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Bipartisan Effort To Strengthen War Powers Act
A bipartisan group of six congressmen—Jones (R-NC), Delahunt (D-MA), Abercrombie (D-HI), Brady (D-PA), Gilchrest (R-MD) and Ron Paul (R-TX)—have introduced a bill strengthening the 1973 War Powers Act. This is an important development for those who care about boring old things like democracy, yet it's gotten little attention online and almost none in the regular media.
To learn more, start with an impressively honest column by George Will and Chris Weigant's useful analysis. You can also check out the bill itself, press releases from Delahunt and from Jones, and well as stories from the Sun-Journal in North Carolina, Voice of America and CNS News.
I hope this would receive HUGE support from all rep's.
Sadly, I predict it will find unreasonable excuses and double-talk and little clear support.
Good work - stay on this. Maybe someone in the MSM will have to take notice.
i notice that among the sponsers of this bill that would limit the powers of the executive branch, there is exactly one candidate seeking the executive office.
only one.
he's written and spoken on the floor about war powers and wars without declarations quite often in the past
here's one:
www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul57.html
here's another:
www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul393.html
and another, condemning 'The Neoconservative Empire':
www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul369.html
one from 1997:
www.house.gov/paul/tst/tst97/tst112497.htm
warning in 1998, 'US Must Not Trample Constitution to Attack Iraq':
www.house.gov/paul/tst/tst98/tst021698.htm
again, in '98 'Unconstitutional Wars Gravest of Crimes;
Congress Must Reclaim From President Power to Declare War':
www.house.gov/paul/tst/tst98/tst122198.htm
from '02, 'War in Iraq, War on the Rule of Law?':
www.house.gov/paul/tst/tst2002/tst082602.htm
pretty strong record on the issue
HERE'S something Constitutional---1-202-225-0100 DEMAND IMPEACHMENT.
House tied in knots over resolution to impeach Cheney
http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2007/11/house-tables-re.html
It will be interesting to see who votes on which side of this issue.
i'm with the george will, overall, but this:
[[ For today's Democrats, resistance to unilateral presidential war-making reflects not principled constitutionalism but petulance about the current president. Democrats were supine when President Bill Clinton launched a sustained air war against Serbia without congressional authorization. ]]
petulance is a fine motivation; but even with that, i think george's being a little skunky here, not allowing dems to have an opinion on the military action itself. also i suspect george of bad faith -- his list of congressional dissent is incomplete in a somewhat leading way.
charles stevenson, whom george cites, wrote here:
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/08/22/3345/
that:
[[ Consider some of those binding restrictions. President McKinley was barred by law from annexing Cuba. There were many laws limiting Franklin Roosevelt's ability to send arms to nations threatened by Hitler until shortly before Pearl Harbor...
... the 1969 ban on sending ground combat troops into Laos or Thailand; the 1970 ban on reintroducing US combat troops into Cambodia; and the 1973 ban on US combat operations anywhere in Southeast Asia.... operations in Angola.
... Lebanon in 1983, permitting them to use force only in self-defense.... Somalia after March 31, 1994, and in Rwanda after October 7, 1994 -- measures which wrote into binding law promises already made to Congress.... President George W. Bush has complied with ceilings on the number of US military and contractor personnel sent to Colombia. ]]
george's subset of that seems on the passive-aggressive side.
Well, it's about 6 years late
and several trillion dollars
short, but better late than
never! LOL
So what's your analysis Jonathan? Do you agree with George Will completely, do you disagree with some of his reasoning? Is the angle you're taking on it based on independent principles or is it based on a belief in an originalist interpretation of the Constitution? There's quite a spectrum between, say, Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul. Where do you fit in on this?
Right analysis, wrong thesis. George Bush does not care about things like the Congress and the Judiciary, remember? The administration violates the law at whim, and faces no consequences like impeachment. What makes you think they would decide to follow this law, and what makes it different from the laws he decided not to follow?
Salty, i agree that bush doesn't pay heed to the constitution, but then neither does the congress
remember that he DID go to congress, and congress gave HIM permission to decide when to declare war
not just the repubs in congress either
several democrats running for president (and the one they ran in 2004) were either backing the bush doctrine of premptive war & regime change, or they were too stupid to see through the bullshit (bad either way) though some dems and even a few repubs were bright enough to see both the forest AND the trees, and voted 'no'
what they did was kind of like giving whiskey and the keys to the 'Vette to a teenage boy, and they had every reason to know it.
in doing that, they were ignoring the constitution's clearly stated intention that CONGRESS declare war
NOT any one man
i believe every president from Nixon through Clinton is on record as saying they didn't think the War Powers Act was constitutional in the first place