Losing the war on unchecked power

I could never be President. My brain is just not flexible enough to comprehend the subtle logic that’s required to make the kind of decisions our Chief Executive has to make. Take, for example, the question of when a President should involve the country in a military confrontation in a foreign land.

Being the rather simple-minded guy that I am, my first impulse would be to find out what the Constitution has to say on the issue and try and follow that. Article One, Section 8 says very plainly that the Congress has the power to declare war. It doesn’t say anything about the President having the right to declare war on anyone, so I would be off the hook on this one, right?

Apparently that is not the case. Congress has only formally declared war five times in our country’s history, and the last time it happened was World War II. I think we all know we’ve engaged in some pretty serious war-like activities a lot more than five times. Apparently Vietnam, Korea, and all of the various skirmishes we’ve had in the Middle East in the last few decades were not really wars, despite all the shooting and killing that was going on.

Presidents from both parties have sent troops into foreign lands many times without issuing a declaration of war. Congress finally got fed up with the situation during the Vietnam era and they passed the War Powers Act in 1973 to try and reign in the situation. It states that the President can’t get us into an armed conflict for more than 60 days without seeking authorization from Congress.

Unfortunately The War Powers Act hasn’t stopped our Chief Executives from continuing to involve us in undeclared wars. Most recently President Obama got us knee-deep in a civil war in Libya without getting an okay from Congress, and he’s catching some flak for it.

Congress is divided over whether or not they should be concerned about their irrelevance in the Libya situation, and the division is not completely along party lines. Some of the most liberal of the Democrats aren’t crazy about Obama’s “gun boat diplomacy”, and a smattering of Republicans are okay with his using our troops to play global sheriff, Congressional oversight be damned.

John McCain, for example, says that Republicans who oppose the Libyan campaign are “isolationists” who are being unfaithful to traditional American values. “We don’t want people needlessly slaughtered by the thousands,” says he, “if we can prevent such activity.” Seriously, John?

Anyone who has spent more than a few days on this planet knows that there are many governments who “needlessly slaughter” their own citizens every single day. Are we going to invade all of those countries too? If not, how do we decide when to spend billions of dollars and sacrifice our young men and women not because our national security is threatened, but because we want to protect innocent lives in other countries? And why is it that we seem to value human life more in Libya than we do in Syria, or China, or Rwanda?

My simplistic view is that if we get attacked or if some unexpected emergency occurs in a foreign land the President should have some latitude to engage our military on a moment’s notice for a time-limited basis. But the Constitution and the War Powers Act wisely restrict the executive branch from committing us to long-term, premeditated military conflicts on the whim of a single man. Or they would, if more people in Washington cared about obeying the law.

The whole separation of powers thing only works if all the parties involved follow the rules. The executive branch of our government has accumulated way too much unchecked power in recent times, and I’m willing to bet that none of the 2012 Presidential candidates are going to offer to cede any of that power back to Congress if they should win the office they seek.