We have been discussing the growing concerns over President Barack Obama’s series of unilateral actions in ordering agencies not to enforce law, effectively rewriting laws, and moving hundreds of millions of dollars from appropriated purposes to areas of his choosing. One of the greatest concerns has been his unchecked authority asserted in the national security area. I previously represented members of Congress in challenging Obama’s intervention in the Libyan civil war without a declaration from Congress. In the case, President Obama insisted that he alone determines what is a war and therefore when he needs a declaration. Since the court would not recognize standing to challenge the war, it left Obama free to engage in war operations in any country of his choosing. As with his approach in Libya, Syria and other combat operations, President Obama declared this week that he does not need any approval or even consultation with Congress if he decides to commit us again to war again in Iraq.
As in the past, Democrats are not just silent but actually applauding the circumvention of Congress — a precedent that will likely come back to haunt them if the next president is a Republican. House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California said that the President does not need congressional approval to do go back into combat and then matter-of-factly that in their brief conversation, the President “did not give us an array of actions he was planning to take.”
While we do not expect combat troops on the ground, the White House appears to be exploring an intervention with air power and possible special forces. The White House simply told Congress and the public to trust their uber president: “Any action that he might contemplate when it comes to … the use of military force will be to deal with the immediate and medium-term threat posed by ISIL.”
I recently testified (here and here and here) and wrote a column on President Obama’s increasing circumvention of Congress in negating or suspending U.S. laws. Obama has repeatedly suspended provisions of the health care law and made unilateral changes that were previously rejected by Congress. He has also moved hundreds of millions from one part of the Act to other parts without congressional approval. Now, his administration is reportedly changing key provisions of the ACA to potentially make billions of dollars available to the insurance industry in a move that was never debated, let alone approved, by the legislative branch. I just ran another column this month listing such incidents of executive over-reach that ideally would have included this potentially huge commitment under Obama’s claimed discretionary authority.
This week I debated the head of the Brennan Center at New York University on Obama’s unilateral actions and the dangers that they pose on the PBS program Newshour. While my co-guest repeatedly insisted that he is “not troubled” by the concentration of authority in the presidency, I again believe that Democrats will long regret that they support the rise of this uber presidency:
Yeah, or when he gives graduates help with massive student debt.
Yep, McConnell said Obama has the authority to do so. They really only get upset if Obama is giving immigrants a break.
SWM – no one is upset about immigrants, it is illegal aliens that are the problem.
SWM,
Yes, true. So now that he has decided to once again bypass Congress they aren’t calling for hearings?! They must be off their game. Or are they so giddily happy to be going back into Iraq, they don’t mind Obama being Nixonesque.
Annie, They never wanted Obama to leave Iraq to the extent he did in the first place.
Where is the same outrage at the President who once again is circumventing Congress on reentering Iraq, from the Republicans on this matter? When it’s something they want then it’s Ok? It didn’t take long for the right to display their hypocrisy.
smallguvguy is correct. Special forces units are combat troops. And it will not be possible for them to “advise” Iraqi forces without potentially becoming engaged in combat. Many of us are old enough to remember that the first U.S. soldiers sent to Vietnam were “military advisors.”
The actions being taken by the President do not fall within the scope of the 2002 resolution. That document authorized the use of force for two purposes: “1. defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq; and 2. enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq.” What we are witnessing is the emergence of a sectarian civil war that was utterly predictable and virtually inevitable given the history of that country. The President will not seek congressional approval because he knows he will not have to, and he knows that because Congress has repeatedly ceded warmaking power to the executive branch, in violation of the Constitution, because its members have the collective moral courage of a cockroach.
Saddam Hussein understood that the artificial entity known as Iraq could be held together only through the maintenance of a secular dictatorship, a fact that continues to escape American policy makers. I opposed the invasion because I believed then that the elimination of Hussein would lead to civil war and the ultimate partition of the country. I still do. I opposed the absurd “surge” because I believed then that it was nothing more than an effort to prolong the inevitable. I still do.
The seeming inability of Iraqi security forces to defend their own country is not a consequence of a lack of training; it is a consequence of a lack of will. Iraqi soldiers are not committed to the fight because they are not committed to their government. So why should we be? I would not expend one more bullet or one more drop of blood in that country.
Mike – if this is the same group that were there in 2003 for Viking Hammer, they can do some damage. They are specialists in ‘force multiplication.’
oops…. congressional authority
Help, please. I had a comment eaten. Thanks.
Saucy, Anyone who has read me here over the years will tell you I would not have a problem w/ the Washington Wops of Washington Micks[I’m half Irish]. PC is pernicious. The legit way for people offended by the Redskin name is to organize boycotts. That won’t work because even the sanctimonious politicians who scream about this mascot name would NEVER give up their Redskin tickets. This ruling is a travesty.
Nick – if 5 people can bring down the trademark for the Washington Redskins, I am thinking of going against the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame. It is a racial stereotype. Want to join in the fray? I need at least 4 other people of Irish descent to join me. If The Fighting Irish go down, it will end the Trademark people for ever. 🙂 I am also against the Boston Celtics because they pronounce it incorrectly. Who all is in with me?
Mitch McConnell agreed that the congressional to use military force in Iraq granted in 2001 and 2003 still applied.
Nick wrote “The Administration has now used the Patent Office to try and force PC on the Washington Redskins”
You and I disagree here. I suspect you would not appreciate the team being named the Washington Wops. The team can easily be renamed to Warriors.
The libertarian hero Reagan displayed worse behavior in Iran-Contra.
LBJ might be the poster child for interventions with his Tonkin Gulf incident.
The problem is that he pulled out before Iraq was really secure and left a mess behind. 300 advisers or whatever he wants to call them is a drop in the bucket. Right now the British are debating who to blame and how to get the US to clean up the mess. During Iraqi Freedom the group behind ISIS was dealt with by a small group of Green Berets and 7000 locals and driven back into Syria. The operation is called Viking Hammer.
Talk about having the fox in the hen house, or a Trojan horse in the white house………… America better step back and examine what his goal is in changing this country.
The Administration has now used the Patent Office to try and force PC on the Washington Redskins. I find this one of the more appalling overreaches from this Administration.
Obama: I Need No Congressional Approval To Go Back To War In Iraq
Decreed the unitary executive.
When Caesar speaks nations tremble.
If any of the war criminals responsible for the 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq were held accountable would this pathetic excuse for a president be making these specious claims?
The US government is a fraud.
The president a flim-flam-man and congress and the courts are his enablers.
And now a brief message on how to cast off the repressive yolk of tyranny from our ancestors:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transcript.html
Michael Waldman is a great cultist. He did rehabilitate himself just a bit @ the end w/ his overreach on terrorism but he HAD TO get Bush in there when mentioning that. Now, Bush was quite guilty in that regard. But, Waldman feeling obligated to emphasize a point of which we all are aware, corroborates he is a cultist, unlike JT. It was a good mini debate.
Thankfully, he has not listened to Dick Cheney and the republicans and gone back to war. Although they are calling him weak for not doing so.
He we go. The fall of dominoes from this action could be catastrophic. It needs real debate, not one person’s conclusion over what to do. Didn’t work for Hitler too well, won’t work for him either.
“While we do not expect combat troops on the ground, the White House appears to be exploring an intervention with air power and possible special forces.”
Special forces=combat troops.
President Obama so far is only send around 300.