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To: Free Fire Zone
1) Congress passed a "use of force" resolution before the november elections(2002). This resolution gave the president all the congressional authority he needs to wage this war on Iraq. If you will notice in the constitution there is no prescribed form or language that a war declaration must be in to be "legal".

2) Iraq never lived up to the cease fire agreed to after the Gulf War, therefore a state of hostilities still exist between the U.S. and Iraq. And, of course, the president can contine to fight an on going conflict.
5 posted on 03/17/2003 6:21:59 AM PST by SoggyBottomBoy
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To: SoggyBottomBoy
If you will notice in the constitution there is no prescribed form or language that a war declaration must be in to be "legal".

I agree. We have too many outhouse lawyers running around here claiming that Congress must pass something that includes the exact phrase "declare war" in order to pass Constitutional muster. The Constitution does not say that.

All of the powers enumerated in Article I Section 8 are phrased in general terms; the exact language to be used by some subsequent Congress is not specified for any of these powers.

If the Congress passes something that "hereby authorizes the President of the United States to blow the crap out of Saddam Hussein," which is pretty much what they did, then that is an exercise of their power to declare war. Nothing says that the item passed must include the phrase "declare war" in order to make this kind of an authorization.

This issue was just litigated in the last few weeks. The usual suspects from the Party of Weakness And Appeasement went to court arguing that the resolution passed by Congress unconstitutionally delegated to the President the authority to declare war. Their case was thrown out, and it was just thrown out again on appeal. The main reason was that the plaintiffs could not show that the Congress was in any dispute with the President over this; the Congress quite clearly intended to authorize the use of military force against Iraq. That's all they have to do. They don't have to say "war," or "shazam," or any other magic word.

20 posted on 03/17/2003 7:32:53 AM PST by Nick Danger (Liberty Weekend March 22-23 www.freeper.org)
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