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The Birch Log
October 1, 2014
Obama Claims Congress Approved War Against ISIS — in 2001
by John F. McManus
fitzgerald griffin foundation
APPLETON, WI — Bruce Ackerman is a professor of law and political science at Yale University. He just discovered that President Obama has violated the U.S. Constitution by starting a war against ISIS. Our question is: “Where has Ackerman been while the Constitution was being stiffed on a regular basis?”
The Yale professor rightly complains that the President’s decision to make war against ISIS amounts to a unilateral assumption of power. OK, but Ackerman would go along with Mr. Obama’s decision if he had consulted with and received approval — not a declaration of war — from Congress for military action against the Islamist militants.
The professor says that the President’s unilateral action “marks a decisive break in the American constitutional tradition,” adding that “nothing attempted by his predecessor, George W. Bush, remotely compares in imperial hubris.”
Curiously, the Obama team claimed that decision to go to war against ISIS was acceptable because Congress had authorized the use of military force against Al Qaeda after the 9/11 attack, and new approval for such action wasn’t needed. Curiously, the Obama team claimed that decision to go to war against ISIS was acceptable because Congress had authorized the use of military force against Al Qaeda after the 9/11 attack, and new approval for such action wasn’t needed.
In other words, a past Congressional stamp of approval for war that wasn’t a formal declaration of war as required by the Constitution can serve as a legitimate go-ahead for whatever action is desired even a decade later.
And the new target of the military doesn’t even have to be the one named in the previous congressional authorization. If that’s the case, then any real or supposed enemy can be targeted by simply citing this past Congressional action.
The Constitution says in Article I, Section 8, Clause 11 that Congress has power to “declare war.” Nowhere else in the document is such authority granted to any other portion of the government.
Partisans who want the President to have such power point to the Constitution’s naming the occupier of the White House as “commander in chief of the Army and Navy.” This designation should never be considered the equal of the explicit grant of power solely to Congress to declare war.
The nation’s military arm is not the President’s possession to use as he desires. The sole grant of war-making power to Congress completely outweighs the mere designation of who shall be the commander of forces once a war starts. Professor Ackerman should know this.
The last Congressional use of its Constitutional authority to declare war occurred immediately after the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor in 1941. Formal declarations of war were approved by Congress against Japan, Germany, and Italy. And the U.S. won against each of those struggles.
The nation’s military arm is not the President’s possession to use as he desires.
No declarations of war were approved regarding subsequent wars in Korea, Vietnam, Bosnia, Iraq, Afghanistan and more — and the U.S. didn’t win any of those contests. Numerous Presidents have sent small military detachments to rescue Americans in danger, reply swiftly to some outrage perpetrated against our nation, etc. And few if any disapproved of these moves and insisted that formal Congressional declarations were needed.
But war is something else and, according to the Constitution, if there is to be one, it must be formally declared.
If prominently placed professors of law and political science don’t understand this, it’s no wonder that our nation hasn’t won a war since 1945. Nor should it be surprising to see our military being used to police the world with authorization supplied by the United Nations or its NATO subsidiary.
A return to the Constitution’s easily understood passages regarding war is long overdue.
The Birch Log is copyright © 2014 by John F. McManus. All rights reserved.
John F. McManus is President of The John Birch Society.
See a complete biographical sketch.
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