ELVIS
11-16-2004, 11:03 PM
Michael Gaddy (http://www.sierratimes.com/04/11/15/mgaddy.htm)
"The reason we start a war is to fight a war, win a war, thereby causing no more war!" — GW Bush; First presidential debate
If you have sold your heart and mind to either of the two major political parties, you are going to find yourself having to defend an awful lot of lies and shysters. And, yes, you will have to defend evil. Whether it be the lesser or the greater, you WILL have to defend evil. And when you start defending this evil, what makes you any better than the other guys, whom you claim are also evil?
I would ask all those who have defended either party/candidate to an opponent lately to ask themselves: when was the last time I defended my candidate/party by quoting the Constitution and explaining how my candidate/party was following it to the letter?
Recently, a reader responded to one of my articles by attacking my defense of the Constitution. Sounds strange, but it is true. Here are his/her words, directly from the feedback at Sierra Times.
"You write: "Most are so ignorant they do not even realize the war is unconstitutional! They can site lie after lie from the Bush campaign rhetoric, Limbaugh or Hannity, but do not know the particulars of Article 1 section 8 of their own constitution. Now, what is more important to millions of Americans: candidate/party or Constitution?"
I know Article 1, section 8 very well, Michael, and have pointed out that a formal declaration of war is NOT required to conduct military operations.
Indeed! The history of the United States indicates the exact same thing -- that no formal declaration of war is needed to fight military engagements. Out of the over 200 military actions since the inception of our Republic, only five (5) have been declared wars: War of 1812, the Mexican war, the Spanish American war and the two world wars: WWI and WWII."
The point of contention here is whether Congress must declare a war or whether the president can conduct that war on his own, using the "war powers act."
In understanding this question, it would behoove us to look at the words of those who founded this nation and what their thoughts on the subject were as they discussed the construction of the Constitution.
Thomas Jefferson warned us that there would be those who would try to "fit" the constitution to their needs/desires and proposed that those who wish to pursue this tact should amend the Constitution rather than violate it. Has anyone in politics suggested amending the constitution to allow the executive branch to declare war? If they believe in it so highly, why has that not been done?
"In every event, I would rather construe so narrowly as to oblige the nation to amend, and thus declare what powers they would agree to yield, than too broadly, and indeed, so broadly as to enable the executive and the Senate to do things which the Constitution forbids." --Thomas Jefferson: The Anas, 1793. ME 1:408
Now, a look at the notes of the man who is credited with being the author of the Constitution, James Madison:
"Mr. M(adison) and Mr. Gerry moved to insert 'declare,' striking out [the legislative power to] 'make' war; leaving to the Executive the power to repel sudden attacks.
"Mr. Sharman [Sherman] thought it stood very well. The Executive shd. Be able to repel and not to commence war....
"Mr. Mason was agst giving the power of war to the Executive, because not (safely) to be trusted with it.... He was for clogging rather than facilitating war; but for facilitating peace. He preferred 'declare' to 'make'." Constitutional Convention
(Madison's notes on the Constitutional Convention, 1787)
When Pierce Butler of South Carolina, at the Constitutional Convention, formally proposed giving the president the power to start war, Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts said that he "never expected to hear in a republic a motion to empower the executive to declare war." Butler's motion was quickly rejected.
Now a look into Madison's thoughts on the matter in a letter to Thomas Jefferson:
"The constitution supposes, what the History of all Govts. demonstrates, that the Ex. is the branch of power most interested in war, & most prone to it. It has accordingly with studied care, vested the question of war in the Legisl: But the Doctrines lately advanced strike at the root of all these provisions, and will deposit the peace of the Country in that Department which the Constitution distrusts as most ready without cause to renounce it." James Madison
(Letter to Thomas Jefferson, April 2, 1798)
Now, these thoughts on the subject by Alexander Hamilton:
"In this distribution of powers the wisdom of our constitution is manifested. It is the province and duty of the Executive to preserve to the Nation the blessings of peace. The Legislature alone can interrupt those blessings, by placing the Nation in a state of War." Alexander Hamilton
(Pacificus #1, June 29, 1793)
"War is a question, under our constitution, not of Executive, but of Legislative cognizance. It belongs to Congress to say - whether the Nation shall of choice dismiss the olive branch and unfurl the banners of War." Alexander Hamilton
(Americanus #1, January 31, 1794)
Hamilton in Federalist 69 compares a president who takes upon himself to commit to war with the King of England. A long, hard, bloody war had been fought to prevent just that and insure our representative Republic.
"The President is to be commander-in-chief of the army and navy of the United States. In this respect his authority would be nominally the same with that of the king of Great Britain, but in substance much inferior to it. It would amount to nothing more than the supreme command and direction of the land and naval forces, as first general and admiral while that of the British king extends to the declaring of war and to the raising and regulating of fleets and armies - all which, by the Constitution under consideration, would appertain to the legislature." Alexander Hamilton
(The Federalist, #69)
Even old Honest Abe had an opinion on the subject. That is, before the siren song of power lured him into believing otherwise.
"Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object. This, our [1787] Convention understood to be the most oppressive of all Kingly oppressions; and they resolved to so frame the Constitution that no one man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon us." Abraham Lincoln
(Letter to William Herndon, February 15, 1848)
"No power but Congress can declare war; but what is the value of this constitutional provision, if the President of his own authority may make such military movements as must bring on war... These remarks originate purely in a desire to maintain the powers of government as they are established by the Constitution between the different departments, and a hope that, whether we have conquests or no conquests, war or no war, peace or no peace, we shall yet preserve, in its integrity and strength, the Constitution of the United States." Daniel Webster
(Speech in Philadelphia, December 2, 1846)
Now let us take a look at what was actually said about the war powers act at its inception in 1972.
"The Constitutional Convention at first proposed to give Congress the power to 'make' war but changed this to 'declare' war, not, however, because it was desired to enlarge Presidential power but in order to permit the President to take action to repel sudden attacks." Senate Foreign Relations Committee
(Report on War Powers, February 9, 1972)
It would appear pretty plain here that the "War Powers Act" was never intended to allow a president to wage an aggressive war, attack a nation and replace its government, but to only have the power to REPEL an attack.
As was so eloquently stated by Doug Bandow:
"The favorite justification for presidents, unilaterally wandering off to war around the globe seems to be: everyone else does it. Proponents of executive war-making contend that ample precedents - two hundred or more troop deployments without congressional approval - exist for the president to act without a congressional declaration. Yet, this list chiefly consists of, as constitutional scholar Edward Corwin put it, "fights with pirates, landings of small naval contingents on barbarous or semi-barbarous coasts, the dispatch of small bodies of troops to chase bandits or cattle rustlers across the Mexican border, and the like."
These are dubious justifications for, say, ousting an existing government and occupying an entire nation. Anyway, et tu remains an unpersuasive reason to ignore the nation's fundamental law; the fact that past chief executives acted lawlessly does not empower the current one to do likewise.
Successive presidents have been able to ignore the Constitution's clear strictures only because successive congresses have allowed them to do so. A Democratically controlled Congress let Harry Truman treat a major land war in Asia as a "police action." From Vietnam to Iraq, Republican congressmen steadfastly defended the right of Republican presidents to levy war on foreign nations. When George Bush introduced troops into Somalia, Republican congressmen opposed invoking the War Powers Resolution, which, they complained, unconstitutionally limited the chief executive's power. Then a Democrat was elected president: Republicans suddenly reread the Constitution. In late 1993, Senate Republican Leader Robert Dole proposed legislation requiring congressional approval for American deployments in Bosnia or Haiti. Congress should be heard "before the body bags are counted, before the caskets come home," he argued.
Democratic legislators, in contrast, spent years attempting to constrain Republican presidents. But when some Republicans questioned Bill Clinton's authority in Somalia early in his presidency, Senate Democrats, led by then-majority leader George Mitchell, rallied to the president's defense. And many of the same Democrats backed President Clinton on his claimed authority to occupy Haiti. Indeed, numerous past Democratic skeptics of military adventurism encouraged the president to unilaterally invade the island nation. Particularly striking was the about-face of many members of the Black Caucus, such as Gulf War opponents Nita Lowey, Major Owens, and Maxine Waters.
Many other legislators simply prefer to avoid taking any responsibility on the usually volatile issue of military intervention. Complained Rep. Lee Hamilton, then chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, "Congress basically wants to let the president make the decision" to deploy troops overseas. Then legislators can carp if the adventure goes awry or applaud if it succeeds."
First, and foremost, the reason for demanding that our government follow our Constitution, as it pertains to declaring war, would be the lives of our military personnel. Had Korea, Vietnam, and the wars against Iraq been fully debated by Congress, more than likely the lies that led to these wars would have surfaced and hundreds of thousands of American military personnel would not have become casualties to these lies. That is not counting the damage mentally to millions who go to bed with the memories of the horrors of war each night.
When it comes to Vietnam and Iraq, perhaps the truth about the Gulf of Tonkin incident, the slant drilling into Iraq by Kuwait, the lies about the babies and the incubators, the Iraqi troops on the Syrian border, Weapons of Mass Destruction, imminent mushroom clouds and other lies would have been uncovered and these wars could have been prevented, if only our politicians honored the Constitution they swore to "uphold and defend."
Presidents, who want to declare wars so they can conduct them, do not want their casus belli subjected to close scrutiny-that is why they want the power of kings. That is why George H.W. Bush said, "I don't think I need it" when asked if congressional approval was necessary before attacking Iraq. Why? "Many attorneys," he said, had "so advised me."
Bill Clinton would echo these thoughts when he proposed war in Bosnia and Haiti, he said he opposed "any attempts to encroach on" his prerogatives and "I would welcome the support of the Congress and I hope that I will have that. But, like my predecessors in both parties, I have not agreed that I was constitutionally mandated to get it."
I find it astonishing that my respondent would seek to justify waging war without a declaration by citing the times it was done unconstitutionally, but it appears he sides with all the rest who support their candidate/party over the Constitution, If we follow this dynamic through to its logical conclusion: anyone is justified in breaking the law, provided someone before has done it a sufficient number of times and not been punished.
Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, Jeffrey Dohmer and Charles Manson would adore my detractor's logic. My detractor also states that he/she has "pointed out that a formal declaration of war is NOT required to conduct military operations," but fails to tell us where he/she derived that empirical right. Most telling is this remark.
"..Because the clause reserving the "right" to declare war was given to Congress and not the President. That means that the President cannot make a formal declaration of war -- only Congress can do that. However, as history itself demonstrates, military actions can be conducted without a formal declaration of war..."
Here my detractor concedes that the president does not have the "right" to declare war and that the right was given to the Congress. Then he/she goes back to the illogical conclusion that because "history" has shown a multitude of these usurpations, now it is OK to violate the Constitution, simply because it has been done before, then attempts the asinine in attempting to differentiate between a war and a military action.
The Bush administration has repeatedly called this a war in Iraq. By my detractor's definition, Bush's action in Iraq is illegal-because Bush has said this is a war-he did not call it a military action!
A quote from Thomas Jefferson on history is right on target here.
"History, in general, only informs us what bad government is." ~Thomas Jefferson
Jefferson was also most clear on what should happen when usurpations of the Constitution occur.
"Where powers are assumed which have not been delegated, nullification of the act is the rightful remedy." --Thomas Jefferson: Draft, Kentucky Resolutions, 1798. ME 17:386
Nothing, anywhere, could better illustrate what depths one must lower themselves to when they support political parties and candidates over their country. They must resort, as the above reader has, to attacking those who defend the Constitution and supporting those who ignore it.
We are reaping the rewards today in this country of supporting politics over country. We cannot last much longer, for "we have found the enemy and he is us."
:elvis:
"The reason we start a war is to fight a war, win a war, thereby causing no more war!" — GW Bush; First presidential debate
If you have sold your heart and mind to either of the two major political parties, you are going to find yourself having to defend an awful lot of lies and shysters. And, yes, you will have to defend evil. Whether it be the lesser or the greater, you WILL have to defend evil. And when you start defending this evil, what makes you any better than the other guys, whom you claim are also evil?
I would ask all those who have defended either party/candidate to an opponent lately to ask themselves: when was the last time I defended my candidate/party by quoting the Constitution and explaining how my candidate/party was following it to the letter?
Recently, a reader responded to one of my articles by attacking my defense of the Constitution. Sounds strange, but it is true. Here are his/her words, directly from the feedback at Sierra Times.
"You write: "Most are so ignorant they do not even realize the war is unconstitutional! They can site lie after lie from the Bush campaign rhetoric, Limbaugh or Hannity, but do not know the particulars of Article 1 section 8 of their own constitution. Now, what is more important to millions of Americans: candidate/party or Constitution?"
I know Article 1, section 8 very well, Michael, and have pointed out that a formal declaration of war is NOT required to conduct military operations.
Indeed! The history of the United States indicates the exact same thing -- that no formal declaration of war is needed to fight military engagements. Out of the over 200 military actions since the inception of our Republic, only five (5) have been declared wars: War of 1812, the Mexican war, the Spanish American war and the two world wars: WWI and WWII."
The point of contention here is whether Congress must declare a war or whether the president can conduct that war on his own, using the "war powers act."
In understanding this question, it would behoove us to look at the words of those who founded this nation and what their thoughts on the subject were as they discussed the construction of the Constitution.
Thomas Jefferson warned us that there would be those who would try to "fit" the constitution to their needs/desires and proposed that those who wish to pursue this tact should amend the Constitution rather than violate it. Has anyone in politics suggested amending the constitution to allow the executive branch to declare war? If they believe in it so highly, why has that not been done?
"In every event, I would rather construe so narrowly as to oblige the nation to amend, and thus declare what powers they would agree to yield, than too broadly, and indeed, so broadly as to enable the executive and the Senate to do things which the Constitution forbids." --Thomas Jefferson: The Anas, 1793. ME 1:408
Now, a look at the notes of the man who is credited with being the author of the Constitution, James Madison:
"Mr. M(adison) and Mr. Gerry moved to insert 'declare,' striking out [the legislative power to] 'make' war; leaving to the Executive the power to repel sudden attacks.
"Mr. Sharman [Sherman] thought it stood very well. The Executive shd. Be able to repel and not to commence war....
"Mr. Mason was agst giving the power of war to the Executive, because not (safely) to be trusted with it.... He was for clogging rather than facilitating war; but for facilitating peace. He preferred 'declare' to 'make'." Constitutional Convention
(Madison's notes on the Constitutional Convention, 1787)
When Pierce Butler of South Carolina, at the Constitutional Convention, formally proposed giving the president the power to start war, Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts said that he "never expected to hear in a republic a motion to empower the executive to declare war." Butler's motion was quickly rejected.
Now a look into Madison's thoughts on the matter in a letter to Thomas Jefferson:
"The constitution supposes, what the History of all Govts. demonstrates, that the Ex. is the branch of power most interested in war, & most prone to it. It has accordingly with studied care, vested the question of war in the Legisl: But the Doctrines lately advanced strike at the root of all these provisions, and will deposit the peace of the Country in that Department which the Constitution distrusts as most ready without cause to renounce it." James Madison
(Letter to Thomas Jefferson, April 2, 1798)
Now, these thoughts on the subject by Alexander Hamilton:
"In this distribution of powers the wisdom of our constitution is manifested. It is the province and duty of the Executive to preserve to the Nation the blessings of peace. The Legislature alone can interrupt those blessings, by placing the Nation in a state of War." Alexander Hamilton
(Pacificus #1, June 29, 1793)
"War is a question, under our constitution, not of Executive, but of Legislative cognizance. It belongs to Congress to say - whether the Nation shall of choice dismiss the olive branch and unfurl the banners of War." Alexander Hamilton
(Americanus #1, January 31, 1794)
Hamilton in Federalist 69 compares a president who takes upon himself to commit to war with the King of England. A long, hard, bloody war had been fought to prevent just that and insure our representative Republic.
"The President is to be commander-in-chief of the army and navy of the United States. In this respect his authority would be nominally the same with that of the king of Great Britain, but in substance much inferior to it. It would amount to nothing more than the supreme command and direction of the land and naval forces, as first general and admiral while that of the British king extends to the declaring of war and to the raising and regulating of fleets and armies - all which, by the Constitution under consideration, would appertain to the legislature." Alexander Hamilton
(The Federalist, #69)
Even old Honest Abe had an opinion on the subject. That is, before the siren song of power lured him into believing otherwise.
"Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object. This, our [1787] Convention understood to be the most oppressive of all Kingly oppressions; and they resolved to so frame the Constitution that no one man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon us." Abraham Lincoln
(Letter to William Herndon, February 15, 1848)
"No power but Congress can declare war; but what is the value of this constitutional provision, if the President of his own authority may make such military movements as must bring on war... These remarks originate purely in a desire to maintain the powers of government as they are established by the Constitution between the different departments, and a hope that, whether we have conquests or no conquests, war or no war, peace or no peace, we shall yet preserve, in its integrity and strength, the Constitution of the United States." Daniel Webster
(Speech in Philadelphia, December 2, 1846)
Now let us take a look at what was actually said about the war powers act at its inception in 1972.
"The Constitutional Convention at first proposed to give Congress the power to 'make' war but changed this to 'declare' war, not, however, because it was desired to enlarge Presidential power but in order to permit the President to take action to repel sudden attacks." Senate Foreign Relations Committee
(Report on War Powers, February 9, 1972)
It would appear pretty plain here that the "War Powers Act" was never intended to allow a president to wage an aggressive war, attack a nation and replace its government, but to only have the power to REPEL an attack.
As was so eloquently stated by Doug Bandow:
"The favorite justification for presidents, unilaterally wandering off to war around the globe seems to be: everyone else does it. Proponents of executive war-making contend that ample precedents - two hundred or more troop deployments without congressional approval - exist for the president to act without a congressional declaration. Yet, this list chiefly consists of, as constitutional scholar Edward Corwin put it, "fights with pirates, landings of small naval contingents on barbarous or semi-barbarous coasts, the dispatch of small bodies of troops to chase bandits or cattle rustlers across the Mexican border, and the like."
These are dubious justifications for, say, ousting an existing government and occupying an entire nation. Anyway, et tu remains an unpersuasive reason to ignore the nation's fundamental law; the fact that past chief executives acted lawlessly does not empower the current one to do likewise.
Successive presidents have been able to ignore the Constitution's clear strictures only because successive congresses have allowed them to do so. A Democratically controlled Congress let Harry Truman treat a major land war in Asia as a "police action." From Vietnam to Iraq, Republican congressmen steadfastly defended the right of Republican presidents to levy war on foreign nations. When George Bush introduced troops into Somalia, Republican congressmen opposed invoking the War Powers Resolution, which, they complained, unconstitutionally limited the chief executive's power. Then a Democrat was elected president: Republicans suddenly reread the Constitution. In late 1993, Senate Republican Leader Robert Dole proposed legislation requiring congressional approval for American deployments in Bosnia or Haiti. Congress should be heard "before the body bags are counted, before the caskets come home," he argued.
Democratic legislators, in contrast, spent years attempting to constrain Republican presidents. But when some Republicans questioned Bill Clinton's authority in Somalia early in his presidency, Senate Democrats, led by then-majority leader George Mitchell, rallied to the president's defense. And many of the same Democrats backed President Clinton on his claimed authority to occupy Haiti. Indeed, numerous past Democratic skeptics of military adventurism encouraged the president to unilaterally invade the island nation. Particularly striking was the about-face of many members of the Black Caucus, such as Gulf War opponents Nita Lowey, Major Owens, and Maxine Waters.
Many other legislators simply prefer to avoid taking any responsibility on the usually volatile issue of military intervention. Complained Rep. Lee Hamilton, then chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, "Congress basically wants to let the president make the decision" to deploy troops overseas. Then legislators can carp if the adventure goes awry or applaud if it succeeds."
First, and foremost, the reason for demanding that our government follow our Constitution, as it pertains to declaring war, would be the lives of our military personnel. Had Korea, Vietnam, and the wars against Iraq been fully debated by Congress, more than likely the lies that led to these wars would have surfaced and hundreds of thousands of American military personnel would not have become casualties to these lies. That is not counting the damage mentally to millions who go to bed with the memories of the horrors of war each night.
When it comes to Vietnam and Iraq, perhaps the truth about the Gulf of Tonkin incident, the slant drilling into Iraq by Kuwait, the lies about the babies and the incubators, the Iraqi troops on the Syrian border, Weapons of Mass Destruction, imminent mushroom clouds and other lies would have been uncovered and these wars could have been prevented, if only our politicians honored the Constitution they swore to "uphold and defend."
Presidents, who want to declare wars so they can conduct them, do not want their casus belli subjected to close scrutiny-that is why they want the power of kings. That is why George H.W. Bush said, "I don't think I need it" when asked if congressional approval was necessary before attacking Iraq. Why? "Many attorneys," he said, had "so advised me."
Bill Clinton would echo these thoughts when he proposed war in Bosnia and Haiti, he said he opposed "any attempts to encroach on" his prerogatives and "I would welcome the support of the Congress and I hope that I will have that. But, like my predecessors in both parties, I have not agreed that I was constitutionally mandated to get it."
I find it astonishing that my respondent would seek to justify waging war without a declaration by citing the times it was done unconstitutionally, but it appears he sides with all the rest who support their candidate/party over the Constitution, If we follow this dynamic through to its logical conclusion: anyone is justified in breaking the law, provided someone before has done it a sufficient number of times and not been punished.
Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, Jeffrey Dohmer and Charles Manson would adore my detractor's logic. My detractor also states that he/she has "pointed out that a formal declaration of war is NOT required to conduct military operations," but fails to tell us where he/she derived that empirical right. Most telling is this remark.
"..Because the clause reserving the "right" to declare war was given to Congress and not the President. That means that the President cannot make a formal declaration of war -- only Congress can do that. However, as history itself demonstrates, military actions can be conducted without a formal declaration of war..."
Here my detractor concedes that the president does not have the "right" to declare war and that the right was given to the Congress. Then he/she goes back to the illogical conclusion that because "history" has shown a multitude of these usurpations, now it is OK to violate the Constitution, simply because it has been done before, then attempts the asinine in attempting to differentiate between a war and a military action.
The Bush administration has repeatedly called this a war in Iraq. By my detractor's definition, Bush's action in Iraq is illegal-because Bush has said this is a war-he did not call it a military action!
A quote from Thomas Jefferson on history is right on target here.
"History, in general, only informs us what bad government is." ~Thomas Jefferson
Jefferson was also most clear on what should happen when usurpations of the Constitution occur.
"Where powers are assumed which have not been delegated, nullification of the act is the rightful remedy." --Thomas Jefferson: Draft, Kentucky Resolutions, 1798. ME 17:386
Nothing, anywhere, could better illustrate what depths one must lower themselves to when they support political parties and candidates over their country. They must resort, as the above reader has, to attacking those who defend the Constitution and supporting those who ignore it.
We are reaping the rewards today in this country of supporting politics over country. We cannot last much longer, for "we have found the enemy and he is us."
:elvis: