March 20th, 2006 will mark three years since the beginning of our current Iraq military operation. The conflict, needless to say has been fraught with controversy and has divided the US along partisan political lines. I write this column, not to pass judgment on the Bush Administration nor to debate whether we should have started this venture to begin with – rather, I wish to look at what we can learn from this in terms of future conflicts and unifying the country behind actions taken about such conflicts.
Awhile back, I wrote a column entitled, “Withdraw from Iraq…but not now” in which I made reference to the fact that how we entered Iraq was through a “congressional authorization”. I mentioned that this had no real constitutional basis but also that “this Congress, and this president however, are not the first to engage in warfare outside the boundaries of the U.S. Constitution. The fact is that the government has been waging war and engaging in various police actions, without formal declarations of war, with an increasing frequency since after the conclusion of World War II (the last declared war).”
That article was more about a timeframe for leaving Iraq rather than a discussion of how we should approach war, so I left that for a future column – this one actually.
How we approach future conflict is becoming increasingly important. With the rhetoric ginning up concerning Iran and its nuclear aspirations, the ongoing North Korea saga, continued rioting over the “Muhammed Cartoons” by Muslims, Hamas’ recent Palestinian election victory and a myriad of other global hot spots, picking our battles carefully is vital. One of the most serious concerns we have now is how thinly stretched our military is because of the Iraq “police action”. If we continually pursue a policy of being the world’s “policeman”, we risk not being able to defend ourselves against attacks on our own shores.
The US Constitution provides a means for engaging in warfare – it’s called “declaring war”. We haven’t declared war in over sixty years, but we haven’t lacked for engaging in war during that time – Korea, VietNam, Bosnia and Iraq, just to name a few.
When we were attacked by the Japanese at Pearl Harbor and congress made a formal declaration of war, virtually the entire nation was unified in its resolve to win WWII. People everywhere rolled up their sleeves to sacrifice for the war effort, with few questioning the motive or the effort. Can we truly say that has been the case with any of these police actions since that time? With the notable exception of Afghanistan after 9/11, where we had been directly attacked on our own shores and where we had a clearly defined enemy (al-Qaida), not to mention a more clear objective, we have been largely a divided citizenry.
Even with the Afghanistan operation, we didn’t “declare war”, although there was a certain impracticality given that there was not a governing body as such in place, with the Taliban ruling through force. Iraq on the other hand, like the other nations I mentioned earlier, had an actual government. A dictatorship yes, but a government nonetheless. As such, a declaration of war would have been appropriate. Not only would it have been appropriate, it would also have eliminated all the wrangling over what Congress meant when they “authorized” use of force. That authorization has been manipulated, twisted and contorted by all sides of this issue to suit their own purposes – whether it’s the current “wiretapping” issue, or backing up from support of the operation for political reasons rather than ones pertaining to war strategy.
The founders were very wise men who envisioned limited government, and saw defense as vital – in fact, the most legitimate function of the federal government. Warfare was something they saw as being something to avoid, but also something that at times was unavoidable. For that reason they gave Congress the power to declare war, and the President the power to wage war. It is a formula that served us well for nearly two hundred years and will again if we but follow it. By declaring war, we can eliminate the haggling over the “meaning” of a resolution, be clear on our objective and hold both the President and Congress accountable. Perhaps best of all, there can be no such statement as “I declared war before I undeclared it”.
Copyright©
2/20/2006 by Chip McLean
=====================================================
