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View Full Version : Question about "authorization" to go to war




JasonM
07-07-2007, 07:54 PM
Ron Paul says that Congress never declared war on Iraq, but then I'm having to ask what the whole "authorization to go to war with Iraq" was all about. How is what Congress did different or illegal, as opposed to declaring outright war?

angelatc
07-07-2007, 08:00 PM
My understanding of it is that they handed the decision over to the PResident, instead of declaring war like they're supposed to.

beermotor
07-07-2007, 08:18 PM
Look up the Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF)...

What Congress did isn't illegal per se, it's just dumb, cowardly, and completely shirks their responsibility per the separations of powers. Of course, what else do we expect from our shitty Congress?

Although this amnesty deal has really started to put some fires to 'em and show them the people are watching. Quick the boss is coming, look busy! Chuckle.

MozoVote
07-07-2007, 08:27 PM
An act of war opens the gate for Congress to pass many other measures geared toward putting us on a war economy and a draft. It means total commitment to war, and very little to social policy, or environmentalism.

What they passed was war on the cheap.

RonPaulCult
07-07-2007, 08:50 PM
What the bill said was that if Bush wanted to declare war on Iraq HE could.

Well that was nice of them to say and all but the constitution says ONLY CONGRESS MAY DECLARE WAR.

In my opinion this was illegal and unconstitutional because congress tried to give a power they hold and hand it over to the executive branch. The only legal way to do that is to change the constitution itself. Of course that would take state support and an amendment to the constitution.

But nobody follows the constitution anymore. Well nobody except Ron Paul.

klamath
07-07-2007, 08:51 PM
"Section 8. The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water;"

In legal writing the word "shell" is the strongest word. In rising order of strength: Congress should, Congress will, Congress Shell.

Congress shell declare war, not give the president the power to go, or not to go to war. We are at war. If Congress felt it was so important to get the WMD they should have declared war and not back out when all didn't go as planned and try and call it the Presidents war. "I didn't say he had to go to war" (Hillary)

JasonM
07-08-2007, 01:42 AM
so then the "authorization to go to war" was just a way for congressmen to cover their butts in case there was political fallout from the war? (i.e. calling it the "president's war" and not "Congress's War")

Anyways, the reason I was asking is that some people take the "authorization to go to war" as the equivalent to "declaring war". I want to be able to counter that argument when I come across it.

beermotor
07-08-2007, 06:33 AM
so then the "authorization to go to war" was just a way for congressmen to cover their butts in case there was political fallout from the war? (i.e. calling it the "president's war" and not "Congress's War")

Anyways, the reason I was asking is that some people take the "authorization to go to war" as the equivalent to "declaring war". I want to be able to counter that argument when I come across it.


Yes. Congress is full of cowards. I'm sure nobody is going to be surprised by your information, heh ... the AUMF was not a declaration of war at all. They threw the hot potato to the Executive, who gladly picked it up and ran with it all over the place.

Shmuel Spade
07-08-2007, 07:34 AM
What congress did in 2003 was a continuation of the unconstitutional war activities practiced since just after WWII.

In the AUMFI, the congress rather than relying on upon their inherent power to declare war, relied on the "War Powers Act" from the Vietnam era.

Original_Intent
07-08-2007, 08:02 AM
so then the "authorization to go to war" was just a way for congressmen to cover their butts in case there was political fallout from the war? (i.e. calling it the "president's war" and not "Congress's War")

Anyways, the reason I was asking is that some people take the "authorization to go to war" as the equivalent to "declaring war". I want to be able to counter that argument when I come across it.

A few things to point out to people to show that there IS an obvious difference.

Point 1: Ron Paul made a motion for a declaration of war that was UNANIMOUSLY defeated. If they are in essence the same thing, or if they are even remotely the same thing this makes NO sense whatsoever.

Point 2: I don't believe it is so they can "cover their butts" if the war goes badly. I believe that it is to make the war a partisan issue. It is a recipe for failure and THEN when the "president's war" is declared a failure, the other party (in this case, the Democrat's) win politically.

Point 3: Every war that Congress has declared, we have won. What is our record on police actions, authorizations to use miliraty force, etc? Bosnia and Afganistan I would say have been marginal victories at best, while Korea, Vietnam, Iraq 1 and 2 have been, disasters. And I would submit to you that they have been designed to fail exactly because of point 2. A decisive win in the war would be a decisive win for the president (and his party) therefore the other party has a solid motive to make sure the war fails. And I think nobody here would find it hard to believe that many politicians from both parties would put thier political careers (and even their party's well being) ahead of the welfare of our fighting men. Indeed, the history of our undeclared wars show this to be the case.

Swmorgan77
07-08-2007, 09:09 AM
Ron Paul says that Congress never declared war on Iraq, but then I'm having to ask what the whole "authorization to go to war with Iraq" was all about. How is what Congress did different or illegal, as opposed to declaring outright war?

Good question. Whether it is legal depends upon whether you believe something has to comply with the Supreme Law of the Land to be "legal". It was "legal" in the sense that it was based on a law that was enacted by Congress (the War Powers Act) but this is a law which I believe is not, itself, legal since it conflicts with the Supreme Law or the Constitution.

The basic crux of why the authorization is "Unconstitutional" is in the fact that it transferred the discretion for deciding the propriety of war to the President.

In past declarations such as WWII, the language very specifically said two things:

1) "A state of war with _____ exists"

2) "the President is authorized AND DIRECTED to use the military forces..."

These declarations were acts of Congress using their SOLE discretion to determine the propriety of, and declare a state of war. After these declarations, the President was not free to NOT undertake the war, he was bound as the commander in chief to act. The only discretion he had at the point was how best to undertake the war, not WHETHER to do it.

If you look at the text of the Iraq "authorization" it is very clear that this discretion is being turned over from the Congress to the President. It uses the language, in the following passage:


SEC. 3. AUTHORIZATION FOR USE OF UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES.

(a) AUTHORIZATION- The President is authorized to use the Armed Forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary and appropriate in order to

(1) defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq; and

(2) enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq.

(b) PRESIDENTIAL DETERMINATION- In connection with the exercise of the authority granted in subsection (a) to use force the President shall, prior to such exercise or as soon thereafter as may be feasible, but no later than 48 hours after exercising such authority, make available to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President pro tempore of the Senate his determination that

(1) reliance by the United States on further diplomatic or other peaceful means alone either (A) will not adequately protect the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq or (B) is not likely to lead to enforcement of all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq; and

Several things are clear from this language.

1) The President was free, and even encouraged, to continue non-military remedies after the resolution was passed. This means it is NOT a declaration of war.

2) The decision over whether to use military force was within the Presidents' discretion "as he determines to be necessary" and he only needed notify Congress of his decision (which should have been theirs) and not even necessary notify them before acting!

This may seem like "hair-splitting" to many, but in the world of laws these sort of distinctions make all the difference. Very often the constitutionality of an issue turns on a single word or phrase.

The authorization was based on the 1973 War Powers Act, which is bad in many respects and the Constitutionality of which has never been tested (its about time). In some respects the war powers act is unconstitutional because it pretends to give an amount of oversight and micro-management to the Congress over operations that IMO is Unconstitutional. It is also Unconstituitonal in the other direction by allowing Congress to transfer discretion to the President, as in the Iraq resolution.

However, even the most determined Neo-Con should be able to at the very least see the wisdom in this:

Clearly, the authorization was ill-advised, and the country would have been much better served by a true declaration. That way, the consensus of the people would have been behind the decision, and the members of Congress would not be able to play political games by characterizing Iraq as "the President's war". Republicans should at least be able to see the wisdom in this. If it had been done Constituitonally, the Administration and consequently the Republican party would not be the "bird cage liner" for all of the blame and discontent.

I think its time we rethink the War Powers Act, even if you believe its Constitutional, because of its demonstrated negative results in the way that it allows wars to be undertaken. The wisdom of separating the powers WAGING war from the power to DECLARE or DETERMINE war was obvious to the founders, who lived under a system in which teh British monarch had BOTH the powers of waging and declaring war within his power. They wanted to avoid the problems that arose from that. It should be even more obvious in the aftermath of the Iraq authorization. Like Madison said:


The Constitution expressly and exclusively vests in the Legislature the power of declaring a state of war [and] the power of raising armies. A delegation of such powers [to the president] would have struck, not only at the fabric of our Constitution, but at the foundation of all well organized and well checked governments. The separation of the power of declaring war from that of conducting it, is wisely contrived to exclude the danger of its being declared for the sake of its being conducted.”