Congress, Constitutional Law, International, Military, Politics, Society

Obama: I Do Not Need Congressional Approval To Go To War With ISIS

President_Barack_Obama220px-B-2_spirit_bombingPresident Obama is again asserting his right to act unilaterally and without congressional approval in going to war. In what has become a mantra for this Administration, Obama reportedly told members of Congress that he does not need congressional approval to unleash a comprehensive military campaign against the Islamic State. The President informed a few members at a dinner — a striking image of how low congressional authority has become in our tripartite system of government.


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 (and most recently on whether he will resume the war in Iraq), Obama is again asserting his extreme view of executive power.

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.

I have repeatedly testified (here and here and here and here) and wrote a column on President Obama’s increasing circumvention of Congress in negating or suspending U.S. laws. However, war is a particularly egregious form of this unilateralism since the Framers worked hard to limit such powers under Article I and Article II.

Not only is the United States about to enter a new military campaign based solely on the President’s authority but he is promising to fight to the Islamic State “wherever their strategic targets are.” That may suggest additional violation of international law if the United States acts unilaterally with regard to the borders of foreign nations. Michèle Flournoy, a former undersecretary of defense for policy, seems to anticipate and support such actions. She is quoted as saying “This is not an organization that respects international boundaries. You cannot leave them with a safe haven.” For some countries, that view may seem quite threatening since the United States has been repeatedly accused of bombing and conducting operations in other countries without approval.

Once again, we are left with the questions of any limiting principle to this new uber-presidency. A president can now unleash a military campaign without congressional approval that could involve multiple nations. Yet, Congress seems content, again, to watch in a purely pedestrian role as if this invitation to a “dinner” is a sufficient substitute for congressional authorization. While it is not a check or balance, the president did pick up the check.

Source: Washington Post

417 thoughts on “Obama: I Do Not Need Congressional Approval To Go To War With ISIS”

    1. I quite agree raf, especially since those who hate Kerry refuse to know the FACTS which have been laid out in numerous debunking stories. It is so bad that they cannot get simple facts right such as how long and how many tours he did in Vietnam. Kerry was in Vietnam for two tours, both of which were FOUR months, and add up to a total of eight months. They also lie about what assignment he got after Vietnam. He served as an Admirals aide for one year after that, and then requested an early out. His total was three and a half years on active duty. Unlike Bush who did not come close to his obligation of SIX years in the ANG. But I think that the truth is their last concern.

  3. The Wiley’s now have financial problems of their own…. Sec is breathing down their necks…. The fools who put the money up for the ads…. The point of a lawsuit would be moot… And the SOL has probably run in all jurisdictions….. So why bring it up today other than stirring stuff up….

  4. Randy…you are trying to put words in my mouth. I cannot debate your fiction sprinkled with a few spurious facts. I don’t vote for or against a candidate because he is a veteran or not. You seem to think that is important. BTW…after Kerry, I’d put Cheney next on my list of men I do not like and it has nothing to do with his veteran status or not. We’re done with this conversation.

  7. @ Ari. When I was in the financial arena, one of my district supervisors, [Series 24 supervises the Series 7 and 65 financial planners of the firm where I was a 67, 7 and life licensed] was a former Swift Boat officer and knew of Kerry when all that happened in Vietnam that you described. All the phoney baloney grandstanding and then getting out on the equivilant of a paper cut, while his (my supervisor’s) men were being hurt, patched up and put back into service.

    When Kerry was running and the Swift Boat guys were speaking the truth, I thought he was going to pop an artery or something in his absolute fury that Kerry would run around posing himself as an honorable “decorated veteran”. There are not enough words for the fury that most Vietnam Vets have for that sniveling weaseling coward.

    I understand your anger and respect your service. Kerry. SPIT on him.

    1. Dust Bunny, Your anger is NOT directed at Kerry’s service, which is MORE than Bush or Cheney by FAR, but at his dissent that the Vietnam war was a good and honorable thing. As for the Swift Boaters, I saw that one guy they used in an ad lost his job because as an Assistant DA in Portland, OR because he was banging his mistress when on company time and lied about it. One of his co-workers had had enough of his lying and dropped the dime on him. He also lied about when Kerry was awarded his Bronze Star and said that there was NO enemy fire. His ex then produced his own Bronze Star that was awarded for the SAME battle in which the citation noted intense enemy fire. I also noted the contention that Kerry never went into Cambodia. The lying lawyer O’Neil said that Kerry was lying about that since it was strictly against orders to do so. Then a reporter went to the Nixon library and listened to the tapes of O’Neil’s meeting with Nixon, in which O’Neil bragged about going into Cambodia himself. So we know for a FACT O’Neil is a liar on at least one item. Take your pick as to which one was the lie.

      1. randyjet – The Swiftboaters have been waiting for Kerry to successfully sue them for defamation and he has not been successful, so far.

  9. Randyjet…beg your pardon, But I am a Vietnam Veteran. Gore was a journalist for his tour, given that he was at least there and didn’t run away. I just didn’t like his politics of convenience subsequently. I’d voted for Clinton and thought we needed a change and Gore was not even up to Clinton standards.

    Now as for Kerry…he was was a boat driver, for less than 90 days when he managed to gather 3 ludicrous purple hearts, not one requiring even an hour in the dispensary, and thus eligibility to leave Vietnam, which he did. And promptly, upon arrival in CONUS, requested an early out outside of the 150 day eligibility time frame, which he also managed to suck up and get. I know of no one else who got that, just who do you think filled the Army and Marine reception centers for boot camps when they arrived with 150 days or more left on their enlistment. Kerry was special, eh? Then he came home and lost his first election, so he set out for my home town Detroit and started the “Winter Soldier” investigation where he testified to things he never saw and never was even close to on his little boat….that Army guys were killing women and children on orders from DOD, etc…the guy is a liar beyond description and if he dropped dead tomorrow I’d barely notice. You did notice the “SPIT” reference in my remark, right? Kerry is a disgrace to all veterans who did not run and shirk…even the “medals” he says he threw away were ribbons, not medals, and not even his (which are all on his office wall to this day). If his lizard thin lips are moving he is lying. Latest is the ISIS pursuit is not a war, never mind we’re killing people…I cannot say enough about why I hate that sorry skinny SOB.

    When you say “combat decorated vet” in regards to Kerry I feel to vomit. You just have no idea. How many combat veterans do you know who took an 8 mm movie camera with them for his buddies to film him in grandiose poses? At a base camp or dock? I don’t know a single one. Not. One. The sad sack punk tried to get a PBF ride on the coast, to imitate JFK and PT 109, but Zumwalt (CNO at the time) changed all that, and ordered the PBF”s in to the rivers, or he’d never have been in country per se…..and he never saw one soldier kill one woman or child anywhere. The lying SOB.

    Pardon me while I now go vomit…just thinking about Kerry cause distress. The sniveling punk insulted almost every soldier who ever set foot in Vietnam, or anywhere else, ever, all for his future political glory….and he did it in my home town too boot. May he ESAD.

    But, Randy…did I answer your paradoxical question?

    1. Aridog, I see that you believe or further lies which can be disproved if you do some research. As for Gore, the last time I checked, most journalists went out into the field to get the stories. During Vietnam, most of the reporters sat in their hotels and went to the 5 0’clock follies to lap up the Army propaganda, but Gore did not have that available to him. So I guess you think he just sat in the rear and just worked his typewriter in his tent. You also forget or did not know that Gore volunteered for the draft, and when he got orders to Vietnam, Nixon had them cancelled since Gore’s father was in a re-election battle and Nixon did not want a dead Al Gore to provide sympathy votes. After the election, Nixon had him shipped to Vietnam where hopefully the VC and NVA would do their duty and kill him.

      Kerry did TWO tours in Vietnam by the way. Too bad you forget about that FACT. I know plenty of combat veterans of Vietnam and other wars, and NO wound is slight since an inch or two the other way makes the award posthumous. I also recall that Bob Dole joked about one of his Purple Hearts which he got because he threw a grenade, it hit a tree, bounced back, and blew up and wounded him. I friend I worked with was a Marine grunt, and he showed me a number of photos he took of dead VC he shot. He also lost his right eye and was severely wounded. Even during WWII, there were a number of troops who took their COLOR movie cameras with them. Remember the film of GHW Bush being rescued?

      I guess you forgot like the US Army does the free fire zones that they established or the strategic hamlets, in which another Green Beret vet I knew, Ed Miles, who lost both legs served as an adviser to. Kerry rightly pointed out that he participated in establishing free fire zones per orders, which as he TRUTHFULLY reported is a WAR CRIME. Kerry did NOT testify at Winter Soldier as to seeing US troops kill women and children. Others who were there testified as to that fact. I talked to a number of Vietnam vets who liked what the ROK troops did to “pacify” their areas. They simply slaughtered ALL the people in the villages. I also read in the US Army history of the war, that one of the commanders observed that one village they assaulted had not been in Saigon’s control ever, and so they wiped out the village. Then I am sure that you remember the favorite slogan one can see at Vietnam vets events, Kill ’em ALL and let God sort them out. So don’t give me crap that US troops were pure at heart and never did what the Winter Soldier troops said that they were party to.

      I do agree that Kerry thought he was going to patrol the coast with his Swift boats and that it became VERY hazardous duty, but rather than acknowledge the FACT that he served honorably and with distinction, you use that against him. So it is OK for W Bush to use his connections to get out of serving on active duty and Vietnam and OK for Cheney to have something better to do with his time than serve in the military. You need to look more closely at how you think and get beyond the lies that the Swift boaters told.

  11. Correction: “We a Presidnetr, an Sec. of State, etc..” = We have a President, and Sec of State, etc..

    Dang.

    1. Aridog, I find it rather paradoxical you would vote for not one but TWO cowardly draft dodging chickenhawks, and not two Vietnam veterans, one of whom is a combat, decorated vet. You do not attach much value to those who served and fought in Vietnam as to their values and fitness for political office.

  12. Another facet of all this “deception of the many groups” (for lack of a better phrase) is the originally Shiite concept of “Taqiyya” or permissible deception or lying that eventually was accepted in the Sunni sect as well, although not in their scriptures…none-the-less, it is considered a necessary defense mechanism in both Sunni and Shiite sects, let alone the Salafists. All of the basic sects have their fundamentalists, predominate are the Salafists (who consider the Saudi Wahhabists as inferior to them) ….again, the fundamentalists intend to dominate all the rest (more Muslims have been killed by ISIL than anyone else) and to crush the west as well. The fundamentalists are of one cloth, and they delight that we think they are multiple independent groups…which they only pretend.

    Unlike the Vietnamese communists, who originally were our allies in WWII, but fought us later on, who wanted sovereignty of their own without the French or any other Western or American dominance ( and no Chinese either)….and I could understand that….I just didn’t much care for the communist orthodoxy. None the less, they knew we’d be leaving and always knew that…read Võ Nguyên Giáp’s memoirs for the whole concept. They were many pieces melded in to one by force or arms, but we seem to have missed that lesson.

    Now, in the Middle East we again think these are all different groups…when they are NOT, they are ONE, simply not coalesced yet, but will be, due to their common beliefs.

    When we hear that Al Qaeda rejects ISIL…think “Taqiyya” becasue that is what it is…plus a bit of jealousy about who is grabbing the headlines and power of late.

    I am almost convinced we Americans are just too obtuse to get it…we look for easy targets and make excuses for some who act like they are different, when they are exactly the same enemy. We a Presidnetr, an Sec. of State, etc. all who say our fight with ISIL is not “war”…never mind the bombs, rockets, gunfire, and death that say it is WAR.

    Are we really devolved Idiots?

  13. As for ISIS or ISIL, it is no coincidence that their flag is identical to the flag of Al Qaeda. It is also the banner of the Muslim Brotherhood. The flag essential says there is only one god and that is Allah and Muhammad is his messenger. They intend you get the point that no other belief will be tolerated and that they will determine what complies and what does not.

    This idea the west has that there is this group and that group and they’re all different is bullcrap…something we should have learned in the run up to our part of the Vietnam War. These groups are all or will all collapse in to one sooner than later. None are to be trusted. I hear this, in confidence, from many Arabs who live around me. They wonder if we really are fools and they have a vested interest, they live here too.

    All the sundry political groups in French Indo China collapsed, by coercion or death, in to the Viet Minh, which created the PAVN and Viet Cong, and subsequently the Government of North Vietnam, who invaded Cambodia and crushed the Khmer Rouge, and who now rules all of Vietnam….including Cochin China aka the area around Saigon aka Ho Chi Minh City…originally more Khmer than Tonkinese, Viet, or Annamese. One beginning and one ending, all in the same cut of cloth.

  14. To clarify an earlier remark I made about voting for Bush43…I voted for him in spite of my dislike for Cheney, the old Nixon hand, and because my stomach would not tolerate a vote for Gore let alone Kerry [SPIT!]. YMMV

  15. slohrss29 on 1, September 13, 2014@10:54

    “OK, maybe that wasn’t up to par on the part of mcw, but the Bush accomplishments–putting the country on a path to self-destruction with no one able to right the ship, seem pretty much a non-arguable point.”

    Of course, that’s your opinion. “…seem pretty much a non-arguable point.” is certainly an arguable point and depends on your political bias.

  20. slohrss29 – didn’t Obama say that he could right the ship of state? Didn’t he promise Hope and Change?

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