Posted on 11/13/2011 5:15:53 AM PST by Colonel Kangaroo
Ron Paul, the outspoken libertarian congressman and Republican presidential candidate from Texas, disagreed with his fellow GOP hopefuls on the issue of Iranian nuclear weapons at the CBS/National Journal debate on Saturday.
While Paul refused to rule out the possibility of war with Iran, he insisted a war would not be worthwhile and that the president should go to Congress before launching any military action.
“The only way you would do that is you would have to go to the Congress,” he said. “We as commander in chief aren’t making the decision to go to war. The old fashioned way, the Constitution, you go to the Congress and find out if our national security is threatened and I’m afraid what’s going on right now is similar to the war propaganda that went on against Iraq.”
Paul went on to say that he considered the Iraq War a “tragedy.”
Both former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich were far more hawkish in their assessments of the threat posed by Iranian nuclear weapons program. Romney said “crippling sanctions” should be put into effect. If those fail to halt the nation’s weapons progress, however, Romney said military action should be considered because the idea of a nuclear-armed Iran was “unacceptable.”
“We will not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon,” he said.
Gingrich said would adopt an “absolute strategic program comparable to what President Reagan, Pope John Paul II and Margaret Thatcher did to the Soviet Union” utilizing every “possible aspect short of war of breaking the [Iranian] regime and bringing it down.” He said the U.S. should also embrace covert operations “to block and disrupt the Iranian program, including taking out their scientists, including breaking up their systems, all of it covertly, all of it deniable.”
Should covert operations and other activities fail, Gingrich said that military action should be considered. “I agree with Governor Romney,” he said. “If in the end despite all of those things, the dictatorship persists, you have to take whatever steps are necessary to break the capacity to have a nuclear weapon.”
Yeah whatever. Glad you like the imperial presidrency.
I agree, but we all know that the constitution has been pushed to the side, now don’t we?
Then so has the legitimacy of the “Federal Government”. Without the authority of the Constitution, the Feds are just a bunch of thugs with guns.
Someday, once the smoke clears, maybe we’ll have a beer together.
There is no need for war or regime change in Iran. Just blow up their nuclear program and let them deal with their own governance.
While I agree with Ron Paul more than Obama on Constitutional issues, I strongly suspect that if Obama’s agenda calls for starting a war with Iran, he will manipulate the nuclear threat to make it an issue solely at the discretion of the POTUS.
It might be smart for Congress to mold the situation so that they are able to represent the US people in the decision to go to war prior to situations where missiles are in the air.
IMHO, our POTUS wouldn’t mind blackops of planting nukes in the homeland and striking friendlies to give a public justification for striking whomever, if his desires are to kill or attack another nation again.
But only AFTER Congress has declared it.....and not this 'resolution' crap either. An actual Declaration of War.
The War Powers Act cannot conflict with the provisions in the Constitution. If it does, it effectively nullifies itself.
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The executive has no right, in any case, to decide the question, whether there is or is not cause for declaring war.
James Madison
Allow the president to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such a purpose—and you allow him to make war at pleasure.
Abraham Lincoln ~ Letter to William Herndon Feb. 15, 1848
Was the war powers act ratified as a Constitutional Amendment?
If not then we’re attempting to parse words of the Constitution. What is the difference between “declaration and starting”? This act goes against and is not Constitutional.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Powers_Resolution
The War Powers Resolution requires the President to notify Congress within 48 hours of committing armed forces to military action and forbids armed forces from remaining for more than 60 days, with a further 30 day withdrawal period, without an authorization of the use of military force or a declaration of war. The resolution was passed by two-thirds of Congress, overriding a presidential veto.
Both Clinton and Obama have illegally started wars.
Paul set up a straw dog to make his little speech last night. Neither Romney nor Gingrich, who answered the question before him, said the Commander in Chief should go to war independently of Congress.
Read the transcript, like I just did, and you will see that I am right about that. Your guy Paul is a deceptive whiner. America will never elect a whiner to be President.
(If you’re not a Paulist, then let my comment serve as a hint that you sound very much like one with your comment on this thread.)
This all seems fairly moot, IMO. Iran will either strike first, or Israel will. In either case, Iran will declare war on us because we are Israel’s main ally.
I appreciate that statement he followed with. If war is declared, we should fight it to win and come home.
I will agree with Ron Paul on the Constitutional issue. What Congress did in approving the War Powers Act was to punt that responsibility mainly because it gave them cover to snipe at whatever any president does in this regard and in doing so have the ability to undermine the mission if they so chose to do so. It was a cowards way out of their enumerated responsibility.
-——Just blow up their nuclear program -——
You mean like this?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2806729/posts
Somebody is
The Iranian people are not the Iranian regime, but they will become it if they are ever attacked, just as Americans would become one if we are ever attacked. Sanctions are the way to go, not war. Let covert actions, time and sanctions change the Iranian people.
I also believe that if Israel attacks Iran they must understand that American goodwill has limits and it stops at $6 gas, and if the straits are closed or oil fields damaged it will go much higher. Americans are also tired of having our youth serving as sacrificial pit bulls for other countries.
We need to get out of the Middle East and let the players there do what they wish with each other. It is their problem, and we have more than enough of our own.
But first we need to require that all oil and gas from the USA stay in the USA and not be sent to the highest bidders from Asia. If we lost the ME oil supply and we retained all our oil and gas we’d do fine.
Constitution trumps Act!
A little digression question if I may because I am worried.
In the end, would the military side with the crooked White House or with the people?
What is your opinion?
Thank you.
“Following the USC is crazy?”
It sure is. It’s crazy as hell to be held accountable to some 18th Century rule of law. Especially a rule of law which was written by a gang of crazed revolutionaries. /s
US Constitution? Forget about it! It’s just a piece of hemp, not worth the ink wasted on it. Much less the blood spilled for it. /s
When the constitution was written it could take weeks for congress to be called and brought back into session.
If the President couldn't act with out congressional approval the country could be lost before congress had a chance to vote.
Ron Paul also believes that we should all wear lime jello on our heaads and cluck like chickens. Even a blind pig finds an acorn once in awhile.
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