The president's war

“I have the authority to address the threat from ISIL.” So President Barack Obama affirmed in his address to the nation last Wednesday regarding our new military operation against jihadists who call themselves the Islamic State. But he also affirmed a few dubious claims like, “If you threaten America, you will find no safe haven.” The jihadists in Libya are laughing as they sit by the pool over that one.

This is not just one of many drone strikes in a lawless region of a failed state in that vaguely defined 21st century operation called “The War on Terror.” ISIS, or ISIL, is not a terrorist organization at all. It’s a conquering army. Fighting it is “war” and requires a declaration of war from Congress.

The president has declared that he intends to “degrade and ultimately destroy” a distinct army led by a distinct leadership that exclusively controls a distinct region and calls itself “the Islamic State.” It has a reasonable claim to being “a state,” though certainly an unjust one established by unjust means. The fact that the Islamic State is, as Obama said, “recognized by no government, nor by the people it subjugates” doesn’t change the fact. Destroying it will take the methods of war we would use to defeat any state.

What the president proposes is not just a continuation of the Iraq war. Obama closed the book on that war and boasted about it. He brought our troops home and left no residual force. In his speech, he himself said, “This will not be like the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.” It’s a war and it’s not the Iraq war, and so the authority Congress granted for hostilities there has expired. Charles Blow at The New York Times called this “another foreign war,” rejecting the president’s evasive terminology, “counterterrorism campaign.” He isn’t even fooling his fans.

To preserve the safety of government and the freedom of the people, the constitution requires a declaration of war. Under the law that governs every branch of our government and ensures our liberty as a self-governing people, the president may not use the nation’s war-making powers in just any way he sees fit and against any people he chooses to identify as an enemy. The nation goes to war only after Congress formally debates the matter and passes a declaration of war.

We are heading into war without a vigorous public debate. Part of that debate might consider whether we have serious grounds for war. President George W. Bush had evidence that Saddam Hussein was concealing weapons of mass destruction and had the motive to use them. But Obama admitted that “we have not yet detected specific plotting against our homeland.” What we do have are taunts and the intentionally provocative beheading of two of our citizens. We might also debate the wisest scope and objectives of the war.

In his Sept. 10 speech, the president illegally announced he is taking us to war. The fact that he will ask Congress to express what he calls its “buy in” to show the world we are united in the effort is simply a way of coloring this usurpation of power. The use of public power without legal authority, without public consent by the legally established process, is the definition of tyranny.