Wow. Is this guy still operating on dial-up and so unable to check recent history?
But whatever Obama’s underlying motivations [for seeking Congressional approval for a strike on Syria] and however the Syrian vote plays out on Capitol Hill, the president’s decision to go to Congress represents an historic turning point. It may well be the most important presidential act on the Constitution and war-making powers since Harry Truman decided to sidestep Congress and not seek their backing to launch the Korean war.
Yeah, Truman relied on the UN alone--just like President Obama did for Libya two years ago--to wage war.
Why wasn't the turning point during George W. Bush's first term when he went to Congress for authorization to use force for both the Afghanistan War and the Iraq War? As Instapundit notes, that recent history is mentioned nowhere in this fawning bit of nonsense fluffing up the president's bizarre flip-flop.
And do I need to remind people we had the Tonkin Gulf Resolution authorizing American military action in Vietnam? The author of that piece mentions it like Congressional authorization didn't count because the incident may not have happened and that the only reason we went to war was that incident. Hogwash.
You can say the incident was a pretext, but the underlying reasons didn't require the incident to be true at that moment. Without the underlying causes, the pretext--true or fales--would have been ignored. Heck, if the author was right, we'd have gone to war over Iran's foiled effort to plant a bomb in Washington, D.C.--a plot I did think was a reason to go to war with Iran.
Likewise, we listed many reasons for going to war with Saddam Hussein's Iraq in addition to WMD programs. To say that Bush's claims about WMD were hyperbole is to not understand the word "hyperbole." It was not an obvious exaggeration. Every major intelligence agency believed Saddam had WMD. Saddam's generals believed he had WMD. Saddam had in fact used WMD freely against Iranian troops and against Iraqi Kurds.
And there is no doubt that without regime change, Saddam's raw material stockpiles, technicians, and machinery would have allowed Saddam to rebuild chemical weapons stocks within months of a decision to go.
Yes, the author notes the lack of Congressional action over Libya but fails to see that as precedent for future presidents. No, only the possible Congressional authorization is leg-tingly Constitutional restoration in the making. (Hey, what about the Quasi-War with France and the Tripolitan War? This is why the issue is a grey area, people!)
The idea that President Obama is some born-again strict constructionist on the Constitution is just ridiculous. If the UN Security Council wasn't blocked by Russia and China, we'd have struck Syria by now and Congress would be forgotten by the White House as it extolled the virtues of the international community blessing his decision.
And let's not even bother with the president's repeated statements that he'll act on domestic issues through executive orders and administrative rules since Congress won't do what the president wants. Yeah, the respect for Congressional authority is awesome.
If this is a turning point in presidential warmaking, it is on a baser level that seems to be injecting partisan politics into war issues--or perhaps some "peace in our time" deal--affecting the nation and world.
I really wish Clausewitz wasn't translated as "war is an extension of politics by other means." He meant diplomacy (or "policy") rather than politics. And he meant that war should have an objective just like diplomacy. Sending messages should be restricted to Twitter.
And if this administration is historic, it is in its ability to knock down Jimmy Carter as the worst president in modern history. I remain glad that our country proved we would elect an African American as our president. I remain baffled that our country would reelect this president. We've had a good run as the sole superpower. Perhaps the turning point is the self-inflicted end of that dominance.
Excuse me. I went on a bit more than I intended. It just really torques me off when the leg-tingling, creased-pant-admiring people get all googly eyed when they notice their guy do anything at all that rises above the level of physically injuring himself from his own clumsy actions.
