TC the Terrible NOW Saber Squelch

Presented as a public service to all of my readers that need a new calendar for their cubicle wall. No need to thank me.

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TC

I wasn’t really impressed by what THE President said last night, as it should have been done about three years ago. As it stands now the level of violence and blood shed is going to jump up to astronomical levels once the United States and Iraqi armies try to lay the law down in Baghdad. It’s something that the United States war planners didn’t look at hard enough because it was simply easier to believe that the Iraqi people would have the ability to take care of themselves if we could get rid of Saddam for them. What was forgotten was how hard it was for America as a young nation to hold things together in our first twenty years as a nation. And we were a hell of a lot less divided by religion and economics that modern Iraq is. People forget that President George Washington had to lead American combat troops against American citizens just to get the taxes paid. The public school system may not have taught the average American about that little problem, but the nation’s leaders should have remembered it. That’s part of their job after all.

But as badly as the war has been handled to date, the next round is going to be worse for the nation.

The Democratic led Congress is getting ready to usurp some of the powers of the Executive Branch and that should worry all of us. According to Article 2, Section 2 of the United States Constitution ONLY “The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States. . .” That means that Congress can not tell the President when or where he can employ the Armed Forces. After the Viet Nam War the Democrats tried to reign in this authority by creating the War Powers Act. The Supreme Court has refused to rule on the legality of enforcing this act in recent years (when the Republican wanted to use it against Clinton over his actions in Kosovo and Yugoslavia) which is a good thing.

Congress does have the ability to declare war (Article 1, Section 8 ) but declaring war and the use of troops are two different things. And that same Article gives them the power of the purse by granting them the right to spend the nations’ money. To use the power of the purse to limit a President’s power is wrong. Nancy Pelosi and her followers are setting a bad precedent by promising to deny funding to America’s military while they are in harm’s way. It is a knee jerk reaction to popular opinion and a way to attempt to secure power for their own political party.

The rightness or wrongness of the current combat operations in Iraq is not what I’m talking about. That is another issue for another day. I’m more concerned today that the Constitution is about to be trampled under a back door attack by a reactionary Congress. President Bush followed the legal guidelines set forth by the Constitution and subsequent laws when he elected to use America’s military against Iraq. By stopping the funds that our soldiers need the Democrats are sending the message to the world that our nation does not have the resolve to stand by its word. And they are sending a message to our nation that they are willing to bend the laws that govern us in order to take power.

Screwing with the powers outlined in the Constitution is dangerous business. The Democrats need to be careful of the path they are about to embark on.

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TC