"We pledge to honor the Constitution
as constructed by its framers and honor the original intent of those
precepts that have been consistently ignored particularly the Tenth
Amendment, which grants that all powers not delegated to the United
States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are
reserved to the states respectively, or to the people."
-- A Pledge to America, Republicans in Congress, September 2010
Thursday, March 17, 2010
The Constitution Requires a
Congressional Declaration of War against Libya
by Jacob G. Hornberger
Given the battlefield success of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi’s
standing army against Libyan rebels, President Obama has now shifted his
tune. Instead of simply advocating a no-fly zone over Libya, Obama is now
requesting the United Nations Security Council to authorize the United
States to bomb Libyan tanks and artillery.
Did you catch that? The president of the United States is going to the UN
to seek permission to attack a sovereign and independent country.
Where is the Tea Party when you need it? Aren’t they the ones that carry
the miniature-sized versions of the U.S. Constitution in their pockets?
Attention Tea Partiers: Check out the section of the Constitution that
requires the president to secure a formal declaration of war from
Congress before he can wage war against a foreign regime. Let’s hear from
you. This is no time for silence.
The fact that Obama decides to go to foreigners to seek permission to
wage another war of aggression just goes to show, once again, how far our
nation has strayed from its founding principles.
For one thing, America was founded on the principle of no standing army.
Our ancestors knew that a standing army is antithetical to the principles
of a free society, a principle that the rebels in Libya and other Middle
East countries are now discovering.
But there is another reason that a standing army is dangerous, as
Americans have discovered: It can be used by a ruler to involve a nation
in endless foreign military escapades, which oftentimes are so expensive
that they bring financial bankruptcy down upon a nation. I’d say just ask
the British Empire or the Soviet Empire but they’re out of existence
owing to bankruptcy.
What’s fascinating is how virtually no one, except libertarians, brings
up the U.S. Constitution when it comes to foreign wars, specifically that
part that prohibits the president from waging war without a congressional
declaration of war.
It’s almost as if Americans have just come to accept the fact that the
president is now a ruler with omnipotent powers when operating in foreign
affairs. The notion is that the president, operating through his military
and paramilitary forces (who are always ready and willing to loyally obey
whatever orders he issues, no questions asked), can do whatever he wants
with respect to foreign policy.
The Constitution is the highest law of the land. It embodies the
constraints on federal power that were imposed on the federal government
as a condition of permitting the federal government to come into
existence. The Constitution is the law that we the people have imposed on
federal officials, including the president and his military and
paramilitary forces. Just as federal officials require us, the citizenry,
to obey laws that they impose on us, they are required to comply with the
law that we have imposed on them.
The Constitution requires a congressional declaration of war before the
president can wage war against Libya or any other nation. If the
president uses his standing army to attack Libya without a congressional
declaration of war, he is a lawbreaker and should be impeached for his
high crime. The fact that this critically important part of the
Constitution has been ignored in the past should not be permitted to
serve as a defense or an excuse at the president’s impeachment trial. The
law is the law. If Obama or anyone else doesn’t like it, they’re free to
seek a constitutional amendment authorizing the president to both declare
and wage war. Until then, the law should be enforced.
Should the U.S. Congress declare war on Libya? Should the president wage
war on Libya? No to both questions. Like Iraq and Afghanistan, Libya has
not attacked the United States, which would make the U.S. government,
once again, the aggressor in the conflict. Wars of aggression were
condemned as war crimes at Nuremberg.
What can Americans why sympathize with the Libyan rebels do to help them
out? They can take personal responsibility for their beliefs and travel
to Libya and join the rebels. Not surprisingly, not one single American
interventionist has done so.
Our ancestors brought into existence a nation with no standing army, no
militarism, and no empire, no Federal Reserve, no federal torture, no
federal kidnapping, no war on terrorism, no CIA, no war on drugs, no
foreign wars, no public schooling, no paper money, and no wars of
aggression. They brought into existence a government based on limited
powers expressly enumerated in the U.S Constitution, an economic system
based on free-market principles, and a society deeply committed to the
preservation of civil liberties and fundamental rights.
The time arrived has arrived for Americans to return to first principles.
http://www.fff.org/blog/jghblog2011-03-17.asp
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