The Proliferation of Illegal Wars Erodes American Values

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The Proliferation of Illegal Wars Erodes American Values
Jun. 26 2011 - 11:35 am

A genuinely pro-capitalist U.S. foreign policy would advance both the national and rational self-interest of Americans, which is: to live and flourish under authentic freedom, true justice, and the rule of law, with individual rights to life, liberty, and property protected by government against the initiation of force or fraud by hostile foreigners. To be clear, this does not mean fighting unjustified wars in Viet Nam, Iraq or Libya.

Both President Obama and the GOP-led Congress failed yet again this week to abide by these principles as they apply to U.S. military operations in Afghanistan and Libya. Not only do these operations remain undeclared wars – hence lawless and unconstitutional acts – but decisions this week by Obama and his GOP allies will likely only prolong the lawlessness, and in the process further undermine our freedom and fiscal health.

On Afghanistan this week, about which Mr. Obama once told ABC News (in July 2009) he was "always worried about using the word victory," the U.S. has declared defeat. Recall that Obama increased troop levels there from 34,000 when he took office to 103,000 a year ago; now he says he'll reduce those levels to 68,000 by next summer, which would still leave troops at double the level they were when he took office. Yet there are few signs of actual U.S. success in this decade-long "war." Much like his predecessor, Mr. Obama seems to be blithely exploiting U.S. troops in Afghanistan, using them as nation-builders, thus sitting ducks, not enemy-killers. But Obama's schemes are no better in Libya – and resemble yet another U.S. foreign policy disaster-in-waiting

Part of the problem is that U.S. foreign-policy makers are no longer guided by the principles of the Founders. The U.S. Constitution rightly makes the president the commander-in-chief of the military (Article One, Section 2), but in order that he properly and effectively deploy the military it also requires him first to persuade Congress to vote upon and declare war (Article Two, Section 8), which means the President must cite the provocation, name the enemy, and project a plausible path to victory. In this way, unjustified wars are more easily avoided, and crucially, when Congress approves war it implicitly pledges to support the military. In a less-cited provision, the Constitution also requires that while Congress funds the military, "no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years" (Article 2, Section 8).

Clearly, the Constitution's framers sought to divide and restrict the U.S. power to declare, finance, and wage war.  Also, they hoped it would be rare, undertaken only with utmost necessity for the protection of America's security and liberty, and never "open-ended" in time. In short, U.S. wars were to be few and winnable, not common and interminable. The Framers also knew that domestic liberty and property are most at risk during war, a principle that's been documented in subsequent U.S. history by Robert Higgs in Crisis and Leviathan (1987).

If instead of America seeking victory in a delimited war against a specific enemy it eschews victory amid an endless war against ubiquitous and elusive assailants – as is so in today's so-called "war" on a mere tactic ("terrorism") – then threats and assaults on domestic civil-economic liberties also will become ubiquitous and interminable. Instead of a "return to normalcy" (and sustained prosperity), as it was called after World War I, we'd be left in a state of perpetual abnormalcy, with prolonged mistreatment of the troops, outlandish deficit-spending, vast money-printing, increased regimentation, and intensified assaults on privacy and other rights.

This tragic principle should make clear why those who push so loudly and incessantly for endless, more-expansive, but fundamentally unjustified U.S. wars – such as the Krauthammer neo-conservatives and U.S. Senators John Kerry, John McCain, and Lindsey Graham – most undermine American liberty and security. Posing as patriotic "hawks," in fact they're transforming a republic of liberty into an empire of tyranny.

Since the Constitution's adoption in 1789 the U.S. Congress has declared war only five times: the War of 1812, Mexican War (1848), Spanish-American War (1898), World War I (1916), and World War II (1941). Yet presidents have committed U.S. forces hundreds of times without such approval, starting with Jefferson's deployment of the navy to Libya in 1801. The most carnage inflicted on U.S. military personnel in lawless deployments occurred during the Korean "conflict" (1951-53), Viet Nam (1966-75), and Afghanistan-Iraq (2001-present). The last quarter century has seen the U.S. military used without Congressional approval in Libya (1986), Panama (1989), Somalia (1992), Bosnia (1995), Kosovo (1999) and Libya (2011). Congress isn't blameless in these cases, either, for it has refused to withhold the funding necessary for such ventures.

Perhaps it's no coincidence that war hasn't been declared officially (i.e., constitutionally) by the U.S. since 1945, compared to the prior 150 years (1791-1941), because in our "modern" era left-wing "progressives" have preached that the Constitution is old-fashioned and essentially irrelevant to the protection of economic liberties. Why then not also evade the document when it comes to waging war or treating civil liberties? We all know the U.S. has acted beyond all constitutional constraint in the other areas of life – see confiscatory taxation and the regulation of business and personal matters – so why not also in matters military? This is the natural progression of any autocratic police state – which it seems American government is becoming.

On his Libyan invasion Obama hasn't complied with the Constitution because the goal has nothing to do with America's self-interest (i.e., self-defense), as I first explained last March. Now that the invasion is older than three months, Obama also has violated the War Powers Act (1973). Enacted by two-thirds of a Democrat-controlled Congress over the veto of President Nixon, with the aim of restricting his actions in the Viet Nam "conflict," the Act allows the President to use delimited military force without a formal war declaration, but only if it's "a national emergency created by attack upon the U.S., its territories or possessions, or its armed forces" and only if he obtains ex-post authorization from Congress.

Under the Act the President must "notify" Congress within 2 days of committing armed forces, and those forces can't be deployed for more than 60 days, plus a 30-day withdrawal period, for a total of 90 days. The legal clock has already run out on Obama's Libyan invasion – yet no one in Washington is bothering to stop him.

Similarly, since 1973 the War Powers Act has been ignored by most presidents (and Congresses) and today is derided by both sides as "unconstitutional," even though the Supreme Court hasn't ruled as such, and even though the Act serves as perfectly reasonable attempt to restrict U.S. war powers without unduly weakening the executive. The intellectual context of the Act suggests its overall intent: it was adopted in the same year famed historian Arthur Schlesinger published his classic, The Imperial Presidency. But cavalier views of war powers generally and of the Act specifically makes the U.S. no less imperial now than in the 1970s.

As a candidate in 2007 Obama openly defended the War Powers Act and derided then-President George W. Bush for ignoring it: "The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation," Obama said. Yet he now claims that he has such power, and wields it properly. By now thousands of U.S. military personnel have toiled on his idiosyncratic Libyan invasion, while billions of dollars have been spent and hundreds of expensive U.S. cruise missiles have been fired. Mr. Obama initially said it would take mere "days and weeks, not months" to finish what he denies is a "war," as the Libya campaign "does not involve sustained fighting or active exchanges of fire with hostile forces, nor does it involve U.S. ground troops."

So the new foreign policy of allegedly "dovish" Democrats is that a U.S. President can unilaterally bomb another nation, so long as that nation doesn't "actively" exchange fire or observe U.S. ground troops. More than absurd, Obama's approach is abjectly arbitrary, for he characterizes the new U.S. military approach as "leading from behind" – in this case, "hiding" under the veil of NATO, which everyone knows is a mere U.S. proxy. The blatant contradiction of "leading from behind" is the Obama Doctrine: the U.S. may unilaterally bomb another nation, yet never to secure a victory, and it can unilaterally demand the ouster of any foreign leader, yet also leave him securely in place – which makes the U.S. both a liar and a paper tiger.

To their credit, earlier this month ten Congressmen (seven Republicans and three Democrats) sued Mr. Obama for violating the War Powers Act, naming "the executive branch's circumvention of Congress and its use of international organizations such as the U.N. and NATO to authorize the use of military force abroad, in violation of the Constitution." Yet the GOP-led Congress has failed pathetically to check Obama. Last week it voted against authorizing his Libyan campaign (by 295-123), yet hours later voted for funding it (by 230-180). Most Republicans (93%) voted against the authorization, while most Democrats (56%) voted for it, but then 57% of Republicans (and 48% of Democrats) endorsed the funding.

Some Congressmen consistently voted against both the authorization and the funding, but those who opposed authorization and supported funding constitute the kind of contemptible, unprincipled hypocrites who ruin any nation. More accurately perhaps, hypocrisy is embedded in the electorate, which chooses such "leaders" in the first place. Regardless, neither liberty nor security is served by the sheer travesty that U.S. foreign policy has become.

http://blogs.forbes.com/richardsalsman/2011/06/26/the-proliferation-of-illegal-wars-erodes-american-values/