Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Another Endless Undeclared War

We're getting into another one, almost without anyone noticing . . . and as occurred in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and Libya, our more recent venture into Yemen is growing, according to this report. Once again, there is no end in sight and the mission is expanding.


Meanwhile -- as noted below in this June 13 post -- the administration is explicitly claiming the imperial right to unilaterally engage in acts of war in or against other nations, without any congressional approval . . . the Constitution be damned.


That bothersome document sought to make it difficult to commit the nation to war. That was not accidental. It was a deliberate decision by America's founders, who didn't want the nation's citizens kept in perpetual poverty like Europeans who throughout history had been forced to bear the costs of their kings' unending wars against one another.  


What the founders did not foresee were the successive supine congresses since World War II, eager to evade their responsibilities, acquiescing in the seizure by the executive branch of the war making power that under the Constitution was to be exercised solely by the legislative branch.  

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