Stopping U.S. war machine

By Jon Dougherty

I often wonder, as I’m sure many readers have done, what our founding
fathers would think about the way our political system actually operates
today.

My initial gut reaction is that they would be shocked, astonished and
bewildered — not to mention wondering why they shed blood and treasure
in a war for independence against Great Britain in the first place.

On Saturday WorldNetDaily linked to a story
about 31 congressmen who are suing President Clinton for violating the
1973 War Powers Act when he unilaterally committed U.S. troops to battle
in Yugoslavia.

According to law, a president must first seek congressional approval
if he wants to commit American forces to armed conflict for longer than
60 days — Kosovo’s bombing campaign, you will note, lasted 11 weeks, or
78 days.

Better than that, however, is the founder’s version: In Article I,
Sect. 8, only Congress has the power to declare war, “War Powers Act”
notwithstanding. A president has no authority to commit U.S. forces to
battle unless it is in the absolute bona fide defense of this country’s
borders. Kosovo wasn’t even close.

So these 31 congressmen sued. Now, after two court appearances, two
separate federal judges have tossed this lawsuit, claiming these men and
women “have no standing to sue.”

Say what?

Last June U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman dismissed the case,
saying those who sued failed to show “a sufficiently genuine
impasse
between the legislative and executive branches to give them
standing (my emphasis).” The congressmen were aghast at that claim; they
noted in their lawsuit that a 213-213 House vote last April fell short
of authorizing U.S. participation in the bombing.

Sounds like an “impasse” to me.

In the second case, on appeal, Judge Laurence Silberman said the
members of Congress lacked standing because they had “ample legislative
power to have stopped prosecution of the war.”

Obviously not, if the vote was tied, Judge Silberman.

But the point is, Clinton violated not only the letter of the
Constitution but the letter of the War Powers Act on this one.
Why in Heaven’s name is he not being held liable for it?

If Congress cannot muster the cajones to hold the Executive Branch to
the letter of the law, then — in our system — the Judicial Branch is
supposed to be there to pick up the slack.

Clinton is not alone in violating the constitutional parameters for
waging war.

Truman sentenced some 53,000 Americans to death in Korea without
asking for a declaration of war. Congress let him get by with it.

Presidents Johnson and Nixon committed — then kept — U.S. forces in
Vietnam for 11 long years without a formal declaration of war,
and they too got by with it. Over 58,000 Americans lost their lives
there. President Bush sent nearly 400,000 U.S. troops to expel Saddam
Hussein’s Iraqi troops from Kuwait without a formal declaration of war.

There are many, many more examples of commitments of U.S. troops to
battle via presidential “decree.”

Sen. John McCain, Vice President Al Gore, Sen. Bill Bradley and, to a
lesser extent, Texas Gov. George Bush are all of the mind that neither
Constitution nor law should prevent them from committing U.S. military
forces to battle, without so much as a tacit approval from
Congress.

If Americans are not willing to force our elected officials — or the
courts — to either observe the rule of law in this country or suffer
the legal consequences, then we have no right to complain when our sons
and daughters are killed by foreign troops in some muddy trench
thousands of miles away.

Our armed forces are specifically and unequivocally set up to
defend our national security, our borders, and our people from
invasion or outside threats. That does not include sending tens of
thousands of our men and women overseas just because somebody’s
“conscience” is offended or because our elitists seek to “influence”
another part of the world.

Our founders would be ashamed at our leaders’ lack of self-control
and humility, and our lack of will to do anything about their abuses of
power.

Jon Dougherty

Jon E. Dougherty is a Missouri-based political science major, author, writer and columnist. Follow him on Twitter. Read more of Jon Dougherty's articles here.