Opinions
The Proliferation of Illegal
Wars Erodes American Values
Jun. 26 2011 - 11:35 am
A genuinely pro-capitalist U.S. foreign policy would advance both the
national and rational self-interest of Americans, which is: to live and
flourish under authentic freedom, true justice, and the rule of law, with
individual rights to life, liberty, and property protected by government
against the initiation of force or fraud by hostile foreigners. To be
clear, this does not mean fighting unjustified wars in Viet Nam, Iraq or
Libya.
Both President Obama and the GOP-led Congress failed yet again this week
to abide by these principles as they apply to U.S. military operations in
Afghanistan and Libya. Not only do these operations remain undeclared
wars – hence lawless and unconstitutional acts – but decisions this week
by Obama and his GOP allies will likely only prolong the lawlessness, and
in the process further undermine our freedom and fiscal health.
On Afghanistan this week, about which Mr. Obama once told ABC News (in
July 2009) he was “always worried about using the word victory,” the U.S.
has declared defeat. Recall that Obama increased troop levels there from
34,000 when he took office to 103,000 a year ago; now he says he’ll
reduce those levels to 68,000 by next summer, which would still leave
troops at double the level they were when he took office. Yet there are
few signs of actual U.S. success in this decade-long “war.” Much like his
predecessor, Mr. Obama seems to be blithely exploiting U.S. troops in
Afghanistan, using them as nation-builders, thus sitting ducks, not
enemy-killers. But Obama’s schemes are no better in Libya – and resemble
yet another U.S. foreign policy disaster-in-waiting
Part of the problem is that U.S. foreign-policy makers are no longer
guided by the principles of the Founders. The U.S. Constitution rightly
makes the president the commander-in-chief of the military (Article One,
Section 2), but in order that he properly and effectively deploy the
military it also requires him first to persuade Congress to vote upon and
declare war (Article Two, Section 8), which means the President must cite
the provocation, name the enemy, and project a plausible path to victory.
In this way, unjustified wars are more easily avoided, and crucially,
when Congress approves war it implicitly pledges to support the military.
In a less-cited provision, the Constitution also requires that while
Congress funds the military, “no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall
be for a longer Term than two Years” (Article 2, Section 8).
Clearly, the Constitution’s framers sought to divide and restrict the
U.S. power to declare, finance, and wage war. Also, they hoped it
would be rare, undertaken only with utmost necessity for the protection
of America’s security and liberty, and never “open-ended” in time. In
short, U.S. wars were to be few and winnable, not common and
interminable. The Framers also knew that domestic liberty and property
are most at risk during war, a principle that’s been documented in
subsequent U.S. history by Robert Higgs in Crisis and Leviathan
(1987).
If instead of America seeking victory in a delimited war against a
specific enemy it eschews victory amid an endless war against ubiquitous
and elusive assailants – as is so in today’s so-called “war” on a mere
tactic (“terrorism”) – then threats and assaults on domestic
civil-economic liberties also will become ubiquitous and interminable.
Instead of a “return to normalcy” (and sustained prosperity), as it was
called after World War I, we’d be left in a state of perpetual
abnormalcy, with prolonged mistreatment of the troops, outlandish
deficit-spending, vast money-printing, increased regimentation, and
intensified assaults on privacy and other rights.
This tragic principle should make clear why those who push so loudly and
incessantly for endless, more-expansive, but fundamentally unjustified
U.S. wars – such as the Krauthammer neo-conservatives and U.S. Senators
John Kerry, John McCain, and Lindsey Graham – most undermine American
liberty and security. Posing as patriotic “hawks,” in fact they’re
transforming a republic of liberty into an empire of tyranny.
Since the Constitution’s adoption in 1789 the U.S. Congress has declared
war only five times: the War of 1812, Mexican War (1848),
Spanish-American War (1898), World War I (1916), and World War II (1941).
Yet presidents have committed U.S. forces hundreds of times without such
approval, starting with Jefferson’s deployment of the navy to Libya in
1801. The most carnage inflicted on U.S. military personnel in lawless
deployments occurred during the Korean “conflict” (1951-53), Viet Nam
(1966-75), and Afghanistan-Iraq (2001-present). The last quarter century
has seen the U.S. military used without Congressional approval in Libya
(1986), Panama (1989), Somalia (1992), Bosnia (1995), Kosovo (1999) and
Libya (2011). Congress isn’t blameless in these cases, either, for it has
refused to withhold the funding necessary for such ventures.
Perhaps it’s no coincidence that war hasn’t been declared officially
(i.e., constitutionally) by the U.S. since 1945, compared to the prior
150 years (1791-1941), because in our “modern” era left-wing
“progressives” have preached that the Constitution is old-fashioned and
essentially irrelevant to the protection of economic liberties. Why then
not also evade the document when it comes to waging war or treating civil
liberties? We all know the U.S. has acted beyond all constitutional
constraint in the other areas of life – see confiscatory taxation and the
regulation of business and personal matters – so why not also in matters
military? This is the natural progression of any autocratic police state
– which it seems American government is becoming.
On his Libyan invasion Obama hasn’t complied with the Constitution
because the goal has nothing to do with America’s self-interest (i.e.,
self-defense), as I first
explained last March. Now that the invasion is older than three
months, Obama also has violated the War Powers Act (1973). Enacted by
two-thirds of a Democrat-controlled Congress over the veto of President
Nixon, with the aim of restricting his actions in the Viet Nam
“conflict,” the Act allows the President to use delimited military force
without a formal war declaration, but only if it’s “a national emergency
created by attack upon the U.S., its territories or possessions, or its
armed forces” and only if he obtains ex-post authorization from
Congress.
Under the Act the President must “notify” Congress within 2 days of
committing armed forces, and those forces can’t be deployed for more than
60 days, plus a 30-day withdrawal period, for a total of 90 days. The
legal clock has already run out on Obama’s Libyan invasion – yet no one
in Washington is bothering to stop him.
Similarly, since 1973 the War Powers Act has been ignored by most
presidents (and Congresses) and today is derided by both sides as
“unconstitutional,” even though the Supreme Court hasn’t ruled as such,
and even though the Act serves as perfectly reasonable attempt to
restrict U.S. war powers without unduly weakening the executive. The
intellectual context of the Act suggests its overall intent: it was
adopted in the same year famed historian Arthur Schlesinger published his
classic, The Imperial Presidency. But cavalier views of war powers
generally and of the Act specifically makes the U.S. no less imperial now
than in the 1970s.
As a candidate in 2007 Obama openly defended the War Powers Act and
derided then-President George W. Bush for ignoring it: “The President
does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a
military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual
or imminent threat to the nation,” Obama said. Yet he now claims that he
has such power, and wields it properly. By now thousands of U.S. military
personnel have toiled on his idiosyncratic Libyan invasion, while
billions of dollars have been spent and hundreds of expensive U.S. cruise
missiles have been fired. Mr. Obama initially said it would take mere
“days and weeks, not months” to finish what he denies is a “war,” as the
Libya campaign “does not involve sustained fighting or active exchanges
of fire with hostile forces, nor does it involve U.S. ground
troops.”
So the new foreign policy of allegedly “dovish” Democrats is that a U.S.
President can unilaterally bomb another nation, so long as that nation
doesn’t “actively” exchange fire or observe U.S. ground troops. More than
absurd, Obama’s approach is abjectly arbitrary, for he characterizes the
new U.S. military approach as “leading from behind” – in this case,
“hiding” under the veil of NATO, which everyone knows is a mere U.S.
proxy. The blatant contradiction of “leading from behind” is the Obama
Doctrine: the U.S. may unilaterally bomb another nation, yet never to
secure a victory, and it can unilaterally demand the ouster of any
foreign leader, yet also leave him securely in place – which makes the
U.S. both a liar and a paper tiger.
To their credit, earlier this month ten Congressmen (seven Republicans
and three Democrats) sued Mr. Obama for violating the War Powers Act,
naming “the executive branch’s circumvention of Congress and its use of
international organizations such as the U.N. and NATO to authorize the
use of military force abroad, in violation of the Constitution.” Yet the
GOP-led Congress has failed pathetically to check Obama. Last week it
voted against authorizing his Libyan campaign (by 295-123), yet hours
later voted for funding it (by 230-180). Most Republicans (93%) voted
against the authorization, while most Democrats (56%) voted for it, but
then 57% of Republicans (and 48% of Democrats) endorsed the
funding.
Some Congressmen consistently voted against both the authorization and
the funding, but those who opposed authorization and supported funding
constitute the kind of contemptible, unprincipled hypocrites who ruin any
nation. More accurately perhaps, hypocrisy is embedded in the electorate,
which chooses such “leaders” in the first place. Regardless, neither
liberty nor security is served by the sheer travesty that U.S. foreign
policy has become.
http://blogs.forbes.com/richardsalsman/2011/06/26/the-proliferation-of-illegal-wars-erodes-american-values/
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