Congress never authorized a US war in Iran. Under the US Constitution,
Congress has sole authority to do that, so that’s seemingly an important
deal. With the US engaged in other unauthorized wars, however, it has
been little more than a side note, and the Trump Administration has
considered Congressional involvement in the process to be optional, at
best.
Sens. Chris Murphy (D-CT) and Tom Udall (D-NM) led an effort on
Wednesday to try to reassert Congressional authority, by trying to
preemptively de-fund any US war against Iran unless Congress authorized
it ahead of time.
This proposal was brought forward at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and immediately failed, 13-9. Murphy said this vote would remind the administration that they don’t have authorization for the war.
Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan downplayed the matter anyhow,
insisting that the US is focusing on “deterrence, not war,” suggesting
only Iranian miscalculation really threatened a war.
Nothing will remind this administration of anything unless it appears on Fox at 6AM. Then Dear Leader will know he must “Tweet” about it.
Deterrance? That can mean anything these lunatics wish it to be. No matter we’re talking about Bubba, The Shrub, Obammy or the Orange Jesus… They all are warmongering bastards.
So happy to be living in the greatest democracy.
So now we have members of Congress openly abrogating their constitutional responsibilities to keep a moron happy…
This is rich!
Well, imperial Rome still continued the trappings of the republic it used to be for a while, with a Senate passing laws, etc.
But of course all knew where the real power lay. And most senators seemed happier anyway, passing meaningless lies while the real decisions and responsibility lay elsewhere.
Of course Congress is abrogating its constitutional obligation to authorize war actions, because doing so would require them to actually justify why the US keeps deploying military forces everywhere, and what all these shows of force could possibly have to do with “defense.”
The short term route back to sanity would be to elect a President who bluntly promises, barring real emergencies, to not commit to or sustain military intervention anywhere, without a declaration of war by Congress.That would force Congress to take back the responsibility they have shifted to the White House.
This is exactly what Obama did in Syria, left it to congress. Of course he got suckered after the “gas attack” and sent in 300 spec ops anyway.
That would be Tulsi Gabbard
wrong.
I guess that’s one way of putting it… war is out of our hands, the US issues the ultimatums and war is just a natural consequence of other countries not fully obeying the US to our satisfaction. More fairly, that’s called “blaming the victim.”
Oh yeah. They’ll vote to stop our almost total non-involvement in Yemen though. These are peacemakers! lol
Sure, YOU know our level of involvement in Yemen.
You still can’t see it’s a big con yet, can you? You’re like a husband who’s being openly cheated on, but your wife takes you out to TGI Fridays on your birthday, so you think “See! She still loves me!”.
Impeacable offence…?????? War and peace should be treated differently than ordinary graft & theft because of the staggering loss of life & any sense or decencency it always causes…!!!!! It should be a capital crime to foment war in any situation where lies & deception are used to miss lead.
fire them all in the senate. no way the public needs to wait for pointless hearings etc when those useless public employees are not doing their jobs.
I agree with the comment that the 13 didn’t support the Constitution. I’m bothered that this article does not tell the full story. At THE COMMON ILLS, C.I.’s done the actual work. Senator Paul broke with the Republicans, yes. Where in this article above does it tell you that two Democrats voted with the Republicans? They are part of the 13. http://thecommonills.blogspot.com/2019/05/coons-and-mendedez-betrayed-democratic.html
That’s C.I.’s report where she identifies Senator Robert Menendez and Senator Chris Coons as the two who joined the Republicans to make 13 votes against.
(There are 10 Democrats on the Committee and 12 Republicans. It really should have been obvious that two Democrats had crossed over.)