Jaskalas
Lifer
- Jun 23, 2004
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The President does not agree. Besides, can you prove those were United States bombs dropped by United States planes, flown by United States pilots?
If any of that is not true... then does our ally dropping bombs in a war we've involved with count?
werepossum
Elite Member
- Jul 10, 2006
- 29,873
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I agree. That's why more and more, I think we need a national debate on the War Powers Act, to determine what the President's powers SHOULD be.
BTW, this is how we got involved in Vietnam, protecting French interests. The French attempted to defend their colonial assets in Vietnam from the Communists and got their asses handed to them, so they went to the UN for assistance. Since it fit with our national interests of containing (if not defeating) Communism, we championed their interests and promptly got saddled with the lion's share of the fighting, until we got OUR asses handed to us. At least this time the French are doing the fighting.
As a marine once said, "The French are there every time they need us."
We are command and control. Even if we aren't the ones pulling the trigger,which we are at times, we are still supporting it. If this.wasna.murder.trial.we.would be just.as.guilty.
werepossum
Elite Member
- Jul 10, 2006
- 29,873
- 463
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There's a point to be made for that, but there's also a point to be made for the opposite. If we're to go in and destroy the air defenses of a nation in sixty or even ninety days, and then pull air defense, alert strikes, recce, etc. while an ally does the bulk of the actual bombing, then practically speaking with one ally the President could start a war with any country of his choosing without Congressional approval. I want to support my President, but in my opinion it's a very bad precedent and completely opposed to the intent of the War Powers Act which was clearly intended to limit this very behavior.
Ah, so you think throwing a word together based on what you think it might mean and using it incorrectly makes me the idiot? Gotcha. I guess we're done here.
Fern
Elite Member
- Sep 30, 2003
- 26,907
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Sort of an interesting question, but perhaps one that is faulty.
Is a law unconstitutional if SCOTUS hasn't ruled it so? Or, to put it another way, is a law constitutional until the SCOTUS says it isn't?
If a law remains valid (i.e., is constitutional) until the SCOTUS rules it isn't, than we cannot have a situation whereby a President is impeached for violating an unconstitutional law. If the law had previously been ruled unconstitutional by the SCOTUS the Legislature could not impeach for it because that law would no longer exist.
Then there's the question of what actions may cause a President to be impeached. IIRC, the Constitution says a President can be impeached for "treason", "bribery" and "high crimes and misdemeanors".
I think there is no reason to discuss treason or bribery as law potentially unconstitutional. High crimes amd midemeanors is more or less a catchall phrase. It is generally thought to be crimes against the government/nation (the word "high" indicates this).
I question whether a law preventing harm to the nation could be unconstitutional. Let's assume it could.
Contrary to Craig234 assertion, I don't believe any US President has ever been impeached (as that term is propery known).
Impeachment is a two part process. First the House holds a 'trial', if the President is found guilty this is really no more than being indicted. If indicted, the Senate then holds a trial with the Chief Justice of the SCOTUS presiding. Seems a pretty slim chance that an unconstitutional law is gonna slip by the Chief Justice and all those constitutional lawyers in the Senate. But let's say it does.
I don't see anything that prevents the SCOTUS from reviewing a presidential impeachment. I would contend that impeaching a President for violating an unconstitutional law is itself unconstitutional. And given Marbury v Madison (IIRC) I see no constraints upon the SCOTUS. I do not think there is any precedent here that would indicate otherwise. I don't see how there could be since we've never had a President impeached.
As a practical matter, I would imagine the lawyers defending the President would try to have SCOTUS stay the impeachment proceedings until the constitutionality of the law could be determined. I believe this to be the most likely course of action if the law were truly thought to be unconstitutional. To first drag the country through an impeachment, then later drag eveyone through a SCOTUS seems too damaging.
BTW: If your question is driven by Obama's alleged violation of the WPA I fail to see how that law is unconstitutional. It strikes me a summary of previous SCOTUS cases of Presidential authority to commit the military forces under the Constitution.
Fern
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What are you on about? Of course it could. "Police are given the power to search anyone, anywhere, to try to find terrorists." Law 'preventing harm to the nation'; unconstitutional.
You should do better at checking things before posting. You simply don't know what the word means.
Here's one of any number of references, the online law library:
The impeachment process is complete with the House. The Senate's trial is separate.
'Impeach' is the counterpart for 'indict' in the criminal justice process. It causes a trial.
Your error is like saying 'indictment' includes the trial and verdict as well. 'OJ Simpson wasn't indicted for murder, they found him not guilty'.
No, the House doesn't hold a 'trial'. It might be compared to a grand jury; articles of impeachment (like charges) are proposed, discussed, and voted on.
Is the official White House web site good enough for you?
http://www.whitehouse.gov/about/presidents/williamjclinton
Modelworks
Lifer
- Feb 22, 2007
- 16,240
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My issue with attacking Libya isn't any of the political BS issues with who signs the paperwork. My issue is that they chose to attack Libya without thoroughly planning out what the objectives were, when it would start, when it would end, and what the goals for success are. You do not start attacking someone and then decide you will make it up as you go along.
I don't even care to look it up but I am absolutely sure that our President has admitted that our US Navy ships have fired US owned missiles into a sovereign country that was in fact NOT the US. That is an act of war no matter what he, you, the UN, or Santa Clause says. Let someone fire a missile from a foreign military ship into New York and see if we consider that an "act of war".
Seriously, are we getting back to the that depends on your definition of "is" shit?
For the record, blowing shit up with military weapons, fired from a military ship/plane, piloted/commanded by military personnel, in another country (without their permission, such as targeting their military) is a damned act of war. Period. Full stop. End of discussion.
FFS, if they shot a missile back and sunk one of our ships we would be calling for full scale invasion.
That's often how war works.
If you like, we can review the plans with goals and timetables for Germany and Japan in WWII, France and the US in Vietnam, and so on.
In fact, the US in basically every war. Well, Grenada went as planned.
Modelworks
Lifer
- Feb 22, 2007
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No it isn't how war works. Before entering any war in the past there were long discussions about what our role would be. Even when Pearl Harbor was bombed there were discussions on how to respond and what the conditions would be for success. It wasn't made up day to day because you can't fight a war without knowing the strategy you will use.
In all honestly it's probably time for the War Powers act to be revisited. I might be wrong, but as I understand it was in the 1970s was much slower than war today. War then took days/months, today they take hours/weeks. I don't imagine we had UAV technology either, which has tremendously changed the nature of war. Add in the fact that it has been quite some time since a war was declared on an actual country and things just seem outdated.
We can't fight 21st century war with 18th century law. (Oh, that's a nice 10 word sound bite, I wonder if anyone will use it...)
The act is outdated. Rather than getting in a pissing contest with Obama, which is really just about political points, Boehner should show some real leadership and assign hearings for amending the War Powers Act.
Anyone want to place bets on that happening?
We can't fight 21st century war with 18th century law. (Oh, that's a nice 10 word sound bite, I wonder if anyone will use it...)
The act is outdated. Rather than getting in a pissing contest with Obama, which is really just about political points, Boehner should show some real leadership and assign hearings for amending the War Powers Act.
Anyone want to place bets on that happening?
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Jaskalas
Lifer
- Jun 23, 2004
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Such elaborate text, for something missing the mark.
The President has 60 days to do whatever he wants without approval. Since that deadline has passed was it the United States that continued the bombing, or did we let other NATO members continue on from there?
I'm wondering how involved we've been since the deadline, and if that involvement counts. For example, being supportive of an ally that's doing the dirty work.
I am not the one missing the mark.
Would you kindly give me an example of some real elaborate text that explains exactly how the War Power Act gives the President of the United States cart blanche authority to attack any nation in the world for any reason he sees fit? Hell, you can narrow it down to just Libya if you like but I can literally make up the same argument for China, Russia, N. Korea, and a bunch of other people you probably wouldn't want to start dropping bombs on.
Yes, Japan and Germany had plans for WWII, I'm sure. So did France. Our plans varied quite a bit depending on a variety of things how the war went.
Our plans for Japan had one version with the nuclear bomb, another without. When we finally got to Germany, it was just a race with the Soviets. The split of Berlin wasn't some big strategy that had been planned out in 1941 - though it was a major global issue for years after threatening WWIII.
We had plans for Vietnam, as did France. I guess we had just planned to have that war go the way it did.
Jaskalas didn't seem to read the part of the War Powers Act that lists the conditions when force can be initiated.
Unfortunately those conditions can be lied about - 'protecting Americans in Grenada', 'Iraq threatens to attack the US'.
Hayabusa Rider
Admin Emeritus & Elite Member
- Jan 26, 2000
- 50,879
- 4,266
- 126
Presidents are effectively immune to the consequences of most unconstitutional actions. This could be settled definitively however that isn't really wanted by the majority of those who have the authority to act or their supporters.
If the War Powers Act is being violated then Obama can be impeached. It would be difficult to imagine a defense that would not involve the WPA. That would force a decision by the SCOTUS which ought to resolve the issue.
If the War Powers Act is being violated then Obama can be impeached. It would be difficult to imagine a defense that would not involve the WPA. That would force a decision by the SCOTUS which ought to resolve the issue.
Jaskalas
Lifer
- Jun 23, 2004
- 33,896
- 7,922
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I was trying to play devil's advocate for Obama, but yes I had forgotten the lynchpin where we are required to be attacked or in imminent danger. I was working under the assumption that even touching Libya was 'legal' until 60 days. Though the deadline seems moot when the argument is that anything violated the law.
Does this violation demand the President be impeached?
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feralkid
Lifer
- Jan 28, 2002
- 16,600
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It makes no difference; however you "plan" it, wars tend to ignore anyone's planning and take on a life of their own.
Hayabusa Rider
Admin Emeritus & Elite Member
- Jan 26, 2000
- 50,879
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There's always a political element IMO to impeachment, in deciding whether that's appropriate, that can include the size of the 'harm' and whether the issue is viewed as serving the interests of the country or betraying it. Nixon's actions did not have that huge an impact, of people being killed, as he tried to coverup illegal burglaries (unlike things like his undermining Vietnam peace talks under LBJ he was not held accountable for); but on the other hand, they were clear abuses of power, and he had tried to misuse national security to cover up the crimes, attempting to force the CIA to lie to prevent investigation of the burglaries. Nothing 'for the benefit of the country' there.
On the other hand, Clinton also had nothing 'for the benefit of the country', but his actions were much more minor - though they could be hyped, the worst being 'lying under oath'.
His looking into the camera ans saying he 'did not have sexual relations with that woman' was bad, comparable to Anthony Weiner being hacked, but neither was otherwise serious.
It did not rise to the level of impeachment by the squad of adulterers out to attack him for his behavior, having spent tens of millions fishing for years finding nothing before that.
Obama on the other hand, seems clearly not to be acting for corrupt, personal gain as in the first two examples, but attempting to do what's right - albeit against the law.
Now, Ronald Reagan betrayed the public trust far worse with his actions, from funding a terrorist army (murdering civilians who elected a guy we didn't like as opposed to backing the people under a tyrant), directly against the law passed by Congress not to fund the Contras, with means from allowing fundraising by Contra cocaine sales into the US to selling arms to Iran, also illegally. He should have been impeached IMO.
No Americans have been killed by Obama's actions (again, looking at the impact of his policy not the legal issue there). They're against a legitimate enemy of the US, protecting innocent people. Depending what our actions are helps say how plausible his argument is that he supports the War Power Act, but these actions don't fit what it was intended for.
It seems to me the issue is more about any use of force to begin with when the US wasn't threatened than the 60 days, since we have 'no forces remaining there' - no ground troops were introduced to remain there. This whole 'low risk air only' approach does seem distinct enough compared to the sort of thing the War Powers Act was for he has some argument - but he does have problems in that it does seem to violate when we can engage.
There are examples where other presidents weren't held to such a standard - like Grenada and I don't recall if there was any congressional approval before Panama.
All in all, weighing Obama's limited measures, the history of presidential freedom on this issue, the legitimacy of the policy - I'd say we have a problem but it does not meet the standard for impeachment. So what should we do, if doing nothing says to every president 'go ahead and ignore the Act'?
That's another topic than you asked about - and there are options from talks with Obama about getting congressional approval, to Congress indicating its position, to an act censuring the President (as eventually happened with Clinton), to clarifying legislation for the War Powers Act.
Actually, I think Obama has a point that the War Power Act was not intended for a policy like his Libya policy - but that doesn't help with the fact what counts is the written law.
While it's easy to say, 'but a President could drop bombs on China and start a major war then', fact is, he didn't, Libya is not China.
In fact even the very same actions a year earlier might have been very different, before the 'Arab Spring' affected the politics of such an uprising.
When Czekoslovakia revolted against the USSR in 1968 and asked for the US to help, we did not. They were slaughtered - the price of intervening was high. When the Kurds in Iraq after the first Gulf War rose up against Saddam *at our encouragement* and then started to be slaughtered by helicoptors *we'd approved*, and asked for us to intervene, we did not, and many Kurdish friends of the US were killed by Saddam - without a good reason.
This circumstance is somewhat different - we've bombed Libya before (should Reagan have been impeached for his bombing Qadafi before?) because of Qadafi having (we now are more sure) blown up Americans on a jet (snarky photo of McCain not long ago in Libya praising Qadafi not posted, that's not fair) - the circumstances of Qadafi's readiness to slaughter civilians, the political changes with the 'Arab Spring', suggest it made sense to get involved.
There is a dangerous issue of precedent - what makes sense now can be misused another time. 'Oh, we're just aiding those Iranian civilians against a tyrant'.
So, let's look for a policy that would allow Libya, and not allow an irresponsible attack on Iran, that can be made law. That's up to Congress.
Unfortunately, I don't think there's a chance Republicans will address that actual issue while they have the House. It's about the politics of attacking Obama.
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