Got it. Just something I’ve been curious about and decided to impute it all in your post.
Well, he doesn’t literally get a blank check, but it’s pretty clear that Congress takes a very broad view of the WPR authorizes. You’d think that the US would have to be under the threat of attack for the president to use force w/o authorization from Congress. Carter was, I think, pretty clean, but the rest never seemed to feel much restraint. Clinton bombed the shit out of Serbia, and they were absolutely no threat to us. There was some noise made in Congress, but it was Monica that got the impeachment effort going.
The War Powers Act is far too broad in initiating and responding to violence. Congress has acted unconstitutionally in my opinion and abrogated its duty.
Just to throw a monkey-wrench into the debate, the authors of this article point out that Congress has already approved the use of force within Syria by authorizing the arming and training of rebel groups. Similarly, they point out France has openly admitted to arming rebels in Syria, but has hypocritically questioned the legality of airstrikes there.
Actually, if Congress held the president to the actual wording of the WPR, it wouldn’t be broad at all. See my quote above. But Congress has never moved to impeach a president for acting as if the wording were overly broad, and so that I guess that makes it de facto overly broad.
What wording were you thinking of that is too broad?
Fair question:
The President cannot commit armed forces to military action without approval from Congress in advance in my reading of the constitution. In my view, the Congressional veto is unconstitutional.
In my view, all pre-planned use of military force must be authorized by Congress and Congress alone. Like Roosevelt did after Pearl Harbor.
You’re not the only one who thinks the WPR is unconstitutional. But I don’t know how one would challenge it in court. We will probably never know what the 3rd branch of out government thinks. However, I do think if it were put a vote, an amendment much like the WPR would pass.
Also, keep in mind that the WPR was meant to limit presidential adventurism from what had become SOP after WWII.
The authors of that article obviously haven’t read the law they are commenting on, because the law specifically states that the authorization to train and equip the Syria opposition cannot be construed to constitute an AUMF with respect to the War Powers Resolution. It’s pretty disappointing to see two intelligent and respected authors not even do the bare minimum of research on the law they are commenting on.
All congressional veto laws are unconstitutional. But there needs to be standing in order to bring a case, and a political question is also the courts are allowed to refuse to hear. I don’t think that the founders anticipated that the USA would be the leading power in the world and that puts us in the quandary of acting right away, asking Congress for permission all the time, or letting there be a huge vacuum of power in the world. It would be wonderful to have a loving God go out and kick ass to keep nuts in line, but she doesn’t do that. And since Reagan closed down the California State insane asylums when he was governor, we have had to warehouse all the worst cases in Sacramento and D.C.
What is a “congressional veto law”?
Of course. That’s why I said I don’t know how this would be brought before the court.
*No comprendo las palabras en ingles.
*
True. The Founders didn’t even envision the US having a standing army. But a “power vacuum” isn’t necessarily a bad thing, relative to the alternative.
Yeah. What if God was one of us?
Well, to be fair, they’re focusing on international law, not U.S. law. And my brief summary didn’t exactly make that clear.
I think the article is worth reading and brings up some very good points - such as how arming Syrian rebels is *much *less consistent with the justification of defending Iraq (and goes more toward regime change in Syria) as opposed to the airstrikes which are exclusively aimed at ISIL and other non-regime targets.
Ah - on second reading that is clearer. On my first read, I got diverted when they referencied (in passing) the domestic implications of a use of force resolution, so I assumed they were continuing that point.
A Congressional veto is like the the War Powers Act when the Congress says in a law that the President can exercise a power until Congress objects in some manner. Like the War Powers Act or the short lived line item veto from the Clinton era. It is essentially Congress abandoning its perogative. Sometimes called a legislative veto. It is my opinion that federally, it is always unconstitutional. As a disclaimer, I have never served on the USSC and my opinion doesn’t count. Legislative veto in the United States - Wikipedia
The political question doctrine: Political question - Wikipedia
An international power vacuum is always a bad thing unless you are a warlord of some type. Think of New York crime and the Five Families and imagine one or more of the families suddenly losing leadership due to assassination or prosecution. Imagine the blood bath that would take place on the streets as they jockeyed for position. Without any police to keep civilians safe. It would be like Somalia. Which is really a better example. A hegemon like the United States tends to maintain the status quo and opportunist criminal organizations/states have less opportunity like ISIS or, again, Somalia. It is a huge burden on the hegemon, and the rest of the community eventually resents the hegemon, but it is some kind of order. See Hobbes, Leviathan. The idea of the League of Nations and the UN was to replace the chaos of balance of power, or hegemon, with the international community in a weak world coalition. The UN is certainly better than the balance of power disaster that led to WWI and governed all history prior to WWI.
Sure it does. ISIS killed an American citizen by decapitation as part of a video reminding the world they were at war with the US and everyone who stood in their way.
Whether the Gulf of Tonkin incident actually happened or whether it was made up entirely is still the topic of debate today, and was presented at the time as self-defense of the right of the US to have warships in international waters which happened to be provocatively close to North Vietnam. Whenever Reagan wanted to bomb Libya, he would order the fleet to cross into the Gulf of Sidra, which the Libyans claimed as Libyan waters, and Kadaffi (duck) would predictably send out some Libyan fighter pilots to die, they would be shot down and then the US would bomb some more. The US Department of Defense used to accurately be called the Department of War.