Apparently Rick Santorum is cut from the same fabric as Barack Obama when it comes to congressional declarations of war, as required by the Constitution.

On Jan. 9, Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum spoke outside MaryAnn’s Café in Manchester, N.H. Once inside, the former Pennsylvania senator told one customer that he would use a strategic military strike against Iran, claiming that this strike would not be considered an act of war. When the customer asked Santorum if he would ask for authorization from Congress to initiate a military strike, Santorum said he would consult Congress, but didn’t need to ask permission because Obama didn’t need permission to strike Libya.

Santorum engages in some “fuzzy math.” He apparently thinks two wrongs somehow make a right. Santorum sounds more like a third-grader justifying his position to little Jonnie regarding the rules in the playground. Only this is about American soldiers’ lives and Americas’ future. And the last time we checked a “strategic military strike” was an act of war.

Article I, section 8, clause 11 of the United States Constitution says, “The Congress shall have power…To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water.” Nothing in our Constitution gives the president the power to unilaterally order a strategic military strike the way we’ve seen in recent years.

A good offense might make a good defense, but the Constitution is the Constitution, and a good offense requires a declaration of war from Congress.

The War Powers Act of 1973 states in section 2, paragraph (a), “It is the purpose of this joint resolution to fulfill the intent of the framers of the Constitution of the United States and insure that the collective judgment of both the Congress and the President will apply to the introduction of United States Armed Forces into hostilities, or into situations where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances, and to the continued use of such forces in hostilities or in such situations.” Paragraph (c) states; “The constitutional powers of the President as Commander-in-Chief to introduce United States Armed Forces into hostilities, or into situations where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances, are exercised only pursuant to (1) a declaration of war, (2) specific statutory authorization, or (3) a national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces.”

The first question that immediately comes to mind here is: if the War Powers Act was really passed with the intent stated – “It is the purpose of this joint resolution to fulfill the intent of the framers of the Constitution of the United States” – then why even bother with the Act? Just follow the Constitution. If The War Powers Act is the document that Obama and Santorum argue justifies their actions, then why do they violate, or in Santorums’ case advocate violating, paragraph (c) numbers one and three?

Obama defiantly violated the Constitution when he initiated offensive military action against Libya without a declaration of war. Santorum clearly intends to follow the same path with Iran. After all, it must be OK. Obama did it. This raises the question: what difference exists between Obama and Santorum.

Answer: none.

Two peas in a war  pod.

A look at Obamas’ and Santorums’ voting records reveals a fundamental similarity between these two supposed antagonists. They both repeatedly violated the Constitution.

The “fourth branch of government,” aka the establishment media (in this case the NY Times and here and here) justifies their actions, declaring that “more power has lodged in the white house than on capitol Hill.” Funny thing, this was clearly not the intention of the framers.

James Madison expressed his distrust of the executive branch, especially in the realm of war powers, many times. In a letter to Thomas Jefferson, Madison wrote.

“The constitution supposes, what the History of all Governments demonstrates, that the Executive is the branch of power most interested in war, & most prone to it. It has accordingly with studied care, vested the question of war in the Legislature.”

As with all unconstitutional acts, executive orders and provisions buried in lengthy legislation, designed to circumvent the Constitution, sponsors and supporters of these bills seek a ruling in their favor from the Supreme Court of the United States to justify their position. Further, when the Supreme Court rules in favor of these unconstitutional Acts, all three branches of government are in violation of our Constitution.

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So much for balance of power.

Pundits constantly play up the supposed conflict between the two parties, portraying them as polar opposites. But when it comes to violating the Constitutional delegation of war powers, they generally draw up their strategy from the same playbook. Obama and Santorum illustrate this reality.

Two peas in a war pod.

Doug Berge [send him email] is the state chapter coordinator for the Rhode Island Tenth Amendment Center.

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NOTE: Recorded at the close of Tenther Radio Episode 24, the following is a special message from Michael Boldin about next week’s show on Pearl Harbor Day, covering war powers and the Constitution..
The show airs live online every Wednesday at 5pm Pacific Time here. Find us on iTunes at this link.

I want to close the show tonight by – well – inviting you to tune in to next week’s show, at 5pm Pacific time on Wednesday December 7, 2011.

This is not your normal “tune in next week…” message. December 7 being the anniversary of the Pearl Harbor tragedy in 1941, we’re going to spend most of our time on something that’s not discussed enough in constitutional circles – war powers and the constitution.

We’ll be joined for nearly 40 minutes by someone who is probably the nation’s leading expert on war powers, Dr. Louis Fisher – who spent four decades working at the Library of Congress as Senior Specialist in Separation of Powers, and is currently Scholar in Residence at the Constitution Project.

Dr. Fisher has been invited to testify before Congress about 50 times on such issues as war powers, state secrets privilege, NSA surveillance, CIA whistleblowing, covert spending, presidential impoundment powers, and plenty more. When it comes to an understanding from the perspective of the founders – he’s got few equals.

This week, Tenth Amendment Center national communications director, Mike Maharrey, started this conversation with an extremely important article entitled “I love George Washington. Except for his Foreign Policy.” In it, he points out what I consider to be a troubling, and very glaring inconsistency in the views of many self-professed supporters of the Founders’ Constitution today – their views on the constitution and foreign policy.

Mike tells a personal story of his own views on foreign policy. He writes:

“Over the last year or so, I’ve been struggling to redefine my views on foreign policy. As a former neo-conservative, I enthusiastically embraced the invasion of Iraq in 2003. I readily accepted the notion that military force serves as a legitimate tool for nation-building.”

He continues…

But it doesn’t take a doctorate in foreign relations to understand that U.S. policy has forged a tangled mess of contradictory alliances and obligations, and created a much more dangerous world. I’ve gradually come to accept that military intervention in foreign affairs typically causes more damage than good and that the whole concept rests on morally dubious grounds. Who am I to point a gun at another man’s head and demand he practice “democracy”?

Mike goes on to explain how he used to, like many others still do today, consider such foreign policy views, which are most commonly put forth by Ron Paul, to be quackery. But, in his study of the founding generation, he recognized that such views line up pretty closely with the stated positions of a president that’s actually revered by most Americans – George Washington.

Here’s a little of what Washington had to say about foreign policy in his 1796 farewell speech:

“The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible.”

He continued…

“It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world…”

Now, Washington, like all other humans, certainly had his flaws, and had flaws as a president too. But, how often do you hear people admonishing Washington’s foreign policy views? I never do.

So, while we hear many people today – especially conservatives – say that they really like the constitutional viewpoints of a person like Ron Paul, they’ll commonly turn around and say, well, “except for his foreign policy.” But the fact of the matter is this – virtually all of the founders held this kind of foreign policy viewpoint, and because of that alone, it should never be called quackery…unless you consider the founding fathers a bunch of quacks.

Thomas Jefferson summed it up perfectly in his 1801 inaugural address: “Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations — entangling alliances with none.”

James Madison, father of the constitution, put is this way – “Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.”

Jefferson, Madison, Washington – they strongly opposed foreign policy interventionism. They all opposed wars that did anything but repel invasions here in America, and they also advised against the kind of favored-nation status that is used so often in American foreign policy today.. That should be convincing enough, but they were far from alone, and this was the highly prevalent view of foreign policy from the founding fathers.

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Do conservatives today – who often say that they want to return to the constitution, to the vision of the founders…do they really mean it? Or, do they actually mean – “We need to get back to what the founders set up – domestically only.” Well maybe it’s just that the government-run school system in this country has done its job – hiding the true history and principles that made up the American Revolution. That makes sense to me, because I can’t think of any other reason why people who profess to revere the founders so much would find their foreign policy views to be…well, so foreign.

So please tune in next week – as we’ll dig far deeper into not only these personal policy views of the founders, but just how they intended our constitutional framework to be set up in regards to war and foreign policy. The future of liberty in this country just may depend on us learning about it.

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Next Tuesday, the contenders for the GOP presidential nomination will square off in another debate, this time focused on foreign policy. If the last few months are any guide, at least one of those debaters will argue that if America just withdrew its military and stopped taunting other countries, then peace would be more likely. Take Iran, for example (as one candidate has), which recently attempted to carry out a targeted bombing in Washington, D.C.: What about just “offering friendship to them” instead of trying to keep them from acquiring nuclear weapons through coercive measures?

Happily, the misguided assumption at the core of this question has been answered before: “Let us recollect,” wrote Alexander Hamilton, “that peace or war will not always be left to our options; that however moderate or unambitious we may be, we cannot count upon the moderation or hope to extinguish the ambition of others.”

What, then, should the United States do in an uncertain and dangerous international environment? According to James Madison, “Security against foreign danger is one of the primitive objects of civil society. It is an avowed and essential object of the American Union.”

These sentiments are not just the anachronistic or overly cynical views of our Founding Fathers. In conducting American foreign policy 200 years ago, they dealt with the same irrational and dangerous sentiments that plague our foreign policy thinking today.

There have always been isolationists, anti-war activists, and utopian idealist voices in American history. At the time of the American founding, they included some eloquent and respectable voices such as Patrick Henry (revolutionary firebrand and governor of Virginia), who thought that America was safe because of its distance from Europe and, therefore, did not need an army and navy. Civic groups formed throughout the American states based on these utopian ideas.

In December of 1815, the Reverend Noah Worcester founded the Massachusetts Peace Society, which counted among its members the Massachusetts governor and lieutenant governor, two judges, and Harvard’s president and faculty members. Worcester supported international arbitration of conflict and a “confederacy of nations” to prevent wars from occurring—ideas that would soon present challenges to American sovereignty in different ways.

In contrast to these utopian notions, that same year, responding to Barbary attacks on American commercial ships a world away, then-President Madison proclaimed: “The United States while they wish for war with no nation, will buy peace with none, it being a principle incorporated into the settled policy of America, that as peace is better than war, so war is better than tribute.” Madison backed up this statement with a brief war against Algiers in 1815.

At the successful conclusion of that war, Madison directed that, because of continued Barbary intransigence, the U.S. Navy would maintain a permanent presence off the North African coast. Madison’s “settled policy” and permanent overseas military force followed George Washington’s timeless counsel to prudently preserve America’s independence and military strength so that we can always “choose peace or war, as our interest, guided by justice, shall counsel.”

The Founders approached foreign policy with a realistic assessment of human nature and the nature of international relations. To imprudently assume that, for example, 21st century Iran will give up its nuclear weapons program or ambitions for regional hegemony in the absence of U.S. efforts is to most definitely calculate on the “weaker springs of human character.” It is also to neglect the most important task of the federal government—“security against foreign danger.”

In these primary debates, let us hope to have serious discussions about prudently protecting our interests and principles abroad. Let us reject those who would attempt to reverse the philosophical foundations of American statecraft, so well laid by our Founding Fathers.

Article brought to you by The Foundry: Conservative Policy News Blog from The Heritage Foundation.

In this week’s Heritage in Focus, former Attorney General Ed Meese and graduate fellow Marion Smith discuss the Constitution and providing for the common defense. Click here to listen.

Were the Founders isolationists, who believed in non-interventionism? What relevance does their understanding of providing for defense have today? And what are the proper roles of each branch of government during times of war?

Listen to answers to those questions and more!

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To listen to more Heritage in Focus podcasts, visit our podcast page.

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Progressive Presidents love war in the shadows. During World War I, Woodrow Wilson wanted to spy on all Americans. FDR created the OSS during World War II under “Wild” Bill Donovan. Both JFK and Lyndon Johnson set records for numbers of covert operations under the CIA. The attraction is obvious. On the one hand, they can spout “we are the world” rhetoric. On the other, they can play at war with operations that lack transparency and accountability—where failures can be swept under the rug away from the media glare and, more importantly, where liberal sensibilities don’t have to be offended.

President Obama has become a cheerleader for playing at covert operations. News reports today inform us that the “Obama administration is constructing a network of drone strike bases in Africa and the Arabian peninsula as its broadening campaign against al-Qaida affiliates reaches increasingly into Yemen and Somalia.”

The President’s obsession with drone strikes has become so, well—obsessive—that people are noticing. In Politico, former Clinton Defense Secretary William Cohen cautioned in an article titled “Drones Can’t Change War”:

[W]e need to be mindful that the ease of pressing a button in a command center thousands of miles from the battlefield to send a missile to its intended target may lead some to think that war itself is a cost-free exercise. It is anything but cost free or bloodless… The decision to wage war is the gravest that any nation can make. It should always remain a difficult one—and one that involves the careful weighing of the risks of taking, or failing to take, action. Technology should not prove so dazzling as to blind us to the reality that war will always prove to be the doorway into a hell that is far easier to enter than to exit.

There is nothing wrong with drone strikes per se. As the Heritage Counterterrorism Task Force pointed out in its assessment of the Administration’s efforts, “Specifically, drone missile strikes in Pakistan’s tribal areas have helped degrade al-Qaeda’s operational capabilities, while also significantly contributing to the U.S. ability to place al-Qaeda on the defensive.” On the other hand:

While covert strikes can be a successful tactic for hunting down the leaders of terrorist groups, attrition is counterproductive when combating an insurgency. The prospect of “body counts” as the proper metric for measuring success should give Americans pause about the strategy pursued by the Administration. Additionally, without persistent presence and engagement of threatened governments and civilian populations, the U.S. will lack the real-time actionable intelligence necessary for effective targeting of terrorists and the successful suppression of insurgencies.

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Catching you up on clips, commentary and news of the day. Sign up for the daily email update from Scribe.

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3. Obama’s Soft Socialism Herarlds a Gutless New World – Brian Darling
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5. Man Without a Plan: Obama’s Short-Sighted View of U.S. Politics – Michael Kazin
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7. Lies, Damned Lies And Job Statistics – Investors Business Daily
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9. Jim DeMint on the birth of the Tea Party movement – Matt Lewis
10. ACORN continues to receive taxpayer cash – Matthew Boyle

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You can sympathize with the humanitarian motives of our Libyan intervention while still doubting its constitutionality.

The Constitution prescribes the rules about how the United States is to enter a war, and the Obama administration has violated those rules.

The administration argues that the hostilities, because limited, do not rise to the level of “war,” as the Constitution uses that word.  But that position is almost surely wrong: Founding-Era dictionaries and other sources, both legal and lay, tell us that when the Constitution was approved, “war” consisted of any hostilities initiated by a sovereign over opposition.  A very typical dictionary definition was, “the exercise of violence under sovereign command against such as oppose.”  (Barlow, 1772-73).  I have found no suggestion in any contemporaneous source that operations of the kind the U.S. is conducting were anything but “war.”

The Founders’ favorite authority on international law, Vattel, divided wars into three principal categories: defensive wars, offensive just wars, and offensive unjust wars. A nation fought a defensive war when it responded to an invasion.  It fought a just offensive war when it responded to an infringement of its rights short of invasion.  It fought an unjust offensive war if it attacked another country even though that other country had not infringed its rights.  Examples of unjust offensive wars were those fought for conquest or to limit an innocent neighbor’s power.

A defensive war did not require a declaration.  A just offensive war did require one, although it might be called something other than “declaration of war.”  The declaration triggered certain consequences under international law, but Vattel says its principal purpose was to give the other country a last chance to correct the injury it was inflicting.  Because unjust wars were those launched by a country that had not suffered legal injury, it follows that “declarations of war” issued by an aggressor were at least partially defective.

Now: The federal government has only those powers the Constitution grants it.  The Constitution grants the federal government authority to begin and wage a defensive war: “The United States shall . . . protect each [state] against Invasion” (IV-4).  (Protection of U.S. territories is impliedly authorized as well: IV-3-2) But the Constitution grants only Congressauthority to initiate a just offensive war—that is, an American attack to vindicate our legitimate rights: “The Congress shall have Power . . . To declare War.” (I-8-11).  It can be inferred from the document that the government has no constitutional power to wage an unjust war.

The Constitution entrusts Congress with creating the means for waging war: “To raise and support Armies” (I-8-12),  “To provide and maintain a Navy” (I-8-13), and “To provide for calling forth the Militia to . . . repel Invasions” (I-8-15).  It grants the President authority to serve as Commander-in-Chief (II-2-1).  Under the latter provision, the President can oppose an invader (engage in defensive war) without prior congressional authorization, since “The United States [not just Congress] shall . . . protect each [state] against Invasion” (IV-4).   But there is no enumerated power authorizing the President to launch an offensive war without a congressional resolution that qualifies in substance as a declaration.

Many quotations from key Founders show that is was their understanding as well. For example, James Wilson, one of the greatest Founders, told the Pennsylvania ratifying convention:

“This system will not hurry us into war; it is calculated to guard against it. It will not be in the power of a single man, or a single body of men, to involve us in such distress; for the important power of declaring war is vested in the legislature at large: this declaration must be made with the concurrence of the House of Representatives. . . .”

(This quote is only one of several.)

Nevertheless, many well-meaning people have sought to find a presidential power to wage undeclared war.  In part they rely on practice arising decades, even centuries, after the Founding.  As I point out in The Original Constitution: What It Actually Said and Meant,such evidence is too remote to be a reliable source of original understanding.  The fact that the President sometimes has acted unconstitutionally does not render those acts constitutional.

The most sophisticated presidential defenders make the following argument:

*    What determines constitutional force is not how the ratifiers understood the document, but its objective “original public meaning” to the larger public;

*    the Constitution grants the President the “executive Power” (II-1-1);

*    although the Constitution does not mention undeclared wars, based on the practice of the British Crown the President’s “executive Power” included authority to initiate them.

Unfortunately for this argument, recent scholarship has largely destroyed the view that the phrase “the executive Power” conferred the King of England’s power on the President.  The most comprehensive study of the subject is Curtis A. Bradley & Martin S. Flaherty’s  article,Executive Power Essentialism and Foreign Affairs, 102 Mich. L. Rev. 545 (2004).  In addition,my own published investigation of Founding-Era legal drafting practices discovered that those practices were completely inconsistent with the conclusion that the phrase “executive Power” conferred any authority.

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As for the claim that the Constitution’s “original public meaning” trumps what the ratifiers understood, to my knowledge no one has contested the conclusions of my excruciatingly-footnoted 2007 study of Founding-Era interpretative methods.  It concluded that the Constitution was to be interpreted by the ratifiers’ understanding, with “original public meaning” being consulted only when a coherent understanding could not be found.  In the case of the war power, though, the ratifiers’ understanding is pretty clear.

Although the Obama administration’s Libya operations probably qualify as a constitutionally-authorized “just war” (because it is designed to assist an oppressed people who have risen in rebellion), launching those operations without prior congressional consent violated the Constitution.

In private life, Rob Natelson is a long-time conservative/free market activist, but professionally he is a constitutional scholar whose meticulous studies of the Constitution’s original meaning have been published or cited by many top law journals. (See http://constitution.i2i.org/about/.) Most recently, he co-authored The Origins of the Necessary and Proper Clause (Cambridge University Press) and The Original Constitution (Tenth Amendment Center). After a quarter of a century as Professor of Law at the University of Montana, he recently retired to work full time at Colorado’s Independence Institute. Visit his blog there at http://constitution.i2i.org/

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With military action taking place in Libya right now, the essential question must be asked: Is it even Constitutional? For those of you who don’t want to read more than a sentence or two, here’s the short answer. Absolutely not.

DELEGATED POWERS

The ninth and tenth amendments, while they didn’t add anything new, defined the Constitution. In short, they tell us that the federal government is only authorized to exercise those powers delegated to it in the Constitution…and nothing more. Everything else is either prohibited or retained by the states or people themselves.

What does this have to do with Libya? Well, whenever the federal government does anything, the first question should always be, “where in the Constitution is the authority to do this?” What follows here is an answer regarding American bombs being dropped on Libya.

WHO DECIDES?

Ever since the Korean War, Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution has been regularly cited as justification for the President to act with a seemingly free reign in the realm of foreign policy – including the initiation of foreign wars. But, it is Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution that lists the power to declare war, and this power is placed solely in the hands of Congress.

Article II, Section 2, on the other hand, refers to the President as the “commander-in-chief of the army and navy of the United States.” What the founders meant by this clause was that once war was declared, it would then be the responsibility of the President, as the commander-in-chief, to direct the war.

Alexander Hamilton clarified this when he said that the President, while lacking the power to declare war, would have “the direction of war when authorized.”

Thomas Jefferson reaffirmed this quite eloquently when, in 1801, he said that, as President, he was “unauthorized by the Constitution, without the sanction of Congress, to go beyond the line of defense.”

In Federalist #69, Alexander Hamilton explained that the President’s authority:

“would be nominally the same with that of the King of Great Britain, but in substance much inferior to it. It would amount to nothing more than the supreme command and direction of the military and naval forces, as first general and admiral of the confederacy; while that of the British king extends to the declaring of war, and to the raising and regulating of fleets and armies; all which by the constitution under consideration would appertain to the legislature.”

James Madison warned us that the power of declaring war must be kept away from the executive branch when he wrote to Thomas Jefferson:

“The constitution supposes, what the history of all governments demonstrates, that the executive is the branch of power most interested in war, and most prone to it. It has accordingly with studied care vested the question of war in the legislature.”

WORDS HAVE MEANING

If, like any legal document, the words of the Constitution mean today just what they meant the moment it was signed, we must first look for the 18th Century meaning of the words used. Here’s a few common 18th-century definitions of the important words:

War: The exercise of violence against withstanders under a foreign command.
Declare: Expressing something before it is promised, decreed, or acted upon.
Invade: To attack a country; to make a hostile entrance

What does this all mean? Unless the country is being invaded, if congress does not declare war against another country, the president is constitutionally barred from waging it, no matter how much he desires to do so. Pre-emptive strikes and undeclared offensive military expeditions are not powers delegated to the federal government in the Constitution, and are, therefore, unlawful.

HOW IT APPLIES TODAY

Here’s the quick overview of how this all plays out:

• In Constitutional terms, the United States is currently at war with Libya.
• Libya is not invading the United States, nor has it threatened to do so.
• Congress has not declared war. Barack Obama did.

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Some would claim, and news articles are already reporting on it, that the 1973 war powers resolution authorizes the President to start a war as long as it’s reported to Congress within 48 hours. Then, Congress would have 60 days to authorize the action, or extend it.

The only question you should have to ask for this would be – “where in the Constitution is congress given the authority to change the constitution by resolution?”

It doesn’t. And that resolution, in and of itself, is a Constitutional violation. More on that in a future article, of course.

James Madison had something to say about such a plan when he wrote:

“The executive has no right, in any case, to decide the question, whether there is or is not cause for declaring war.” [emphasis added]

War Powers resolution or no war powers resolution – without a Congressional declaration, the president is not authorized to start an offensive military campaign. Period.

The bottom line? By using US Military to begin hostilities with a foreign nation without a Congressional declaration of war, Barack Obama has committed a serious violation of the Constitution. While he certainly is not the first to do so in regards to war powers, it’s high time that he becomes the last.

Article brought to you by Tenth Amendment Center.

“The executive has no right, in any case, to decide the question, whether there is or is not cause for declaring war.”
- James Madison

A speech before the US House of Representatives on July 1, 2010

In January 1991, we went to war in the Middle East against Saddam Hussein, Iraq’s dictator who was our ally during the Iran-Iraq war. A border dispute between Kuwait and Iraq broke out after our State Department gave a green light for Hussein’s invasion.

After Iraq’s successful invasion of Kuwait we reacted with gusto and have been militarily involved in the entire region, six thousand miles from our shores, ever since. This has included Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia. After twenty years of killing and a couple trillion dollars wasted, not only does the fighting continue with no end in sight, but our leaders threaten to spread our bombs of benevolence on Iran.

For most Americans, we are at war — at war against a tactic called terrorism, not a country.

This allows our military to go any place in the world without limits as to time or place.

But how can we be at war? Congress has not declared war as required by the Constitution.

That is true, but our presidents have and Congress and the people have not objected. Congress obediently provides all the money requested for the “war.”

People are dying, bombs are dropped, our soldiers are shot at and killed.

Our soldiers wear uniforms; our enemies do not. They are not part of any government. They have no planes, no tanks, no ships, no missiles, and no modern technology.

What kind of a war is this anyway? If it really is one. If it was a real war we would have won it by now.

Our stated goal since 9/11 has been to destroy al Qaeda. Was al Qaeda in Iraq? Not under Saddam Hussein. Our leaders lied us into invading Iraq and deceived us into occupying Afghanistan.

There’s still really no al Qaeda in Iraq and only a hundred or so in Afghanistan, yet there is no end in sight to the “war.” Could there have been other reasons for this war that is not a war?

Military victory in Afghanistan is illusive. Does anyone really know whom we are fighting and why?

Why has the war not ended? Nine years and it continues to spread. Some claim it is to keep America safe, that our soldiers are fighting and dying for our freedom, defending our Constitution. Are we being lied to in order to keep us in this spreading war, just as we were lied to in the 1960′s to keep us in Vietnam?

We own the Iraq government as we do Afghanistan’s. In Afghanistan we are fighting the Taliban-those dangerous people with guns, defending their homeland.

Once they were called the Mujahideen, our old allies, along with Osama bin Laden, in the fight to oust the Soviets from Afghanistan in the 1980′s.

In that effort our CIA funded radical jihad against those nasty foreign occupiers-the Russians.

What gratitude? Those same people now resent our benevolent occupation-with a little violence thrown in.

The resistance to our presence grows as our perseverance wanes.

Our people are waking up but our officials refuse to recognize the longer we stay the greater is the support for those dedicated to the principle that Afghanistan is for Afghans, who resent all foreign occupation.

The harder we fight a war that is not a war, the weaker we get and the stronger becomes our enemy.

When an enemy without weapons can resist an army of great strength, the most powerful of all history, one should ask, who has the moral high ground?

Military failure in Afghanistan is to be our destiny. Changing generals without changing our policies or our policy makers perpetuates our agony and delays the inevitable.

This is not a war that our generals have been trained for. Nation building, police work, social engineering is never a job for foreign occupiers and never an appropriate job for soldiers trained to win wars.

A military victory is no longer even a stated goal of our military leaders or our politicians, as they know that type of victory is impossible.

The sad story is:

This war is against ourselves, our values, our Constitution, our financial well being and common sense, and at the rate we are going, it is going to end badly. What we need are honest leaders with character and a new foreign policy.

Ron Paul is a Republican member of Congress from Texas

Article brought to you by Tenth Amendment Center.

“The executive has no right, in any case, to decide the question, whether there is or is not cause for declaring war.”
- James Madison

A speech before the US House of Representatives on July 1, 2010

In January 1991, we went to war in the Middle East against Saddam Hussein, Iraq’s dictator who was our ally during the Iran-Iraq war. A border dispute between Kuwait and Iraq broke out after our State Department gave a green light for Hussein’s invasion.

After Iraq’s successful invasion of Kuwait we reacted with gusto and have been militarily involved in the entire region, six thousand miles from our shores, ever since. This has included Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia. After twenty years of killing and a couple trillion dollars wasted, not only does the fighting continue with no end in sight, but our leaders threaten to spread our bombs of benevolence on Iran.

For most Americans, we are at war — at war against a tactic called terrorism, not a country.

This allows our military to go any place in the world without limits as to time or place.

But how can we be at war? Congress has not declared war as required by the Constitution.

That is true, but our presidents have and Congress and the people have not objected. Congress obediently provides all the money requested for the “war.”

People are dying, bombs are dropped, our soldiers are shot at and killed.

Our soldiers wear uniforms; our enemies do not. They are not part of any government. They have no planes, no tanks, no ships, no missiles, and no modern technology.

What kind of a war is this anyway? If it really is one. If it was a real war we would have won it by now.

Our stated goal since 9/11 has been to destroy al Qaeda. Was al Qaeda in Iraq? Not under Saddam Hussein. Our leaders lied us into invading Iraq and deceived us into occupying Afghanistan.

There’s still really no al Qaeda in Iraq and only a hundred or so in Afghanistan, yet there is no end in sight to the “war.” Could there have been other reasons for this war that is not a war?

Military victory in Afghanistan is illusive. Does anyone really know whom we are fighting and why?

Why has the war not ended? Nine years and it continues to spread. Some claim it is to keep America safe, that our soldiers are fighting and dying for our freedom, defending our Constitution. Are we being lied to in order to keep us in this spreading war, just as we were lied to in the 1960′s to keep us in Vietnam?

We own the Iraq government as we do Afghanistan’s. In Afghanistan we are fighting the Taliban-those dangerous people with guns, defending their homeland.

Once they were called the Mujahideen, our old allies, along with Osama bin Laden, in the fight to oust the Soviets from Afghanistan in the 1980′s.

In that effort our CIA funded radical jihad against those nasty foreign occupiers-the Russians.

What gratitude? Those same people now resent our benevolent occupation-with a little violence thrown in.

The resistance to our presence grows as our perseverance wanes.

Our people are waking up but our officials refuse to recognize the longer we stay the greater is the support for those dedicated to the principle that Afghanistan is for Afghans, who resent all foreign occupation.

The harder we fight a war that is not a war, the weaker we get and the stronger becomes our enemy.

When an enemy without weapons can resist an army of great strength, the most powerful of all history, one should ask, who has the moral high ground?

Military failure in Afghanistan is to be our destiny. Changing generals without changing our policies or our policy makers perpetuates our agony and delays the inevitable.

This is not a war that our generals have been trained for. Nation building, police work, social engineering is never a job for foreign occupiers and never an appropriate job for soldiers trained to win wars.

A military victory is no longer even a stated goal of our military leaders or our politicians, as they know that type of victory is impossible.

The sad story is:

This war is against ourselves, our values, our Constitution, our financial well being and common sense, and at the rate we are going, it is going to end badly. What we need are honest leaders with character and a new foreign policy.

Ron Paul is a Republican member of Congress from Texas

Article brought to you by Tenth Amendment Center.