Gravel bill and strategy

There are at least two candidates who have proposed ending the invasion.

Louis Fisher (senior specialist in separation of powers, Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress):

“President Harry Truman went to war against North Korea in 1950 without asking Congress for authority. Since that time presidents regularly have used military force by relying on what they regard as independent and self-sufficient sources of authority, especially the commander-in-chief clause. These assertions of political power have no legal foundation. . . .

“The framers knew all about monarchical systems that allowed one person to send the nation into war. . . . Instead of leaving the war power in the hands of an executive, the framers relied on collective decision-making through legislative deliberation. . . . The president could take actions necessary to resist sudden attacks. . . . But the president never received, as Mr. Clinton apparently believes, a general power to deploy troops whenever and wherever he thinks best. . . .

“The constitutional balance of power between Congress and the president has not been altered by the UN Charter, mutual security treaties, the threat of nuclear war or other developments of the period since World War II.

“It is hackneyed to argue that contemporary conditions make it necessary to vest in the president the decision to go to war. If the national security risk is great, so is the risk of presidential miscalculation and aggrandizement — all the more reason for insisting military decisions be thoroughly examined and approved by Congress. Contemporary presidential judgments need more, not less scrutiny.” (”Clinton’s Not King –War Is for Congress,” National Law Journal, June 19, 1995, pp. 21, 22. See also Fisher’s Presidential War Power, 1995.)

Francis D. Wormuth (professor of political science, dec.) and Edwin B. Firmage (professor of law, University of Utah):

“Until 1950 [the Korean war], no judge, no President, no legislator, no commentator ever suggested that the President had legal authority to initiate war. The controversialists who have introduced the novel theory supporting such authority have been obliged to revise the war clause. . . . (1793.)

“William Patterson was a delegate to the Convention from New Jersey and was subsequently an associate justice of the Supreme Court. . . . In the latter capacity he ruled . . . that ‘it is the exclusive province of congress to change a state of peace into a state of war.’ No delegate to the Convention and no delegate to any state ratifying convention, gave a different interpretation to the war clause. These authorities, rather than modern theorists, should determine the proper constitutional interpretation of that clause. . . .

“The office of commander in chief has never carried the power of war and peace nor was it invented by the framers of the Constitution. It was a century and a half old when the Constitution was adopted. . . . The Supreme Court has never held that the clause conferred any other powers than those of a military commander, ‘the commander in chief of the army and navy of the United States, and of the militia…..’

http://www.warandlaw.homestead…..ernco.html

Gary Hart, in 2006:

Like some wasting diseases, this constitutional crisis began years ago – with the Cold War in fact. The communist threat at the end of World War II, part of it real and part of it self-generated, wrought substantial changes in our balance-of-power, checks and balances constitutional system. Authority shifted to the executive branch. Much of this shift came from an outright grant of power by successive Congresses unwilling to assume responsibility for conducting a novel kind of warfare that was not concentrated on the open battlefield but in the back alleys of the world.

Declaring massive support for the South Korean government to be a “police action,” President Harry Truman in 1950 sought congressional authorization to make war only obliquely under the aegis of the United Nations, not a formal declaration as required by the U.S. Constitution. This set a pattern that would be followed by successive presidents for the next half century. Truman further warned the Soviet Union not to meddle in Greece and Turkey through a policy that came to be known as the Truman Doctrine.

[snip]

During the Cold War, intelligence became a marshal’s baton. Those who had access to it, particularly the president, held a trump card over those who did not. The theme of “if you only knew what I knew you wouldn’t question my decisions” helped a succession of Cold War president keep Congressional inquiries at bay. It has resonated most blatantly in the George W. Bush administration. “We know secrets having to do with national security that we cannot divulge even to Congress, let alone the American people,” has been their message. Access to intelligence, real or imagined, became the justification for unilateral presidential action.

[snip]

President Bush’s interpretation of his war powers has produced a devilish conundrum, for no peace treaty can possibly bring an end to the fight against terror. There will always be some rogue terrorist. The emergency powers of the president during this “war” can now extend indefinitely, at the pleasure of the president and at great threat to the liberties and rights guaranteed us under the Constitution. The entire scheme has required not just a president intent on accumulating and consolidating executive power, but a compliant Congress, and a judiciary willing to ratify this systematic march toward a quasi-authoritarian structure as well. Arguably, there is no precedent for this dangerous project in American history. Upon its outcome could rest the future of our republic.

[snip]

All of these novelties could be written into the Constitution through the amendment process, but of course that would trigger the debate we’re not having. There are other ways to change the Constitution while avoiding the laborious amendment process. One is to silently ignore a provision, a course of action which takes the collusion of those in office. A spectacular example involves the Constitution’s investment of the power to declare war to Congress. Despite the many hostilities the United States has engaged in over the past 60 years, Congress has not declared war since December 8th, 1941, when Franklin Delano Roosevelt asked Congress for such a declaration following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

Article 1, Section 8 of the United States Constitution is quite explicit in giving Congress, not the President, the power to declare war. No ambiguity here of the original intent. Nor should the Constitution be selectively respected.

[snip]

To merely authorize the use of force, as Congress eventually did, is to avoid responsibility and leave the ominous decision to go to war with an officer who benefits from the extension of powers war brings. – Gary Hart

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…..21896.html

It’s time for We, the People to take back our power, our Congress, and our Armed Forces from those who seized them, and from those who spurn the awesome responsibility they represent and corruptly trade on that power, in imperial Washington.

They cannot be arrested. Constitutionally, the President and Vice President are immune from arrest.

That is Fitzgerald’s dilemma.

The only thing that can be done is Impeachment by the House of Representatives, and conviction at trial in the Senate. At that point, they are removed from office.

And then they can be arrested.

It makes me crazy, but I am so devoted to the Constitution of the United States that I have accepted this.

It could possibly be argued that Congress is not empowered to execute justice (except impeachment), including effecting an arrest; but We the People have original jurisdiction to arrest anyone, or even to depose them. In fact, we have the moral obligation if we believe they are tyranical. Read the Declaration of Independence.

“That is a great essay!!!

Here is a crazy thought. Maybe the U.S should pull all their troops of the streets and just blatantly overtake, surround, and rebuild the oil operation in Iraq, while letting the Iraqis fight out their civil war amongst themselves. Then, when the Iraqis realize they don’t have anything to fight over other than religious differences, they’ll come begging for their oil back. The U.S. could then give it back to them – contingent upon peace and good behavior. Stupid, I know…..”

Joaquin G. @ 192 – Now I get it… Of course! THANK YOU for that excellent, clearcut summary.

In other words, Governor Richardson is proposing to use the CONSTITUTIONAL WAR POWERS that Congress DID NOT INVOKE (because Congress did not “declare war” on terrorism or Iraq) when it passed the 2001 and 2002 AUMFs in the form of legislation based on the War Powers Resolution… [Constitutional war powers which were last used by Congress to declare war on Japan and Germany after Pearl Harbor?]

Which would mean bypassing the flawed 1973 War Powers Resolution, which has enabled our “military force” to be used around the world since WWII without a Congressional declaration of war – a very dangerous precedent that has weakened the Legislative Branch’s powers, rather than reinforcing them as originally intended.

This seems so obvious – why didn’t we think of it years ago…

I’m on board! Full speed ahead.

Senator Byrd’s 10/11/07 AUMF anniversary date-certain for an end to our occupation is starting to look more and more inviting – if only Congress could get its principles together before August and do what Richardson suggests. What a world that would be…

P.S. This is a classic example of the citizenry (because less familiar and less versed in the ways of Congress) being kept in the dark by our politicians (until Richardson’s proposal) and media about achievable, realistic ways and means for Congress to end the Executive Branch’s ability to wage war against the will of the American people, even without “60 votes” in the Senate or holding more than a bare majority in both houses of Congress (and without the need to refuse to propose a spending bill in the House). What’s Howard Dean playing at, for example, by pretending that it will take a Democratic President in two years before the Legislative Branch can exert its Constitutional powers again? This Richardson proposal calls that Democratic leadership bluff, and how.

Go read your comments on the thread last night LS.

Mark, I am happy to do so. Where? To what are you referring? Tell me where to read, and I will go there, I’m not sure what you are referring to. If I can locate the problem, I assure you I will address it. If I was in error, I assure you I will apologize. Please tell me what you are referring to.

LS made an utterly ludicrous suggestion which would get vast numbers of your troops massacred. When I pointed out last night that for that utterly ludicrous suggestion to have even a remote chance of success that you would need an extra 600,000 combat troops they very carefully didnt reply.

Tonight LS is trying to deny that and affecting injured innocence and moreover tonight they made a completely ludicrous factual error which even ½ second glance at a map would have shown to be a ludicrous error.

I’m not even slightly impressed by somebody who not to put too fine a point prostitutes the misery and the evil of war because they’re too effing wrapped up in themselves to admit that made ludicrous mistakes of the sort that get people killed.

And spare me that garbage about how you tried your best to stop the war because there’s a simple ugly fact of the matter. Your best wasn’t good enough and continues to be not good enough and lots and lots of people are dead .

Come back and bitch about me when you’ve succeeded. There’s nothing effing polite about killing people.

Dear MarkfromIreland,
With all due respect, I realize that attempting to speak with you directly may not be the wisest thing to do, but in all seriousness, please allow me to inquire as to what it was that I suggested that has caused your anger toward me? Perhaps, if I knew what you were referring to precisely, I could respond accordingly. I would graciously appreciate your response.