“Congress shall have the Power …. To declare War”
US Constitution (Article I, Section 8 Clause 11)
If any nation lobbed missiles at US targets or interdicted the movement of US military men and materials the defacto conclusion would be the attacker had declared war on America!
By such a rational standard, President Obama’s use of US military power to attack Libya can only be interpreted as a declaration of war. However, Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution states; “The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States.” There is no actual or implied authority to take the country into an undeclared war; although it is generally accepted the President does have the power to repel an invasion and protect US military forces without prior Congressional approval.
Only the Congress has “the power … to declare war”; which it last die on June 5, 1942.
Since then, Presidents have sent US military forces in harm’s way in China (1945), Berlin (1948), Korea (1950), Vietnam (1955), Lebanon (1958), Cuba (1961), Dominican Republic (1965), Iran (1980), El Salvador (1980), Beirut (1982), Persian Gulf (1987), Grenada (1983), Panama (1989), Persian Gulf War (1990), Somalia (1992), Haiti (1994), Columbia (1994), Bosnia (1995), Kosovo (1999), Afghanistan (2002), Iraq (2003) and now Libya.
The cost: 101,644 US military deaths, 288,609 wounded and spending in excess of $1,400,000,000,00!
While Presidents have unilaterally deployed US armed forces on 125 occasions dating back to the Jefferson Administration their constitutional authority became murkier when Congress passed, over President Nixon’s veto, the War Powers Resolution (1973). It granted the “President, as Commander-in-Chief, the right to introduce US Armed Forces into hostilities, on into imminent involvement in hostilities … only pursuant to (1) a declaration of war, (2) specific statutory authorization, or (3) a national emergency created by an attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions or its armed forces.” It also required a declaration of war or formal authorization to use such forces by Congress be obtained within 60 days.
Yet, there is no language in the Constitution permitting one Branch to delegate its inherent powers to another Branch; clearly violating the checks-and-balances intend of the document’s founders.
With the exceptions of the Mayaguez incident, bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut and the attacks on 9-11, neither the United States nor its territories or possessions or armed forces have been attacked since 1941 prior to committing US troops into wartime situations. Therefore, Executive Branch justification sending our armed forces into combat almost always rests on the Act’s nebulous and questionable language; “specific statutory authority”.
Equally concerning in the recent case of attacking Libya is that it appears the President spent more time consulting with the UN and the Arab League than the Congress.
While the argument is made that Congress can always control the military purse strings, once US armed forces are committed, it has becomes morally indefensible and political untenable for Congress to fail to authorize almost any level of spending the Executive Branch requests, lest they be accused of “not supporting the troops”.
Since the demise of the communist boogie men, our military interventions have been focused primarily in oil-producing nations, a thus far futile effort to capture or kill Osama bin Laden or to effect regime changes. Protecting civilian populations in Rwanda, Darfur, Miramar, and other places where genocide and man-made humanitarian disasters have occurred never seem crucial enough to US national interests to go to war.
Perhaps “supporting our troops” should take on a new meaning for Congress – telling the President that the continued loss of lives and other costs of most foreign entanglements is a luxury the nation can no longer afford!
