The First Lie :The United States Congress never voted for the Iraq War

[jbfam4]

The First Lie
http://www.tompaine.com/feature2.cfm/ID/9843

John C. Bonifaz is an attorney in Boston and the author of Warrior-King: The Case for Impeaching George W. Bush. (NationBooks-NY, January 2004)


While all of the Democratic presidential candidates (except Sen. Joseph Lieberman) criticize President George W. Bush for his unilateral recklessness in starting a war against Iraq, they are missing a larger point: The invasion was not just reckless. It was unconstitutional.

It is time to set the record straight. The United States Congress never voted for the Iraq war. Rather, Congress voted for a resolution in October 2002 which unlawfully transferred to the president the decision-making power of whether to launch a first-strike invasion of Iraq. The United States Constitution vests the awesome power of deciding whether to send the nation into war solely in the United States Congress.

Those members of Congress—including certain Democratic presidential candidates—who voted for that October resolution cannot now claim that they were deceived, as some of them do. By unlawfully ceding the war-declaring power to the president, they allowed the president to start a war against Iraq based on whatever evidence or whatever lies he chose. The members of Congress who voted for that October resolution are as complicit in this illegal war as is the president himself.


Congress cannot transfer to the president its exclusive power to declare war any more than it can transfer its exclusive power to levy taxes. Such a transfer is illegal. These are non-delegable powers held only by the United States Congress.

In drafting the War Powers Clause of Article I, Section 8, the framers of the Constitution set out to create a nation that would be nothing like the model established by European monarchies. They knew the dangers of empowering a single individual to decide whether to send the nation into war. They had sought to make a clean break from the kings and queens of Europe, those rulers who could, of their own accord, send their subjects into battle. That is why the framers wisely decided that only the people, through their elected representatives in Congress, should be entrusted with the power to start a war.

[stopthegop]

1. this seems a weak arguement to me..

it would be easy to respond:
Congress authorized military action, which is a de-facto declaration of war...Bush just decided the strategic/tactical timing...

I'm not aware of a 'constitutional' definition of 'declare war'

[Mile Hi]

2. They voted their

constitutional responsibility away. What a bunch of idiots.

[deutsey]

3. That was (and remains) my problem with the vote

:evilfrown:

[lovedems]

4. Well, what in the fu&k are these guys doing in the congress if they

can't even follow the rules of the constitution? The ones who voted for the IWR should be voted out and replaced with competent people who actually understand the constitution and how it works. I am so sick of this political covering of asses and finger pointing.