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The Spectacle Blog
Jim: I think we’ve come to the nub of our disagreement. Your central contention, as I understand it, is that wars conducted without congressional authorization were less common in early American history than they have been in recent American history. I just don’t think this argument can be sustained in the face of the historical record. The US Navy spent much of the 19th Century fighting to protect American interests, from China and Sumatra to the Carribean and Mediterranean. You may dismiss most of these skirmishes as “clearly not wars,” but I think that Max Boot’s phrase “small wars” conveys much more accurately what US forces have regularly engaged in from very early on (and Boot’s The Savage Wars of Peace: Small Wars and the Rise of American Power really drives home just how common it has been, starting in the first decade of the 1800s, for US forces to go to battle abroad).
I will say I’m a bit uncomfortable with John Yoo’s assertion that Presidents didn’t need congressional authorization even in many cases where they sought it. Surely an argument based in part on the historical record of how our Constitutional order has worked in practice mustn’t dismiss so much of that record. David Rifkin and Lee Casey make an interesting argument that airstrikes on Libya don’t require congressional approval as a Constitutional matter, but regime change would. I’m not entirely convinced that this is workable as a general principle, but I’m inclined to think it’s a pretty useful one for thinking about the specific case of Libya.
As a matter of policy, I’ve been ambivalent about the war in Libya precisely because of the administration’s caginess about the endgame: Gaddafi’s overthrow is the stated goal of US policy but not the stated goal of the military action. So I think Marco Rubio is right: The Senate should authorize the war, and state plainly that it’s a war to remove Gaddafi.
William R| 3.31.11 @ 7:23PM
"Later in his review, Boot defends Harry Truman against my charge that in committing American troops to South Korea in 1950, he disregarded his constitutional duty to ask Congress for a declaration of war. That happens to have been the view of Sen. Robert A. Taft, who was known in his day as “Mr. Republican.” (We can only imagine Boot’s opinion of Taft.) I don’t seem to realize, according to Boot, that “previous presidents had sent U.S. troops into battle hundreds of times without any declaration of war.”
This is a classic example of neoconservative obfuscation. The examples Boot is speaking of do not involve the president deploying troops in offensive operations against foreign governments. The first time that happened was in 1900, when William McKinley sent 5,000 American troops to China to suppress the Boxer Rebellion, a revolt of Chinese nationalists connected to the Chinese government. (Historian Walter LaFeber notes that few people at the time appreciated the precedent that McKinley was setting in that relatively minor affair.) The book’s discussion of presidential war powers makes perfectly clear just how limited the Framers of the Constitution intended them to be. There is no room for debate here: I am right and Boot is spectacularly and outrageously wrong."
http://www.amconmag.com/article/2005/mar/28/00029/
crazy| 3.31.11 @ 7:37PM
An Act of War is one thing - a State of War is another thing entirely. In the end this debate will be "settled" at the ballot box when the people are able to render an opinion on the manner in which Congress and the President have acted in our interest.
bd57| 4.1.11 @ 10:43AM
Here's the money quote, imo:
"Surely an argument based in part on the historical record of how our Constitutional order has worked in practice mustn't dismiss so much of that record."
Presidents have an interest in expanding the reach of their powers and Congresses have an interest in constraining them. "How it has worked out in the past" gives us an idea of where these competing interests believe "the line" is.
While it's not the only consideration, it isn't irrelevant.
fwb| 4.1.11 @ 11:09AM
The historical only proves Lord Act0n correct. Just because one president or congress did something does not make it legitimate or constitutional. Too many of these folks have teeny weeny and abuse their authority in order to make themselves feel bigger.
The limits on spending control ALL the other actions. The fed is restricted to spending on three objects, the debts and the common defence and general welfare of the United States. This is not the debts, individual defense or individual welfare of a state, or a person, or a foreign nation. It is specifically that "of the United States", a particular political body composed of and geographically limited to the members of the Union.
Because no expenditure may be made for ANYTHING other than those three objects any expenditures such as that in Libya is unconstitutional. It is a use of the People's monies outside the authority allowed to the government.
lol wut?| 4.1.11 @ 11:12AM
yet again your link to amazon is an epic fail. I wish to buy the book in Kindle format and the link has it only in that archaic paper and ink format and forces me to go to the amazon site and reenter the book's name. How so very like the liberals, so not modern. Please fix this as it is, like anything liberals touch, very reactionary and not modern and convenient at all.
Wayne | 4.1.11 @ 2:25PM
So what if Congress does that. Obama could just say that is not the same as the war he himself started. That is THEIR war.
Oldefarte| 4.1.11 @ 4:39PM
Congress is bound by the constitution to ADVISE & CONSENT, approve or disapprove, any military-administrative action of a president!!!!!!