Many commentators have noted the increasing power of the Office of the Presidency in recent decades. Since World War II, we have been involved in repeated foreign wars of choice, first to fight the spread of Communism and of late to fight the threat of terrorism. Under the Constitution, the power to declare war is of course reserved to the Congress. However, in recent foreign wars, Congress has in effect abdicated its Constitutional responsibilities in favor of delegating the decision to go to war to the President. The Korean War, as many older folk will remember, was euphemistically referred to as "Police Action," no doubt in part to avoid the issue of the need for Congressional authority to officially declare "war." The following discussion of the War Powers Resolution of 1973 is taken from Wikipedia.
The War Powers Resolution of 1973 (50 U.S.C. 1541-1548)[1] is a federal law intended to check the President's power to commit the United States to an armed conflict without the consent of Congress. The resolution was adopted in the form of a United States Congress joint resolution; this provides that the President can send U.S. armed forces into action abroad only by authorization of Congress or in case of "a national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces."
The War Powers Resolution requires the President to notify Congress within 48 hours of committing armed forces to military action and forbids armed forces from remaining for more than 60 days, with a further 30 day withdrawal period, without an authorization of the use of military force or a declaration of war. The resolution was passed by two-thirds of Congress, overriding a presidential veto.
The War Powers Resolution was disregarded by President Reagan in 1981 by sending military to El Salvador and later the Contras in Nicaragua, by President Clinton in 1999, during the bombing campaign in Kosovo, and by President Obama in 2011, when he did not seek congressional approval for the attack on Libyan forces, arguing that the Resolution did not apply to that action. All incidents have had congressional disapproval, but none have had any successful legal actions taken against the president for violations.[2][3] All presidents since 1973 have declared their belief that the act is unconstitutional. [4][5]
President Ronald Reagan was voted "The Greatest American" in a poll of Americans a few years ago. How the accomplishments of Reagan could be thought to exceed those of George Washington or Abraham Lincoln or John Adams, to name a few, is beyond me. In my view, George Washington was and always will be "The Greatest American" for all of his accomplishments and sacrifice for our country in war and peace. As many historians have noted, perhaps his greatest act contributing to the long term success of our country was in peacefully giving up the reins of power after two terms as President, which established a precedent that has stood us in good stead for two hundred years now. Few nations in history have featured the peaceful relinquishment of power by the head of state. The world continues to marvel at this spectacle to this day.
The Iran-Contra Affair, so-called, has somewhat been forgotten in the Republicans' push to canonize Ronald Reagan in American history. However, the facts surrounding this event are worth reviewing. Basically, this shady event was the confluence of two highly questionable government undertakings by the Reagan administration. President Reagan and his staff decided to trade weapons to Iran with the hope of freeing up hostages. Ultimately, the plan didn't work. There was an attempt to keep the process secret but the truth eventually came out. Some of the money generated by the sale of arms to Iran ended up being diverted to the Contra rebels in Nicaragua in an administration effort to aid the anti-communist rebel force that had been largely trained and encouraged by the CIA. Congress had previously passed the Boland Amendment that prevented the Reagan administration from aiding the Contras. However, elements within the administration decided to continue the aid to the Contras, despite the fact that such actions were illegal and violated a specific act of Congress, not to mention a subversion of the Constitution, which of course assigned the power to declare war to the Congress. Numerous Reagan administration officials were convicted and went to jail over this incident. Reagan, however, claimed that he had no memory of any of this and avoided responsibility for funding a war that both violated a specific law and also evaded the Constitution's mandate that the Congress decide when the country should go to war. However, President Reagan made it clear to those around him that he considered the President's Constitutional role as Commander-in-Chief to be sufficient authority to authorize military action without the consent of Congress. Reagan, advised by Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, among other Nixon veterans, clearly subscribed to Nixon's stated view that "if the President authorizes it, it's not illegal." So, it is very clear that President Reagan did not believe that he needed Congressional approval to take the actions that his administration ended up taking. His claim of no knowledge and no memory would seem to be a pretty weak and transparent excuse for avoiding the serious and significant wrongdoing conducted by his administration. President Reagan's exorbitant view of his own power as President clearly set the atmosphere in which the Iran-Contra scandal unfolded.
Although the Regan-appointed Tower Commission failed to find evidence that the President himself was aware of the schemes being conducted around him, a Congressional Report found that he either knew or should have known about the actions that so many prominent members of his staff had been conducting. The Congressional investigating committee issued its own report on November 18, 1987, stating that "If the president did not know what his national security advisers were doing, he should have." The congressional report further stated that the President bore "ultimate responsibility" for wrongdoing by his staff members, and that his administration had demonstrated "secrecy, deception and disdain for the law." It also read in part: "The central remaining question is the role of the President in the Iran-contra affair. On this critical point, the shredding of documents by Poindexter, North and others, and the death of Casey, leave the record incomplete." Reagan was lucky to avoid impeachment and jail, as so many of his underlings went to jail because of the Iran-Contra affair and various other scandals. All told, there were some 32 convictions in his administration during his eight-year term. The Gipper somehow slipped off the hook. "Greatest American" indeed.
The main point of course is the further drift toward the acceptance of the concept that the head of state, as Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, necessarily possesses the authority to order U.S. troops into combat without the necessity of a declaration of war from Congress. President Reagan continued the idea that had been developing since the Truman administration that the President had no need for prior Congressional authorization prior to plunging the country into war.
President George H.W. Bush continued the Reagan approach and only reluctantly approached Congress shortly prior to ordering the beginning of fighting in Desert Storm. Clearly Bush I was an adherent of the view of broad Presidential authority under the Commander-in-Chief role. Comments made by President Bush suggested that he may have been motivated more than he should have been by a desire to avoid being perceived by the American public and world community as a "wimp," as he had been characterized by some in the election season of 1988. President Clinton continued down much the same path in dealing with the explosive unraveling of the former Yugoslavia. As noted above, President Clinton ignored his duties under the War Powers Resolution.
In late 2002, Congress in effect authorized then President George W. Bush to use his own personal discretion as to whether to invade Iraq. Even a majority of Democratic Senators and Congressmen were willing to cede this awesome amount of authority to one man, George W. Bush, apparently in large part because individual Congressmen and Senators did not want to get caught "on the wrong side of history." (See, Senator Dale Bumpers, D. Arkansas, who lost his Senate seat in Arkansas after his nay vote in a Senate vote to authorize President George H. W. Bush to determine the scope of military operations in Kuwait in what became known as Operation Desert Storm). So, essentially, all the rest of the 300 million of us Americans could have foreseen that the invasion of Iraq was an insane, unnecessary and totally unjustified folly, but one person, one human being, one Homo Sapien--George Walker Bush--could simply decide to ignore all the rest of us and plunge us into a bloody and costly war, the purpose of which has not really been explained to this day. This is clearly not what was intended by the Founders in the Constitution. In retrospect, at least with regard to the unnecessary, misbegotten war in Iraq, the wisdom of the Founders seems pretty sound.
Current law under the War Powers Resolution allows the President to take military action in exigent circumstances but that he/she seek Congressional approval within two months. President Obama was criticized for not doing this in a timely manner for the American military participation in the Libyan conflict in 2011, although he did ultimately notify Congress pursuant to the War Powers Resolution.
A great part of President Washington's legacy was his respect for the Constitution and his ability to act in the country's best interests rather than his own. President Washington turned down power for the sake of the country's best interests. Too many, if not all, of our recent Presidents, with the possible exception of Dwight D. Eisenhower, have been eager to enhance their own personal authority and power even at the expense of distorting the Constitutional relationship between the Presidency and the Congress.
It has become clear yet again that a decision to enter into a war is rightly a decision for the American people, through their elected representatives, and not a decision that should be made by one person. And our Congressional representatives should have the backbone to make a determination without worrying whether they are going to end up "on the wrong side of history," and thereby vulnerable in future elections. Backbone and a selfless devotion to the best interests of the country have been in short supply in recent years. After the debacle of the Iraq war, one would think that a President would want to have the cover of Congressional approval for any war other than a response to a direct attack on the United States or its allies.
August 19, 2013
Congressman Ron Paul, the Great Libertarian, has some pretty wacky ideas but he made a speech in Congress where he did a good job setting out the problem of allowing the President all the power to make decisions about going to war. Here's a link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeCpLcjxOq4
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