Mike Lux, who wrote the above quote, then suggests a laundry list of things to do, which is fine, but then says this, which is not:
These may not be perfect solutions, but there are none in this situation. Let's keep looking for strategies and pressure points that actually help us, rather than bitching about things we can't change.
Bitching about things we can't change? Who's we Kemosabi? The Congress can end the war. And it can do it without sparking a "Constitutional Crisis." Sheesh, let's give the spineless another big excuse to do nothing why don't we? Look, if you do not know what you are talking about, then don't talk. Lux just did. A reminder:
In Federalist 69, Hamilton described the division of the war power thusly:
The President is to be commander-in-chief of the army and navy of the United States. In this respect his authority would be nominally the same with that of the king of Great Britain, but in substance much inferior to it. It would amount to nothing more than the supreme command and direction of the military and naval forces, as first General and admiral of the Confederacy; while that of the British king extends to the DECLARING of war and to the RAISING and REGULATING of fleets and armies, all which, by the Constitution under consideration, would appertain to the legislature.
And the Federalist Papers also speak to the REAL questions, the ones the law professors avoided in their mad rush to defend the idea of Congressional micromanagement of the Iraq war, to wit, can Congress end the war, and if so, how? The Federalist papers provide the answer. In Federalist 24, Hamilton wrote:
that standing armies [need not] be kept up in time of peace; [n]or [is] it vested in the EXECUTIVE the whole power of levying troops, without subjecting his discretion, in any shape, to the control of the legislature. . . . [T]he whole power of raising armies was lodged in the LEGISLATURE, not in the EXECUTIVE; that this legislature was to be a popular body, consisting of the representatives of the people periodically elected; . . . there [is], in respect to this object, an important qualification even of the legislative discretion, in that clause which forbids the appropriation of money for the support of an army for any longer period than two years a precaution which, upon a nearer view of it, will appear to be a great and real security against the keeping up of troops without evident necessity.
Here Hamilton states clearly that the power to end wars resides in the Congress most clearly through the power of the purse and the EXPRESS requirement that no appropriations for a standing Army last for more than two years. In this way, any war would require a de facto reauthorization from the Congress every two years by its decision to fund the war.
In Federalist 26, Hamilton wrote:
Let us examine whether there be any comparison, in point of efficacy, between the provision alluded to and that which is contained in the new Constitution, for restraining the appropriations of money for military purposes to the period of two years. . . . The legislature of the United States will be OBLIGED, by this provision, once at least in every two years, to deliberate upon the propriety of keeping a military force on foot; to come to a new resolution on the point; and to declare their sense of the matter, by a formal vote in the face of their constituents. They are not AT LIBERTY to vest in the executive department permanent funds for the support of an army, if they were even incautious enough to be willing to repose in it so improper a confidence. . . . The provision for the support of a military force will always be a favorable topic for declamation. As often as the question comes forward, the public attention will be roused and attracted to the subject, by the party in opposition; and if the majority should be really disposed to exceed the proper limits, the community will be warned of the danger, and will have an opportunity of taking measures to guard against it. . . .
Hey Lux, no constitutional Crisis, stop saying there would be one. Enough. This Congress needs no more excuses.
What is clear is that all this legal and political tapdancing gets us nowhere. To end the war, the Congress can do one of two things, or preferably both: it can repeal the Iraq AUMF, and/or it can refuse to fund the war. This sophistry from Democrats, politicians, pundits and legal scholars, does neither us nor our principles credit.
