Will Miller Green Mountain Veterans For Peace

The checks and balances in our Constitution which limit the power of the Executive Branch and ensure a democratic form of government, have been repeatedly abrogated by U.S. Presidents bent on war.

 

In 1964, Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution which authorized “the President to do whatever necessary in order to assist any member or protocol state of the Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty,"President Johnson, interpreted the broad language of the Resolution to launchAmerica into a nine year war that killed 58,272 U.S. military and over two million Vietnamese. Congress repealed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution in 1971 and passed the 1973 War Powers Act hoping it would prevent President’s from committing American military forces without specific Congressional authorization. Although his veto was overridden, President Nixon asserted that his conduct of operations in Southeast Asia was an exercise of the President's constitutional authority as Commander in Chief of U.S. military forces.

 

The War Powers Act, notwithstanding, the Clinton administration never sought congressional authorization to use American military force abroad. In 1993 he expanded the mission of American troops in Somalia, originally deployed by President George H.W. Bush for humanitarian reasons, and later, to prevent the ethnic cleansing of Albanians living in Kosovo, ordered forces to engage in air strikes against Serbia. In the summer of 1998, he used Tomahawk cruise missiles to hit suspected terrorist targets in Sudan and Afghanistan. Although Congress refused authorization to use force on several of these occasions, President Clinton justified his military interventions arguing that as Commander-in-Chief, he had Constitutional power to send American military forces into combat.

 

Article VI of the U.S. Constitution states: “This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land.” In 1945 the United States signed a treaty called the United Nations Charter which forbids any signatory, “unless threatened by an imminent attack,” from engaging in war without the authorization of the UN Security Council. On February 6, 2003, Secretary of State Colin Powell sought such authorization for the U.S. to attack Iraq but the U.S. argument was rejected. On March 20, 2003, President George H. Bush attacked Iraq initiating an eight year war that resulted in 4,486 American military killed; between 112,667 and 123,284 Iraqis killed and the Iraq infrastructure destroyed. Although he violated the terms of the United Nations Charter, it was not his most egregious act. The United States entered into international treaties in 1948, 1977, 1988 and 1992 forbidding either physical or psychological torture of prisoners. Nonetheless, following the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center, the Bush administration embarked on a Global War On Terror during which secretly sanctioned torture, as defined by internationally signed treaties and conventions was carried out. When the waterboarding torture of U.S. prisoners was exposed, President Bush’s lawyers created acrobatic legal opinions justifying the use of such torture.

 

At this writing, the outcome of the current Congressional debate on whether or not to give President Obama authorization to attack Syria is unknown. If the vote denies the President the authority to use military force, will he, as so many of his predecessors have done, launch an attack anyway? The historical record is clear: American Presidents disdain the Constitutional power of Congress to declare war as well as the Constitutional imperative of making treaties the supreme law of the land.

 

If President Obama attacks Syria, he will seal the power of an imperial presidency and make the Constitution of the United States worthless.

 

Andrew Schoerke - Veterans For Peace