Should the USA Amend the Constitution to allow the President limited powers of war without a Congressional Declaration of War?
Article I, section 8 of the Constitution is crystal clear. “The Congress shall have Power To… ...provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States;.. ...To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;” As if that were not clear enough, Congress passed the War Powers Act of 1973 stating that the President can send troops into action in foreign lands only by action of Congress.
Even though we have not declared war since our entry into WWII, Presidents from Truman on have taken us into military action after military action with greater or lesser consultation with congress. There is no provision in the Constitution for the outsourcing of the power to declare war to the President, the Supreme Court or anyone else. All wars since WWII have been fought unconstitutionally.
In my view, allowing a President to independently take the nation to war is an extremely dangerous precedent. It takes tremendous ego to even think you should be the leader of the most powerful nation on earth. It takes great charm and charisma to win election to that office. Those are three characteristics often present in psychopaths and determining the difference between a benevolent, altruistic personality and a psychopathic one often takes lengthy observation of behavior. Psychopaths are notoriously able to read other human’s personalities and needs, and conform their behavior to those needs just long enough to get into position to use others as tools to achieve their own grandiose needs for adulation, control and absolute power. Sooner or later, we will get a President who is a psychopath, and if that person has the power to wield the US Military as a tool to achieve their own selfish ends without regards to any consequences to anyone aside from themselves, democracy around the world will be in serious trouble.
All that said, I do recognize that the world moves at a pace today that the Founders could never have foreseen. In the case of Libya, had the President waited to consult with Congress and seek a formal declaration of war, Qaddafi’s armor, tanks and aircraft would have ripped the major cities resisting his dictatorship to shreds. His ground forces would have then taken control of those cites and carries out a massive purge, with the likely civilian death toll being in the millions. With the Arab League on record asking us to prevent that, our inaction would have left Libyan blood on our hands. In addition, where peaceful demonstrations succeeded in changing the governments of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia and Hosni Muurak in Egypt; if Quddafi used military force and crushed the protests against his rule, it would have signaled all other Arab dictators and monarchs that naked force is the way to hold power forever.
So, in a world where quick, limited military action is sometimes required to stop mass genocide, should we amend the Constitution to give our President the authority to commit US forces in a limited action, with a Constitutionally defined maximum scope and timeframe; but require a Congressional Declaration of War, no outsourcing, for anything beyond such limited action? Or should we just continue to ignore the Constitution with the exception of a couple of widely popular portions such as the right to bear arms and the protection of free speech we like to hear?
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