Radar, reread both Article I, Section 8, para 11, and the precedent for every shooting match we've been in, which number about a hundred and fifty. As you can see, the power of declaring war is vested in Congress, but the Constitution nowhere requires such declaration be made to order the troops in. This permits a flexibility we'd be wise to keep. We've only Congressionally declared a state of war in five conflicts.

Anyway......


We will all remember Reagan for our own reasons and what he meant to each of us.


RIP Ronny.

Violating civil rights is the action of a tyrant. Murdering people who have not attacked you is the actions of a tyrant. Starting unprovoked wars is the actions of a tyrant. Violating international law is the actions of a tyrant. Locking people up without charges for years while keeping them from seeing a lawyer is the actions of a tyrant. Violating the laws of your own nation and infringing on the rights of people are the actions of a tyrant. Bush is taking part in tyrrany, not breaking it.

Iraq is no better off right now than they were before America attacked them without legitimate cause. In fact Iraq is worse off. They've had thousands upon thousands of people murdered by Bush and Al Queda. They've seen terrorism in their country increase to levels never before seen. They have their homes searched, newspapers shut down, people grabbed for no reason and sent to jails where they're tortured and even killed by Americans (Just like Hussein did), etc.

Life was better in Iraq with Saddam than it is thanks to Bush.


R-ot
I-n
H-ell

Mr. Reagan

I completely agree.

Now....someone break me out and I'll go back to being the lovable Saddam of old, ruling Iraq with Libertarian ideals.

Wrong again. I'm intimately familiar with Article 1, section 8. Congress alone has war making powers. This means Congress must make a declaration of war before taking part in one. A declaration of war is required to take part in a war. That's a fact. The President is given absolutely NO WAR MAKING POWERS. The war in Iraq is unconstitutional, and also violates the U.N. charter (which is less important because the UN doesn't limit our government, but the Constitution does.

Last week, during a hearing in the House International Relations committee, I attempted to force the committee to follow the Constitution and vote to declare war with Iraq. The language of Article I, section 8, is quite clear: only Congress has the authority to declare war. Yet Congress in general, and the committee in particular, have done everything possible to avoid making such a declaration. Why? Because members lack the political courage to call an invasion of Iraq what it really is – a war – and vote yes or no on the wisdom of such a war. Congress would rather give up its most important authorized power to the President and the UN than risk losing an election later if the war goes badly. There is always congressional "support" for a popular war, but the politicians want room to maneuver if the public later changes its mind. So members take half steps, supporting confusingly worded "authorizations" that they can back away from easily if necessary.

It’s astonishing that the authorization passed by the committee mentions the United Nations dozens of times, yet does not mention the Constitution once. Congress has allowed itself to be bypassed completely, even though much is made of the President’s generosity in "consulting" legislators about the war. The real negotiations took place between the Bush administration and the UN, replacing debate in the people’s house. By transferring its authority to declare war to the President and ultimately the UN, Congress not only violates the Constitution, but also disenfranchises the American electorate.

I don’t believe in resolutions that cite the UN as authority for our military actions. America has a sovereign right to defend itself, and we don’t need UN permission or approval to act in the interests of American national security. The decision to go to war should be made by the U.S. Congress alone. If Congress believes war is justified, it should give the President full warmaking authority, rather than binding him with resolutions designed to please our UN detractors.

Sadly, the leadership of both parties on the International Relations committee fails to understand the Constitution. One Republican member stated that the constitutional requirement that Congress declare war is an anachronism and should no longer be followed, while a Democratic member said that a declaration of war would be "frivolous." I don’t think most Americans believe our Constitution is outdated or frivolous, and they expect Congress to follow it.

When Congress issued clear declarations of war against Japan and Germany during World War II, the nation was committed and victory was achieved. When Congress shirks its duty and avoids declaring war, as with Korea, and Vietnam, the nation is less committed and the goals are less clear. No lives should be lost in Iraq unless Congress expresses the clear will of the American people and votes yes or no on a declaration of war.

Ron Paul, M.D., represents the 14th Congressional District of Texas in the United States House of Representatives.

Seriously, UG it is okay for you to be a Neo-Con bent on building an overseas empire, just don't call yourself a Libertarian while you agitate for it. The greatest threat to American freedom right now is the Executive Branch of our own government. War making always ratchets up the power of the Presidency and as Robert Higgs contends that accumulated power doesn't just disappear when the bombs stop falling. That Libertarians are the only ones who recognize this is a sad state of affairs but thankfully we have folks like Radar who are willing to apply a "purity" test when the last voice for the old Republic is threatened with being watered down.

See that's how it is UG - if you're not a strict non-interventionist, you're a neo-con bent on building an overseas empire. There appears to be no middle ground in this game.

Meanwhile if you really look at it, you notice that this President isn't exactly swimming with power, and it's the will of the people that maintains that condition, not the state of "war" which we are not really in and haven't really seen since before I was born. If we were at total war with Iraq there would be no Iraq left.

Under an L gummint we would be sending volunteer troops to Iraq anyway, except that they would be called mercenaries and would face the exact same problems and questions. You saw Radar here say that it was OK for NAPpies to hire agents to operate on their behalf. Well that's what would happen. The freely-trading oil companies' interests would not disappear in a differently-enabled approach to freedom. Their mercenaries would just operate less as agents of our own, and more as agents of the oil companies. They would make deals with Hussein, keep him in power, make him rich and enable his WMD programs (which, shut up, was his goal at least in 1998 and if you don't agree you aren't paying attention).

The chess game of world realpolitik does not disappear if we refuse to play. It goes on without us, and necessarily, against us.

If you want smaller government, you have to recognize and defeat what grows government. War-making grows government more than any other factor. Obviously, we don't live in a world where oil companies pay their own way when it comes to knocking off governments overseas, so right now mercenaries are not the biggest threat to our way of life. I think there is merit in your argument against letting corporations employ mercenaries and since corporations only exist at the whim of the state, they can be restrained from actions detrimental to the nations safety. However, right now, oil companies have our taxpayers and our army to enforce their merchantilistic desires and that does help prevent a free market from developing in the energy sector, making us slaves to their industry.

Your point about the weakened state of W's Presidency does not hold water if you consider what he can do at the drop of a hat in the name of national security. Even someone with as little popular support as W can invade countries and/or shut down entire industries if he so desires. This weak President has troops all over the world and could if he chose start another war with the barest excuse in Syria or Iran. Fortunately, he doesn't face re-election so he may restrain himself this time.

What grows government more than anything else: Stalinism. It's in everyone's interest that the last evidence of Stalinism be removed from the world. Only then will it truly be possible to change the U.S. military mission to something cheaper.

The oil is where it is, and it remains fact that the oil companies' best interest would have been to deal directly with Saddam and buy his oil. The "merchantilistic desires" - called "market forces" where they are useful to the cause - will also be there, no matter what. The military force behind those market forces will also be there no matter what. The peaceful market activity between nations only operates because there is international diplomacy, no matter what. (Similarly, the local marketplace only operates well if there is some policing of fraud and theft, no matter what.) If one side is prepared to use their guns and the other side is not, the first side wins at diplomacy without using their guns, no matter what. Those are the basic truths of the matter, and no amount of navel-gazing about rights will escape them.

It's not working. Nice try, though.

Dude. http://www.johnfrostnewspapers.co.uk...berlinwall.gif


The power concentrated in our Presidency is evidence of the fight to end real Stalinism. We cannot remove every trace. Our propping up of dictators to fight all the little Stalins is a major reason we have no standing in the mid-east. It is time to leave the sandbox to the kids who own the yard. They'll decide who their masters are going to be anyway.

Our present belligerent attitude is energizing terrorism and militarism. We have forced Iran's hand, they will have the bomb unless Israel or the US drops the hammer. I've heard enough fantasizing about US hegemony wrapped in a cloak of realism. That attitude is nonsense. The phoney realists have us in a no-win situation in Iraq and have strengthed the radical clerics in Iran. We don't need any phoney realism now. We need what Bush pretended his foreign policy would be before his election and the hijacking of the Republican Party.

BTW- We both know the differance between mercantilism and capitalism even if our politicians don't. It's still Hamilton vs Jefferson.

The model used by Hussein, the Iranians, and Kim Jung Il is Stalin. It got that way partly through the USSR's propping-up of dictators, which gave them great standing in the region.

In the latter half of the last decade we fought Stalinism through the cold war. It required a remarkable buildup of nuclear weapons and spending on military items.

So that's what the "Axis of Evil" was all about! Cold War leftovers...

[drool]mmmmmm...leftovers[/drool]

One can only try. Life's not the same since the outsourcing effort. The Indian ThreadHiJackers seem to be much more effective and cost a lot less.

A bit harder to understand too but overall much more effective.

cheaper on the bottom line, but not more effective. You're the one with the new, nonfunctional computer. How did Apu do on tech support? They are just as good at threadhijacking.