Posted on 04/11/2017 6:31:29 PM PDT by VitacoreVision
By ordering last week’s Tomahawk strike on a Syrian airbase, the president usurped Congress’s exclusive power to declare war. He shouldn’t be allowed to get away with it.
Make no mistake: President Trump’s airstrikes against Syria were unconstitutional. Military action may well have been justified from a moral standpoint. The Assad regime’s war on its own people and its use of chemical weapons required a response, arguably including a retaliatory strike to deter further such attacks. Inaction, as much as action, has profound human consequences. There is a case to be made that America should have taken military action against Assad in 2013, or even as early as 2011, in order to protect innocent Syrians from their own government.
The strikes may have been justified from a strategic standpoint, too — as a means of both advancing America’s interests in the region’s security and counteracting the perception of American weakness left by President Obama’s dithering response to past Syrian chemical-weapons attacks. A feckless, feeble United States — one that retreats from declared “red lines,” abandons the region to Vladimir Putin, creates a vacuum for the rise of ISIS, and generates a massive humanitarian and refugee crisis — is good for nobody.
But from a legal standpoint, there can be no doubt that Trump’s Tomahawk strike on the Syrian regime was a violation of the U.S. Constitution.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
Wow, reading this thread I see very intelligent responses one after another. It seems barely possible for a person to go over these thoughts without being enriched intellectually.
LOL...very true.
Your examples of Adama and Jefferson are extremely disengenous. In both examples, Congress passed a series of laws/funding mechanism that directed the Presidents on how to act. In fact Jefferson waited for instructions from Congress. The reason there were not DOWs was purely diplomatic. Other than that, Congress called the shots.
Did the Duh National Review say it was an “An Unconstitutional Declaration of War” when Reagan bombed Libya?
How about when Reagan was sinking Iranian warships and blowing up their oil rigs?
How about when Reagan invaded the island of Grenada?
Moving on,
How about Operation “Just Cause” the US invasion of Panama to depose Manuel Noriega? The blaring of rock music while Noriega was held up in the Vatican embassy unconstitutional too. ;-)
I remember reading about US troops invading Siberia Russia in the early 1920s on an expedition. I could go on and on...
Hey Paulson was all these military actions through history also unconstitutional?
Explain that to Jefferson and Adams. Then get back to us wont you?
And to think jackasses like you would go to Congress while we get into a battle to stop the violation of the “LAW OF NATIONS” and while jackasses like you and Randy Pander Paul stand there and whine and yell about it in the halls of CONgress, the battle would be over and the enemy would be within this country.
That is why we have the WPA. Because the useless twerps in the legislature would take days to decide if any attack would be to our best interest. We aint got “days” in this day and age jackass. We got minutes.
To the Empire might makes constitutional right.
Technically, Trump was wrong on that for a limited encounter, but he was right for a longer incursion.
Reagan consulted a bipartisan cadre of congresscritters before the strike occurred. These members instructed Reagan that the bombing was authorized under the WPA.
I’m surprised you didn’t post Kevin Williamson’s NR “Censure Trump” article as proof this NR article is spot-on.
The War Powers Act, passed over Nixon’s veto: a US law passed in 1973 which allows Congress to limit the President’s use of military forces.
It states that the President must tell Congress within 48 hours if he sends armed forces anywhere, and Congress must give approval for them to stay there for more than 90 days.
It wasn’t “unconstitutional”. National Review’s scribe is either clueless or being intentionally disingenuous; IOW, a #nevertrumper.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/donald-trump-administration-stops-disclosing-troop-deployments-iraq-syria-islamic-state-isis-a7662016.html
Te title of this article is misleading. By law he must tell Congress.
So he told Congress. Now the critters have to agree to troops staying longer than three months.
Returning to being a nation of laws again is confusing for the left and their dupes like NR.
Whether it is sound foreign policy is a different issue.
Only Congress has the power to declare war.
That is true. This was not a declaration of war.
Trump 2013 disagrees with you.
Memo To Michael Stokes Paulsen:
Click the Pic
There Was No "Declared War" you Fool!
It seems Trump has learned more about this subject since becoming President...Mattis, etc, have advised him...
ROTLFMAO! Haw haw haw! If only publishing absolute horsesh!t actually made it true!
Aside from the fact that the President is Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of the United States, there's this little piece of legislation that the Congress passed, called the War Powers Act. You should read up on it sometime.
Beyond that, the President can always initiate action based on his own judgement, and if Congress doesn't like that, then there's this little provision of the Constitution called impeachment, which can readily be employed against any President who wages war against the will of the People or the Congress.
Good luck with that one.
The last time the United States formally declared war was in 1941. That's over 75 years ago.
So I guess virtually every President who has taken military action since then is guilty of the same thing that President Trump is guilty of... wait for it... nothing!
Are NeverTrump b----es really this f-----g stupid? Or desperate?
“Only Congress has the power to declare war.”
That is correct. Trump did not declare war. It amounted to the incursion into Pakistan to capture Ben Laden. Or Reagan going into the Caribbean. Or countless other strikes by American presidents.
Thank you for the mention. I was unaware of that.
I wonder how many seconds it would take today, for the full plan to be all over the internet.
We did a very good job of keeping this close to the vest. I’m not convinced our operation wouldn’t have been compromised today.
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