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Yeah unfortunately that is not actually the way the law is written Bernie. Wish it was.
Short version, the president gets to deploy the military where ever he wishes (outside the US, posse comitatus etc). That includes invading a sovereign nation or raining missiles down on one.
Only congress has the power to declare a war, but the Potus gets to defacto kick off the war and then dare congress not to back him.
After it was either 60 or 90 days, I forget, congress gets to "review" the decision, the problem is they have no power other than financial if they wish to stop the war. So the only thing they can do is turn off the finances to the military, and wait for the money to run out - which is generally up to a year. They have no way of forcing the president to desist other than impeachment or cutting off the funds.
They can pass a motion, or even legislation, which the Prez can then veto, pointless. If they can muster the 2/3rds of congress they can remove him via impeachment.
Edit, spelling correction and to note that I can pull out the full details if needed - was discussed heavily on reddit a while ago
This is how we ended up with the Iran-Contra Scandal. The Reagan administration wanted to fight the growing communist forces in Nicaragua, but Congress forbid them, and denied them funding.
They decided to find the money by selling highly inflated arms to our bitterest enemy at the time, IRAN, only a few short years after they had held our Embassy officials hostage for over a year.
They took the profits of those illegal arms sales, and used it to finance their illegal war on Central America.
So these traitors don't even take no for an answer when Congress shuts off the money tap.
What congress can do is refuse to pay for the war/police action. They still need to write the checks. Wars don't last long with out money.
Its like choosing the president is a really important decision.
But genocidal Kamala is just as bad! I was informed about it multiple times by accounts on .ml (and not all of them are operating exclusively during Moscow working hours)
Biden/Harris would have done something similar to defend Israel from the consequences of its actions. Biden did bomb Yemen after all when it tried to stop the genocide. Biden is a self admitted Zionist and defended Israel’s invasion of Lebanon and supported the invasion of Iraq. Harris did nothing to distance herself from him.
Yeah, in most regards kamala would've been better, but this is Israel. She may have been less gung ho, which would be better for a handful of Iranians benefitting from slightly fewer bombs, but not better enough
I'm sorry, do you have a magical alternate reality viewer that shows Kamala not doing the same exact thing except whinging along the way about "working tirelessly" to avoid the thing that is currently happening with zero repercussions for the aggressor state... ? Come on, don't forget the president that kept warning about non-existent red lines as Palestinians were being (and still are!) slaughtered by the thousands, and literally bypassed congress to send munitions to Israel despite this. Y'know, the thing that will now be super bad when Trump does it?
At least we & our government officials don't have to pretend this is fucking normal just because the president is super duper apologetic about it and pinky promises that they care about all the lives involved but conspicuously only mentioning the ones belonging to the aggressor nation!!!1!
same exact thing
Yeah no.
Lmao.
Sounds like more should have been done to prevent trump even getting on the ballot while his opposition was still in power. Oh wait, but then they couldn't run on "trump bad" and would actually have to champion something for the people to get their votes. Oh well!
Yup. Someone has to be the ultimate commander of the military. Unfortunately (at least right now) POTUS is the commander in chief of the military.
So while his actions may not be a formal declaration of war, they certainly can cause a foreign nation to declare war on the USA.... Which simply pulls the US into a state of war regardless.
Can you guys not vote convicted felons suffering from dementia into the white house?
That would be great....
Sincerely, a Canadian.
Not American, but I am in favour of convicted felons not being in the White House too
Can you guys not vote convicted felons suffering from dementia into the white house?
You’re right. Next time we should vote for someone respectable! Someone who has experience! Someone who went to a good school and is smart! Someone who hasn’t been convicted of a crime! Someone like that would NEVER illegally start a war of aggression on false premises! Such a completely hypothetical scenario is basically
unmemorableunimaginable!
Your comment contradicts the Wikipedia entry...
The War Powers Resolution (also known as the War Powers Resolution of 1973 or the War Powers Act) (50 U.S.C. ch. 33) is a federal law intended to check the U.S. president's power to commit the United States to an armed conflict without the consent of the U.S. Congress. The resolution was adopted in the form of a United States congressional joint resolution. It provides that the president can send the U.S. Armed Forces into action abroad only by declaration of war by Congress, "statutory authorization", or in case of "a national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces".
Scroll down that page to the section about "Questions regarding constitutionality" after reading that, also consider
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campbell_v._Clinton
Campbell v. Clinton, 203 F.3d 19 (D.C. Cir. 2000),[1] was a case holding that members of Congress could not sue President Bill Clinton for alleged violations of the War Powers Resolution in his handling of the war in Yugoslavia.
Further reading
https://www.npr.org/2011/06/16/137222043/why-the-war-powers-act-doesnt-work
https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/RL31133
https://sgp.fas.org/crs/natsec/RL33532.pdf
TL;DR a law being passed that intends to achieve a certain outcome is not the same as it actually achieving the outcome. The law intended to constrain the president but failed because it had no enforcement mechanism and could be vetoed by President
As Bernie well knows because he twice sponsored a change to the law that was vetoed by trump (2019 & 2020) - See your wikipedia page in the sections for Yemen and Iran
Weird that he didn't try in 2021 or 2022.
The only military actions Biden did in those years were "one and done" and thus there was nothing Bernie (or the GOP) could do. Ignoring the Afghanistan shit-sandwich Mango handed him to deliver which very definitely had been passed through congress.
Somalia 2021 - missile strikes over in a day and no further action, 2022 strike on Ayman al-Zawahiri one off drone hit.
Those aren't ongoing so the most you could do is a grandstanding slap on the wrist "bad president" in some form of legislation that the President is just going to veto. You can't pass a law telling him to stop doing it when it's already been done.
the president gets to deploy the military where ever he wishes (outside the US, posse comitatus etc). That includes invading a sovereign nation or raining missiles down on one.
That is how it's been interpreted, it's not actually what the founders had in mind when they wrote the constitution. They wanted congress to be a check on the presidents 'commander in chief' role by reserving the right to declare war for congress. If the president can still effectively declare war without a declaration of war, it's the same as not having that check in the first place. It's basically a loophole that presidents have been using to do illegal things
After it was either 60 or 90 days, I forget, congress gets to “review” the decision, the problem is they have no power other than financial if they wish to stop the war.
It's 60 (with an additional 30 days to withdraw the forces) as outlined in the War Powers Resolution of 1973. This was an attempt by congress to close that loophole.
It's true that they can cut off funding (as per Section 5c of the WPR), but congress pretty much already had that power as per the constitution and that's not actually their only recourse. It's still technically illegal for the president to do that (which means squat thanks to the SCOTUS) but he can be challenged through the courts for it. He could also be censured and as you mention impeached for it. None of those things are likely to happen now, but my point is Bernie is basically technically correct if not practically correct.
That is how it's been interpreted, it's not actually what the founders had in mind when they wrote the constitution. They wanted congress to be a check on the presidents 'commander in chief' role by reserving the right to declare war for congress.
Agreed, the founding fathers definitely didn't want a king who could wage war at his whim, but unfortunately the constitution as drafted didn't envisage a standing army under the bidding of the President, it expected militias to be levied for defense as required.
It's still technically illegal for the president to do that (which means squat thanks to the SCOTUS) but he can be challenged through the courts for it.
Kinda but not really. Something is only illegal if it is within the powers of the lawmaker to bind in that way. If the constitution doesn't provide that power then it is ultra vires and as if the law didn't exist. Unfortunately the constitutionality of the 1973 act is definitely questionable - I listed more in another response but
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Powers_Resolution#Questions_regarding_constitutionality
and