Posted on 12/10/2011 1:46:40 PM PST by rabscuttle385
James Madison, “The Father of the Constitution,” wrote: “In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.”
Enabling governments to “control the governed” has always been easy, as tyranny has long been mankind’s default position: Virtually every regime in history has sought to increase its power. Obliging government to “control itself” has always been the hard part, and nations that value freedom have always tried to place limits on their rulers in recognition of the fact that governors are not always angels.
Most Americans, from the Founding Fathers to the current generation, would likely agree that decisions to wage war are probably the most important decisions our federal government makes. Madison noted that it was a fairly universal truth that the more powerful a government’s leaders, the more interest there will be in going to war. “The Constitution supposes, what the History of all Governments demonstrates, that the Executive is the branch of power most interested in war, and most prone to it,” Madison wrote. “[The Constitution] has accordingly with studied care vested the question of war in the Legislature.”
Last week, Senator Jim DeMint studied the question of the nine-year-long Iraq War, and decided to end it. I don’t mean “end” the Iraq War in merely the sense that President Obama now advertises — bringing the troops home, ending hostilities, etc. Hell, President Obama starts and ends wars all the time (see: Libya) without even the pretension of seeking legal authority. Sen. DeMint’s support was for something much different and more significant: He voted to end the Iraq War by demanding that the president no longer be able to legally wage it.
The United States hasn’t officially declared war since World War II. Korea, Vietnam, Somalia, Afghanistan — none of these were “wars” officially, though the men and women who fought in them might beg to differ. President Bush took us to war with Iraq in 2003 in the same extra-constitutional manner: He went to Congress to get “authorization,” but still both Congress and the president apparently thought that the Iraq War wasn’t important enough to merit an official declaration of war, as the Constitution demands.
When Senator Rand Paul offered an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act last month that would revoke the authorization given to Bush in 2003 regarding Iraq, only three Republican senators joined him: DeMint, Dean Heller of Nevada and moderate Republican Olympia Snowe of Maine. There were plenty of Democrats who voted for Paul’s amendment. Of course, there were plenty of Democrats who were against the Iraq War from the beginning, though they were probably not motivated by limited-government considerations.
Sen. DeMint supported the Iraq War. Most Republicans did. Conservatives can now debate whether that support, in retrospect, was justified. But Sen. Paul’s amendment was a debate over whether the Iraq War is still justified today. Paul’s amendment was also a debate over whether giving the president of the United States carte blanche in Iraq is still justified. Only four Republicans said “no.”
It is DeMint’s vote that is the most instructive. Sen. Paul is a tea party champion who has always been upfront about his opposition to the Iraq War. While her vote was commendable, Sen. Snowe is not exactly a guiding light for most Republicans. Sen. Heller probably has the lowest profile of the four. But Sen. DeMint is a conservative’s conservative. The right has long followed DeMint’s lead on most issues. Conservatives need to follow it on Iraq and executive power too.
If the Republican Party has any interest in limited government or the Constitution, the president’s authority to wage war in Iraq must eventually be revoked. As it stands now, this president and any future president will have the power to do whatever he likes militarily in Iraq without so much as consulting Congress. Many Republican members of Congress were rightly miffed that President Obama did not consult them before his recent military action in Libya. As it stands, Congress now gives any president free rein to do the same in Iraq. Forever.
For conservatives to dismiss war and foreign policy as the one area where presidents should have unlimited power is to dismiss the very purpose of our Constitution’s system of checks and balances. As Madison recognized, the president should not be entrusted with the power to act unilaterally, especially when it comes to war.
Americans must choose between Madison’s understanding of executive power and Obama’s. Last month, Sen. Jim DeMint chose Madison’s. His fellow conservatives must eventually choose too.
There are lots of ways to do that. "Nation building" is not among them.
Got news for you, sport. Obama ha already pulled the plug on that war. DeMint doesn’t want an endless cycle of us going to war in Iraq for the next hundred years at the pleasure of whomever is occupying the White House. If we need to go to war against a country then let’s declare war and go pound them.
You are pretty free with your insults and I sure as hell don’t remember you wearing fatigues when I was. I’d guess from your tagline that you never did.
A better strategy would have been to leave Saddam Hussein in place so he could fight the Iranians, keeping a lot of that burden off us.
A better strategy would have been to finish the job in Afghanistan before starting something else.
The Iraq war was a colossal blunder. President Bush meant well, but it was not well thought out. Realism and a sober assessment of the region was lacking.
That would have worked and did work for years. I'm for it and I'm serious. If they want to go at it then let them. Keeps them busy. Too accomplish this though would requiring the closing down of the U.S. State Department that considers itself the only expert on all military matters :>}
Precisely! Afghanistan and bin Laden were Jobs 1 & 2, and no distractions were worth it.
You're right about my not serving. I'm old enough not to have had that privilege as a female.
Not an exact parallel, I know, but an example that can't be ignored.
Ron Paul buries his head in the sand and pretends that Iran is not a threat, and can be ignored.
He would be a dangerous President. Fortunately, he hasn't got a prayer to be elected, his rabid groupies notwithstanding. (I think that's why they're so mad all the time. Their 'cause' is hopeless. :)
You're contradicting yourself. Here, libertarian backs up liberal. Nobody was conducting any war "at the pleasure of the White House"—that is, unless you believe all the anti-US propaganda about the war, coming out of places like (where?) Iran, Russia, the European Union, and other such places with enmity towards the US. All this pullback was done because of folly insofar as very fearful-looking liberal foreign policy towards Iran, and no other reason. Iran's the number-one state sponsor of terrorism on the whole planet, and allowing surrounding middle-eastern states that have themselves sponsored terrorism in the name of Islam or Islamic socialism to become more like Iran is to institute anti-US policies right on US soil . . . sport.
Got news for you, sport. Obama ha(s) already pulled the plug on that war. DeMint doesn’t want an endless cycle of us going to war in Iraq for the next hundred years at the pleasure of whomever is occupying the White House
What, their declaring war on us isn't enough?
If we need to go to war against a country then let’s declare war and go pound them
Not in Iraq, and not when there are superior alternatives,
For example, it's a good thing we didn't leave Germany or Japan to their own devices after WWII. I would say we did quite a bit of 'nation building' in Japan, and I, for one, am glad we did.
Oh, and the Europeans just LOVE us now, right? As long as we hand them a knife and turn our backs. What "nation building" there accomplished is EXACTLY what was done when we exported jobs to China. Look at how many assets have been sold to foreigners in this country so that we can borrow the money to fund it. It was all about establishing the dollar as a world reserve currency, not the fundamentals of American prosperity. Asset after asset has been transferred abroad, soon to include food production. Did you know that we are now a net-food-importing nation? How does that work for national security?
I'm with Patton. Our money would have been better spent taking out the Soviet Union. There would then not have been the need to buy off Europe into a socialist model to "fend off communism." Think about the subsequent savings over the Cold War. Had we not financed the Russians during the war and allowed Hitler to overextend himself into Siberia, we could have taken Berlin with less effort than we expended.
Same story as regards Japan and China. Victory is cheaper than nation building. Instead of government charity, personal charity should have been operative, as it is far more discriminating on standards of behavior.
Our big problem has been treason. WE financed communism around the world. "Victory" in WWII gave us the UN. We financed the reconstruction of Europe and they loaned us the money for the Great Society/ Vietnam debacle. When we ran out of credit the price was the end of the gold standard and fifty years of inflation. Now its bankruptcy.
I used to believe the story you're telling, but now don't buy it any more.
What, their declaring war on us isn’t enough?
Just so you, Article One of the Constitution says Congress has to declare war. So if Congress votes to go to war against a Nation, we can go to war. Otherwise, we can’t unless the President and the military are violating the constitution.
Congress voted to permit Bush to attack Iraq with the argument Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and was threatening us. Later, President Bush said he was mistaken; that Iraq had no WDM.
In 2001, I would have called you a moonbat for making such a statement.
Today, I call you spot on.
Go back to DU. :)
We shouldn’t be fighting wars anymore. We can’t accept the horrors and realities of war any longer. We don’t accept winning a war at any cost the way wars should be fought. That’s why WW2 was the last war we won decisively, and against an enemy that was much more superior than those we have faced since. It’s not that our military got worse. We have the best trained, and equipped soldiers the world has seen, but they are restricted to a level that’s ridiculous. That’s why we have gotten worse at getting decisive victories since then even though we have faced worse enemies. How many people who talk about our WW2 Veterans being the greatest generation, would be calling our troops today war criminals for fighting the same way?
Even a lot of people on the right wouldn’t except fighting a war like WW2 these days, and that’s why we can’t get what should be small short wars over with like we could before. That’s why we talk of an invasion of Iran like it would be something on scale of invading Germany in WW2; because it would be fought to make it the equivalent even though it wouldn’t have to be. It’s like saying we are going to have peace through strength. It doesn’t work when you fight like we did these two wars. If we had went into Iraq and Afghanistan, and showed our real strength with a brutal and short war that showed our true power then that might have worked. But we can’t accept that civilians get killed in war, and there isn’t anyway to avoid that.
If had went into Iraq and Afghanistan with the mindset we went into WW2 then they would have been wars that were over with, and we would have actually gotten something out of it. Why didn’t we take oil from Iraq? Why did we allow Afghanistan to put the right to murder Muslims who convert to Christianity in their Constitution? I think with a WW2 mindset we would have gotten something out of the wars, and finished them in a short period of time. Instead we fight 10+ year wars with no end in sight, and no one even knowing what the hell we are suppose to be gaining from them anymore. If we can’t fight a total war then it’s not important enough to be fighting.
Reread my post. You know, the part about endless cycles of war in Iraq at any sitting president’s pleasure. I had no problem going in there in the first place and kicking asses. We should have left after that with saddam hanging froma lamp post with a sign pinned to his chest promising to come back and kick their asses again if they ever assist others in attacking us.
Unless missles are enroute, we have time to decide if we want to go to war. You sound like obama and the demonrats who are always in a big rush to push their garbage through before anyone can figure out what’s going on.
Ron Paul is an idiot. I do not like chicken hawks like you who are beating the war drums when you know it won’t be your butt on the line. By the way, unless you are well over a hundred years old we had women in uniform in WWII, Korea, and Vietnam. Where were you, hero?
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