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 ...
Trump 2013 disagrees with you.
He did not say Congress had to declare war. He said, in the precise case of Obama, that Obama had to get Congressional approval for a strike in Syria.
We can ask him if the exact same thing applies to him in this case.
But each case is different. Clearly he has the power to do this, and he made the decision that it was not necessary to ask Congress, at least this time.
Yes, it does.
Unfortunately for your ignorant NeverTrump butt, the Constitution specifies no penalty (zero-nada-zip-zilch) for calling the Armed Forces into action absent a declaration of War.
So stick that in your NeverTrump crack pipe and smoke it, K?
The Congress, of course, is at liberty to impeach any President who wages war against the will of Congress.
So why don't you call your Congressman, have him draw up some articles of impeachment against President Trump—pursuant to his action in Syria—and see how that works out for you?
After that, maybe you can set your crack pipe down, take a look at the entire totality of US history under the Constitution—from President George Washington to the present day—and get it through your thick skull that the President of the United States has always had this power.
And, as I mentioned, the solution for abuse of his power is very simple and straightforward: impeachment.
So, once again, good luck with all that, but, if you don't mind, the rest of us will concern ourselves with objective reality, as opposed to irrelevant, paranoid, delusional NeverTrump whimsy...
Look, you're wasting your time here. Anyone with a clue is A-Ok with the attack. I assume they're like me, fully invested in the MIC. Deep state wins, I win.
You on the other hand, are still working for a living. Sucks to be you - imagine being tasked with herding doubtful believers.
Your boss man (yes, let there be no doubt, you're his b!tch) hands you a script and says, "post". You, probably in debt, barely meeting a mortgage, says "yes sir".
Me, fully informed and investing in reality for quite awhile, casually observes what's goin' down, and bets on red (ie the deep state).
Result, I'm still comfortable, you ... well, there is that bi-weekly paycheck, no?
Eisenhower first sending “advisors” into Vietnam...
Kennedy sending troops into Vietnam...
Johnson sending even more troops into Vietnam...
Nixon continuing in Vietnam...
Ford???...
Carter sending troops into Iran...(Failure of huge proportions)
Reagan sending troops into Panama...
Bush sending troops into Iraq...
Clinton bombing Serbia....
Bush sending troops into Iraq/Afghanistan...
Obama sending troops into Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan...
“Only Congress has the power to declare war.”
And they did so, soon after 9/11. Can you tell me when the war on terror ended, and that declaration became null?
Trump remains authorized under that declaration to this day.
“Your examples of Adama and Jefferson are extremely disengenous.”
Another difference is that Jefferson was acting to protect Americans (and other) from being robbed and enslaved by the Barbarians. There is no such analogy in Syria.
Some here are starting to sound like modern wussy college kids - triggered by a NR article or writer. It’s true, the NR hosts some never-Trumpers but they are not all that way. Besides when did it become a crime to debate these things as opposed to falling in line?
Personally, I’m not afraid to have America kill people and break things. But let’s be honest about it.
For better or worse, it’s clearly an Olympian flip-flop by the Don - I give him a 10 for the splash at least. And what he did IS, absolutely, an act of war regardless what anyone feels about the prez’s ability to do it with/without Congress’s prior authorization.
There is not one person here who would NOT call it an act of war if Syria pulled up a couple ships next to America and sent thousands of pounds of explosives flying into our heartland.
Based on the logic of some here, I assume 9/11 was not an act of war either.
Again, I shed no tears for anyone except the Christians in Syria. But let’s not degenerate into a lock-step / no-debate mode here.
NATIONAL REVIEW SUCKS
great article
He also was one of the "Originalists against Trump", who said that Trump wouldn't appoint good Supreme Court justices.
Someone should stuff his soiled little girl panties down his denutted, senile throat.
I know. They just went and used chemical weapons on their citizens in violation of every international convention going and despite long-standing declared US policy to deter any such use by responding with force, including any force at our disposal if necessary. Nothing remotely close to holding hostages for ransom.
An act of war is not a declaration of war. Words have meanings.
No, your an "a-hole" for totally misrepresenting the Constitution with respect to this Presidential power.
In over 240 years, the U.S. Supreme Court has had ample opportunity to rule on the Constitutionality of Presidential power in his role as Commander In Chief, and yet, not once has this power ever been challenged or limited in any meaningful way.
On top of that, we have the War Powers Act, wherein Congress basically ceded whatever lingering power it did have in this area. And the War Powers Act has never been struck down. Indeed, the War Powers Act itself might be Unconstitutional, by placing invalid limits on the President's power as Commander in Chief.
But that's a debate for another day.
One thing that can be categorically stated—with as much confidence as anything relating to the Constitution—is that such actions by the President are de facto Constitutional, with over 240 years of precedent to support that notion, and zero (zip-zilch-nada) precedent to the contrary.
This concludes your Constitutional lesson for the day.
I apologize for being harsh, but it seems to me that you are intentionally ignoring the Constitution in making your claim that this military act by the President was unconstitutional, because almost a quarter millenia of U.S History and precedent indicate quite the opposite.
So please accept the reality that your interpretation of the Constitution (and/or this writer's) is dangerously misguided...
LOL! What a girlyman. He probably wears Bill Kristol's soiled little girl panties.
“Nothing remotely close to holding hostages for ransom.”
Agreed.
At least in regard to the Americans-at-risk analogy I was clearly suggesting does not exist.
NR strikes again. The reality is that we have been bombing Syria almost daily since 2015. We have 1,000 US military personnel inside Syria. Assad says this is a violation of Syria’s sovereignty. He’s right, but what’s the big deal about a one-off bombing of a Syrian air base.
There was no war, it was enforcement of treaty re WMD US Congress already approved such actions. So its constitutional.
You will never remove Trump by impeachment, hes not quitting either. So stop wasting our time with this anti-Trump BS.
Yes, the National Review (NR) has changed its name to Bullshit Review (BS). So sad. Once a rational, cutting publication, it has now become bifurcated into the Uber Hate Trump faction and then lesser Hate Trump factions.
Reagan bombed Libya for their attacks.
Obama bombed Libya just to make himself seem like a soldier.
Bill Clinton bombed the crap out of the old Yugoslavia.
Bush Jr liberated Iraq and tried to help Afghanistan.
Life is a bitch and there are a lot of armed bitches out there, all gunning for us (or so some Demos thought).
Apparently NR hasn’t read a newspaper since 1992.
False. Even that claim is wrong. We have both U. S. civilians and military personnel on the ground in Syria. Are you saying that they're not at risk of a chemical attack.
And you want to talk of being intellectually honest?
The reason there's so much hostility here is because the "debate" is beyond settled. The facts of the President's power as Commander in Chief is woven into the fabric of our history for almost a quarter millennium.
There's simply no leg to stand on for those who claim such acts are unconstitutional. They are eminently Constitutional according to multiple criteria. Disregarding all that produces annoyance in passionate, red-blooded American Patriots...
meh
“An act of war is not a declaration of war. Words have meanings.”
Yes, but meanings apparently have expiration dates.
The last time we ‘declared’ war was years before the last time we used nuclear weapons to end one.
I’m sure the dead vets from the Vietnam, Korean, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc police/executive/whatever actions rest well knowing we did not escalate to actually honestly declaring what it was we were doing.
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