outset of Korea, Kosovo, Somalia, and Lebanon could have had significant impact on those policies. I think probably each of those wars/military actions probably would have proceeded, but they would have proceeded in accordance with the Constitutional processes. I doubt Grenada would have happened… Panama, not sure. I don’t believe that we will attack Iran in the next year, but I believe that there is no question that the Constitution would require that the President seek authorization from Congress before an attack on Iran due to its nuclear weapons program.