Tenth Amendment Center: The Constitution and Escalating War in Afghanistan

From Tenth Amendment Center

...from Tenth Amendment Center

Few presidential candidates in the last seven years have campaigned more for pulling out of Afghanistan then Donald Trump. So his decision to escalate the war in Afghanistan, 16 years after it began, is a shock to many who are tired of the globalist no-win and perpetual warfare, and in part voted for him to end it.

His words resonated with most, “Afghanistan is a total and complete disaster.” In another, “Are they going to be there for the next 200 years?” In another, the U.S. had “wasted an enormous amount of blood and treasure.” And another, “What are we doing there? These people hate us … We’re a debtor nation. We can’t build our own schools, yet we build schools in Afghanistan.”

All of this remains true and irrefutable, even though Trump said that viewing this war from the Oval Office prompted his reversal. War Hawk Senators Lindsey Graham and John McCain, former political enemies, now love him as do many globalists. His having surrounded himself with generals, John Kelly, H.R. McMaster and James Mattis (more military influence in the White House than in decades) is said to have influenced this change. Certainly “the industrial military complex,” as warned by Eisenhower before leaving office in 1961, is well in place around him.

The Afghanistan War has cost us over a trillion dollars in treasure and 3,539 coalition soldiers and is now the longest war in U.S. History. Nothing in the Trump Presidential Speech of August 21, 2017, changes any of this. Adding some 4,000 new U.S. soldiers to the 8,400 presently there, together with another 6,000 from NATO countries, is not likely to change what 16 years and two prior presidents could not.

But all of this would change if prior presidents of both political parties, and now Trump, took their oath to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution” seriously (Art. 2, Sec. 1, Cla. 8). Military powers are housed under the Legislative Branch of the U.S. Constitution (Article I, Section 8, Clauses 9-17). These include all power to declare and finance war, raise armies, “make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces,” and even determine the land that the military can use for training purposes. Nothing was omitted.

Under the Constitution there can never be an unpopular war as the peoples’ representative (The House of Representatives) have total power over raising and funding the army. They must consent to the war by declaration (because they provide blood and brawn for it) and they alone authorize the treasure for it. “All bills for raising revenue shall originate” with them (Art. 1, Sec. 7, Cla. 1).

Moreover, Congress was to monitor the war at two-year intervals through its power of the purse just described. “But no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years” (Art. I, Sec. 8, Cla. 12). If Congress is not happy with the progress of the war it can require the generals to account for why total victory has not yet been obtained and reduce or enlarge funding, with time restraints, to keep officers focused—even the president—and on a short lease with respect to the war declared.

Why did the president get none of this power? Because he “had the most propensity for war,” James Madison argued in the Constitutional Convention. Kings traditionally had sole power over the lives of their subjects. Not so under the Constitution. One man would never have such power. A declaration of war gave clarity to its beginning with victory or defeat its only ending. It could never be a casual thing as it is now.

In Afghanistan war transcended from attacking, to regime change, to nation-building, to policing their country for them. In fact, today it remains uncertain as to which nation is most responsible for 9 11. Fifteen of the nineteen hijackers flying into the World Trade Center and Pentagon buildings on that infamous day were Saudi nationals, as was Osama bin Laden. The country of Iraq had nothing to do with the attack, but received the first missiles in retaliation. Certainly Al-Qaeda dominated Afghanistan, but Saudi Arabia, who funded Al-Qaeda, got off scot-free.

The only constitutional power left by our Founders to the president is as “Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States… ,” notice this, “when called into actual Service of the United States,” which can only be done by Congress(Art. II, Sec. 2, Cla. 1). Otherwise the military functioned under Congress, not the president. The president’s power to make war (outside immediate self-defense as in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor) can only follow the legislature’s power to authorize war. Congress declared war on Japan the following day.

There was no declaration of war by Congress on Afghanistan (or any other country since World War II) calling into “actual service” the military. Nor is there a specific two-year funding limitation on war as constitutionally required. Moreover, Congress clearly has been nullified in making the “rules for the government and regulation of land and naval forces” in this no-end conflict.

Recent presidents have usurped all of the military powers of Congress unto themselves and Trump is doing the same. It is a dangerous slippery slope and clearly exceeds constitutional authority regardless of who inhabits the White House.

Harold Pease
August 23, 2017 at 01:52PM