From a message board I frequent:
I was watching nghtline tonight and they were out there with the soldiers interviewing them and stuff. One of the marines ther was born in Iraq and he and his family had escaped during the Gul War. He seemed to think taking down Iraq was important. He said he wanted Saddam dead and this was personal. He said Sadam was very awful. I find that very interesting. I think if an Iraqi feels that when then we should be all means take it into consideration.
That same line of thinking can be used to justify sending Americans to die in wars with China, North Korea, Cuba, etc. Why is freeing Iraq from a run-of-the-mill dictator any more pressing than liberating a billion Chinese citizens from the yoke of communism? Or freeing North Koreans from communism and starvation? Or returning sovereignty to Tibet? Or righting a hundred other wrongs?
Further, I don't recall anything in my copy of the Constitution that authorized use of American military force to play global cop. But I do remember a president or two saying something about not going abroad in search of monsters to destroy. Call me crazy.
The Constitution does give Congress the ability to declare war.
A lot of the supporters of the war on Iraq would be supportive of invading those countries.
Yes, the Constitution does grant the power to make war. That’s my point. However, it doesn’t grant the President any power to make bad men go away simply because they are bad men. Congress must first declare war.
I find it highly unlikely that Congress is going to declare war on any of the countries I mentioned simply in the name of human liberation. It didn’t actually declare war before going into Iraq either: http://www.house.gov/paul/tst/tst2002/tst101402.htm It danced around the subject with a half-assed, cowardly “you can do what you want” kind of resolution. War was not officially declared. Hence, the Administration acted in an un-Constitutional fashion, relying on a power it doesn’t possess – namely to take a bad man down.
12/5/2003 1:41:00