President Obama and his congressional cohorts have never paid
much attention to our Constitution. Nancy Pelosi laughed off the
idea of considering it when Obamacare was debated.
Much the same is true whether Obama is implementing
Obamacare or brushing aside other constitutional limits on his
powers. Remember the “concession” he made on requiring religious
institutions to pay for contraception? He just amended the
regulations to require the insurance companies to pay for it,
without anyone paying them back. That, my friends, is what we call
a “Fifth Amendment taking” for which the government — by seizing
something belonging to a private citizen — is responsible to pay
the damaged party, even if it is an insurance company.
Such constitutional abuses are commonplace these days, but
last Thursday the Obama regime took a far more sweeping and dark
turn in a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing. Defense
Secretary Leon Panetta was testifying on possible military action
against Syria. Under questioning by Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala),
Panetta said some things that need to be set out clearly before I
analyze or characterize them.
The issue is Congress’s power to declare war. Under our
Constitution, only Congress has the power to declare war (Article
1, Section 8, Clause 11) and this power is co-extensive with the
power of the president as commander in chief. They — Congress and
the president — are the only authorities named directly or
indirectly as having a constitutional role in that
decision.
When Sessions said that we are not dependent on a NATO or
UN resolution to execute policies in defense of the nation, Panetta
replied:
When it comes to the kind of military action where we want
to build a coalition and work with our international partners then
obviously we would like to have some kind of legal basis to do it
as we did in Libya.
And then it got worse.
SESSIONS: “Do you think you can act without Congress and
initiate a no-fly zone in Syria without congressional
approval?”
PANETTA: You know, again — our goal would be to seek
international permission. And we would — we would come to the
Congress and inform you and determine how best to approach this,
whether or not we would want to get permission from the Congress. I
think those are issues we would have to discuss as we decide what
to do here.
SESSIONS: Well I am almost breathless about that because
what I heard you say is, “we’re going to seek international
approval and we’ll come and tell the Congress what we might do, and
we might seek congressional approval.”… Wouldn’t you agree that
would be pretty breathtaking to the average American?
PANETTA: If we are working with an international coalition
or NATO we would want to be able to get appropriate permissions in
order to be able to do that. All of these countries would want to
have some kind of legal basis on which to act.
SESSIONS: What “legal basis” are you looking for? What
entity?
PANETTA: If NATO made the decision to go in, that would be
one. If we developed an international coalition beyond NATO then
obviously some kind of U.N. security resolution would be the basis
for that.
SESSIONS: So you are saying NATO would give you a “legal
basis”? And an ad hoc coalition of nations would provide a “legal
basis”?
PANETTA: We would seek whatever legal basis we would need
in order to make that justified. We can’t just pull them all
together without getting the legal basis on which to
act.
SESSIONS: I’m all for having international support, but
I’m really baffled by the idea that somehow an international
assembly provides a legal basis for the United States military to
be deployed in combat. I don’t think it’s close to being correct.
They provide no legal authority. The only legal authority that’s
required to deploy the U.S. military is the Congress and the
president and the law in the Constitution.
This is something new. It’s not just another incident of
Obama and his administration cuffing our battered old Constitution,
pushing it aside in some way that a court may easily remedy. Obama
is amending the Constitution by fiat.
Panetta’s oath of office requires him to protect and
defend the Constitution. In what must be seen as a brazen violation
of that oath, he asserted that extra-constitutional authorities and
“international” coalitions have power over America’s wars that are
at least equal to if not superior than that of Congress. None of
those alliances or coalitions, far less the UN, is named in our
Constitution for any purpose. By engrafting them into the
constitutional process, Obama and Panetta are quite literally
overthrowing the Constitution and assuming quasi-imperial
power.
Two things are quite evident. First, that Congress has
allowed its war powers to atrophy since Korea. The slip-sliding
away began then, when the Soviets — mistakenly boycotting the UN
Security Council for some reason and thus missing a chance to veto
— weren’t there when the Council passed its resolution on the
Korean War which, in turn, became a de facto declaration
of war.
Limits on presidential war making have never been popular
and have always been a bit fuzzy. The War Powers Act, passed over
Richard Nixon’s veto, is of questionable constitutionality but
presidents have generally abided by it. Congress’s last assertion
of real war powers was after American forces withdrew from Vietnam
and congressional action cut off funding for the South Vietnamese,
ensuring the North Vietnamese conquest of the south which followed
quickly.
The “Authorization for Use of Military Force” passed after
9/11 is a model of vagueness, confusion, and deference to
presidential power in time of war. It’s not a declaration of war
but it should have been. Our government, in endless pronouncements,
policies, and such, has created such a great ball of fog around our
nation’s intentions that the last remaining clear signal is the
declaration of war. When one is required, as in December 1941 and
in September 2001, the clarity of a declaration has, in itself, a
great power.
None of this is to say that Congress is the only
constitutional authority to decide on war or peace. Presidential
power is co-extensive and declarations of war are unnecessary in
many if not most cases where U.S. forces must be put into action.
For example, we have mutual defense treaties — such as the NATO
treaty — that require us to defend our allies with military force.
No one would say that, the Senate having ratified such treaties, a
further declaration of war would be needed before we came to an
ally’s defense.
But, again, this is different. By openly engrafting
foreign groups and alliances into the Constitution, Obama is —
unconstitutionally and thus illegally — both limiting Congress’s
constitutional powers and duties and expanding his own. It is,
quite literally, a breach of his — and Panetta’s — oath of
office.
Which brings me to the final point. Were it not for the
efforts of Sen. Sessions, we’d probably never had a chance to even
hear what is going on. Sessions has revealed a constitutional
crisis vastly more important than almost any other issue before us
today. So where are the rest of the Republicans?
Why the silence? Is it more important to battle over some
modern-day welfare
queen’s demand for a contraception entitlement, or to spend
more time on television discussing the latest polls?
This is an issue that demands unity and a concerted
counterattack by all Republicans, especially those who believe that
constitutional government must be preserved or America can no
longer be America. Everyone — and I do mean everyone — should
join with Jeff Sessions in counterattacking against Panetta and
Obama’s cavalier constitutional abuse. Shame on all of those who
don’t.
