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Foreign Affairs
Related: About this forumHawkish Obama in Iraq
http://watchingamerica.com/WA/2014/10/09/hawkish-obama-in-iraq/Hawkish Obama in Iraq
Published in Le Monde (France) on 30 September 2014 by Steven Ekovich [link to original]
Translated from French by Callum Downs. Edited by Gillian Palmer.
Posted on October 9, 2014.
Some experienced commentators in the American media have been wondering if President Barack Obama is turning into George W. Bush right in front of our amazed eyes. The right-leaning TV channel Fox News has taken great joy in comparing Obamas speech in front of NATO, where he justified his decision for military intervention, to the speech that George W. Bush made in the same building, justifying the same action. And indeed, both presidents evoked similar, apocalyptic, morally grandiloquent sentiments. Furthermore, the gray marble backdrop of the photo at the stand shows the two presidents dressed in exactly the same way.
But the criticism Obama faces, as well as the support for his decision, comes from all angles. They are strategic, military or constitutional; even all three at the same time.
Constitutionally, the debate focuses on the range of powers that the president holds to deploy military forces without any formal and grand declaration of war. As it is in all democracies, the responsibility of declaring war is a power shared between the legislative and the executive. However, how far can the president use his simple authority as commander-in-chief without having to ask Congress? The last war that was constitutionally declared by Congress was World War II. Every war America has been in since then has been without a declaration as prescribed by the constitution.
Nevertheless, the legislature has not completely moved aside. The Vietnam War was legally justified following the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, voted for by the two chambers after attacks by North Vietnam on two American destroyers in Vietnam waters; doubts were later raised about these attacks, with some suggesting they never occurred at all. This resolution was considered as the functional equivalent of a declaration of war and thus gave the president authority, as commander-in-chief, to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression. Many members of Congress later regretted their vote, as President Johnson took the text very loosely to mean he could intervene to such an extent that would constitute a major war. The Supreme Court, which exercises constitutional authority, refused to declare the war unconstitutional, despite the petitions it received. The court did not dare intervene once the countrys military was significantly involved.
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Hawkish Obama in Iraq (Original Post)
unhappycamper
Oct 2014
OP
GeorgeGist
(25,293 posts)1. So after leading the win of WW2, we tore up our Constitution.
Greatest Generation?