Posted on 04/14/2018 2:34:21 AM PDT by blueplum
"It’s often easier, Congress has found, to just let the president do what he wants.
"...It would be perfectly normal for the Trump administration to argue it doesn’t need Congress’s approval to go after Assad. It would court a fight over when and why the executive branch can get America’s military involved in operations overseas without input from Congress — but that fight has been going on for decades.
"Indeed, the Obama administration made legal arguments for justifiable unilateral force that could be interpreted to validate what Trump did on Thursday night." {snip}
"... By May 2016, according to a Congressional Research Service report, “the current authorization [had] been used to justify unclassified military action 37 times in 14 countries since 2001” — 18 times by President George W. Bush, and 19 times by President Barack Obama." {snip}
...“The constitutional legality of last night’s strike against Syrian military forces in response to chemical weapon attack earlier this week,” Harvard Law’s Goldsmith wrote on Friday morning, “can only be justified by Article II” — by the commander in chief’s inherent powers — not by an existing congressional authority.
"In other words, Trump doesn’t need to use the 2001 AUMF. He can justify what he did on Thursday night by arguing he doesn’t need any AUMF at all."
(Excerpt) Read more at vox.com ...
So that's the VOX article from last year; it's a good read and explains how we got to the two-prong test as the legal accepted standard for the President to take action without seeking prior approval from Congress. PM May also strongly emphasized the two prong test in her public address and Macron echoed the same. And then there are powers under Nato and UN treaties.
Over to Quora, and go about 3/4 of the page down to a map in the post of "Tom Byron, I vote", The result of waffling is shown in his map. We get blocked. (His post itself is also very good) Just above the map he says, " ...But look at today's diagram of naval forces in the area around Syria. Waiting to decide and hesitating has allowed for the Chinese and the Russians to counter Obama's planned attack."
https://www.quora.com/Does-the-President-need-congressional-approval-to-take-military-action-Is-it-legal-for-the-President-to-fight-a-war-that-has-not-been-declared-by-Congress-Send-troops-to-a-foreign-country-without-Congressional-approval
last, and just to poke Russia in the eye, here's the Pew (I know) Research from 2013, "UN approval before using military force lacks widespread global agreement": "Both the Chinese and the Russian governments are widely reported to have opposed UN approval of military action against Syria. But, at least in principle, their publics do not think such authorization is even needed. In 2011, only 24% of Russians thought it was necessary to seek Security Council authorization before using military force to deal with international threats. And only 38% of Chinese saw a need to first go to the UN to obtain its blessing."
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/08/30/un-approval-before-using-military-force-lacks-widespread-global-agreement/
If a foreign enemy launches a nuclear attack against the anti-defense, anti-American states on and near our coasts, we should wait for Congress to declare war before trying to stop the attack. That would solve our problem with our political hindrance against defense.
NO.
Trump needs Soros’ approval to attack Syria.
Not to mention McCain’s, Lindsey Graham’s and the Washington Post’s approval.
And he has them all.
The issue isn’t “does war need approval by Congress?”
Of course it does. The issue is “why?” Why did the Founders do it that way?
In the theology of the US Constitution, Congress stands in for the People and for the States. Without them, victory is not possible because sacrifice is commanded rather than granted freely.
All of the Presidential wars have ended in disaster. Not because they are unconstitutional (they are) but because the People who must bleed and the States which make up the Union are disengaged from the decision to go to war and therefore cannot bear the pain and the sacrifice which victory requires.
Read the declaration of war on Japan: “POTUS is authorized AND DIRECTED to make war, and to bring the war to a successful conclusion, ALL THE RESOURCES OF THE COUNTRY ARE PLEDGED BY CONGRESS”.
THAT is what is necessary under our system, now dying, to win a war.
Let the skunk democrat whining, hand wringing, and pink panties pissing begin!!
War implies major mobilization of troops and resources against flagged enemies for an undetermined, but extended length of time, at enormous financial cost, with casualties expected. Of course authorizing war is something that Congress should do (although in today's environment I doubt a consensus would be reached even on that).
While America waited 2 years for Congress to officially declare WW2, we lost Pearl Harbor and then spent the next year scrambling trying to catch up (and suffering more losses than we should have), as Russia exercised an unchecked free-hand.
A purposed strike is not war - it's just blowing the carbon out of the carburetors.
After the use of chlorine gas in WW1 the civilized world decided that wmds were unacceptable, not only against soldiers, but because drift couldn't be controlled to ensure civilians weren't affected. It is an inherent responsibility especially of the P5 nations to immediately and definitively address use of wmds, whether it's Alaska or Arabia, and whether it's done under the War Powers Act (argueably unconstitutional), under UN or Nato treaties, or under the color of CIC. It's not like Bangladesh or Fiji has that capability or reach.
I've read here on FR the claims that it was the alawites, held as hostages, who were the ones gassed. As well as the claim that Assad's people were trying to 'rescue' the alawites. Well, dropping gas guaranteed to settle down into tunnels or underground basements where the hostages allegedly are, doesn't quite seem like a rescue tactic to me. So it's a bit hard to argue that Assad's wmds are not indiscriminate. And then we need to remind ourselves that allied forces are in Syria, embedded and who knows where they might be at any given time. We don't want them gassed, either.
Timing is of the essence when dealing with users of wmds. As shown in the linked map, Zero's waffling allowed the Russians and Chinese to blockade the coast, leaving us unable to act at all. Even with yesterday's strike, backchannel maneuvering was involved to ensure all flagged forces were out of the areas - as Assad bragged today - 'Russia told us to evacuate'. We can be sure it wasn't just personnel that was evacuated.
Had Assad (and Russia) been given more than two days notice, we'd have another Iraq -where are the wmds? While we delayed, trucks were rolling west.
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