There are no written limits on Congress’ impeachment power.
Looking thru the WPA umbrella to constrain the President, it’s important to note the WPA purpose is to prevent protracted wars that are difficult to get out of once started (e.g. Vietnam). The power to control the purse strings is an awesome power to control that* - war powers resolution need not apply. The reason Congress enacted the WPA is pretty brilliant - the 1973(?) Congress knew future Congresses cannot act in a crisis (ie, Congress is to ineffectual to actually use their spending power). So the WPA acts for them - it says all future Congresses explicitly do not authorize all future wars, and doing nothing, which Congress excels at, empowers this. Pretty smart, pretty unconstitutional. They have the spending power to check, use it.
The WPA was not meant to stop a President from shooting a cruise missile (act of war). If there’s no constitutional basis for a Presdient to commit an act of war, Congress could threaten to impeach him if he does. And then follow through if he still does it.
*it should at least.
I cringed a little when President Obama said awhile back that WMD use would be a “red line” that would carry consequences, because the Syrian government is just desperate and just evil enough that I thought they’d probably cross that line, sooner or later. Now that they have, Obama has little choice but to punish them militarily, or badly lose credibility in foreign affairs. I expect cruise missile and perhaps warplane attacks on Syrian political and military targets, and perhaps even the establishment of a no-fly zone. The President should fully consult with Congress, consistent with the War Powers Resolution, something he didn’t do with Libya (to my chagrin, and I’m an Obama supporter).
NPR this morning said that British PM David Cameron was hoping for a quick approval of military action by the House of Commons, but too many MPs, many of whom will long remember feeling hurried into war a decade ago in Iraq, still have questions, so a vote has been deferred.
The French have been quite critical of the Assad regime, and might take part too. The more, the merrier; I’d certainly rather this not be seen as an all-U.S.-show.
Russia and China are very unlikely to permit the UN Security Council to approve any military action. Perhaps the General Assembly might do so, but I doubt it.
- Longer this goes on, more likely that it will devolve into a war with Israel.
- Nobody it their right mind wants that.
- There are very few people in the Middle East anywhere near being in their “right mind”.
The situation has bad results, really bad results, and fucking godawful catastrophic results. Step right up, and take your pick.
I guess it’s good then that he doesn’t have that much credibility to lose.
The vote has been held. Cameron lost.
Israel can flatten anyone who goes against it in about 2 days. It’s existence isn’t remotely threatened.
In order for impeachment to be a meaningful deterrent to a belligerent president, there must be the possibility a two-thirds majority in the senate will convict. Since this is extremely unlikely in a two party system, impeachment is an idle threat. Impeachment is very rare to say the least. You are placing the call to go to war with one president and a few dozen senators.
i think “go to war” is a more than a bit of a stretch for what Obama is proposing. I wouldn’t balk at using that phrase for Clinton’s action against Serbia, but here we’re talking a very limited strike for a very specific purpose.
Still, I don’t understand this posturing about going to the UNSC when we know it isn’t going to fly. Just makes us look even more like we don’t give a shit about that institution.
I don’t care much about credibility when it comes to Syrians or people we’re thinking about bombing. I hope Obama ignores what he said about red line: he bluffed and they called him on it. Let the next madman make the mistake of calling America’s bluff, if its in our interest to bomb him to smithereens, then we’ll do it, as Bush showed, whether or not we’re right or an arbitrary line has been crossed.
It is not in our interest to bomb anyone in Syria. Everyone’s bad, though Assad might be worse than the others
So we’ve heard of two constraints on Presidential war power:
- Congress can vote to stop funding hostilities where American soldiers are currently getting killed, or
- It can impeach and convict the President.
I’m not seeing those as reasonable checks. Certainly not like having an enumerated power to declare war before armed forces in a non-emergency situation.
Say Congress must authorize the use of force, what’s the difference? The President can still act. As long as he commands the military, he can use it. If you don’t like the way he does it, impeach, don’t fund, or take it up with the courts. What else is there?
You could say the same thing about the President allowing prayer in school or preventing legal abortion with the army. Unless Congress has 2/3 s of the Senate, WTF are they going to do?
If it was established law by the courts or insisted upon by Congress then this and future presidents would abide by it like they do all other decided constitutional issues.
President says it is constitutional.
Every President in history has believed that everything he has done is constitutional. That isn’t a check and balance. Or did I miss a whoosh?
Supreme Court is the check.
Terror War AUMF sez:
Syria is full of Al Qaeda. Bomb everything and call it a day. Easy peasy.
As I noted earlier there has been no shortage of people proclaiming the War Powers Act unconstitutional.
There has been ample time for either the president (whoever it was at the time) or some members of congress to make a federal case out of this and get the SC to make a ruling.
So far neither side has chosen to test this.
Why, in all this time, hasn’t someone tested it?
As I suggested before it is either because they like the status quo or neither side feels comfortable they would prevail.
Either way seems the SC will not be seeing this case in the near future.
Or they feel SC will refuse to hear it.
Could be, who knows? Ever hear of anybody claiming to be part of Al Queda and being refused a franchise by the Al Queda leadership? About the only people we can be sure are not Al Queda are Hezbollah, who are on Assad’s side because he is Alawite, and that’s Shia, and Al Queda hates Shia. Following the longstanding human tradition of reciprocal affection, the Shia hate them right back.
Two bits says that they are both spreading propaganda saying the other guy is backed by the USA.
So, anyway, almost without doubt some people on the rebel side could easily be slotted into the “connections” to AlQ category. And it would be very hard to find anyone on the Syrian government side who has such ties.
I wonder how that would be interpreted.
Would not really surprise me if the SC decided they want no part of this mess.