Obama's unconstitutional war

In his Monday speech, President Obama described his Libyan enterprise as an "effort," an "operation" and a "mission." Is it a war? He didn't say.

Americans have been in enough wars to recognize one when they see it. Libya is aflame with war, and America is now in it, Obama having put us in it.

But is it a constitutional war? I think not.

The Constitution makes the president "commander in chief." He is authorized to conduct war, but not to start one. The Founding Fathers said, "The Congress shall have power ... to declare war." They also said no state shall "engage in war, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent danger as will not admit of delay" — "without the consent of Congress."

Congress decides.

Obama did ask for consent, and received it — from the Arab League, and on the United Nations Security Council from the governments of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Colombia, Gabon, Lebanon, Nigeria, Portugal, the United Kingdom and South Africa. He did not ask for the consent of senators and representatives of the United States.

Obama is hardly the first. All recent presidents have usurped the war power. In particular, President Truman took America to war in 1950 in Korea on the permission of the Security Council only.

"U.N. authorization is not sufficient," said Washington's former U.S. Sen. Slade Gorton, who was a member of the National War Powers Commission, chartered by Congress. A few years ago the commission called for participation of Congress, and was ignored.

I think Gorton is right. In my lifetime my government has been bombing somebody, somewhere, too damned often, generally for some urgent reason that turns out to be not very good. I am tired of it. We need to raise the hurdle bar for going to war.

The decision to commit America to war is too big for one man. Our president may be weak, and be talked into war by his secretary of state, or his vice president. He may have reasons to go to war that mean nothing to most Americans.

The president should have to get permission before going to war — and from Americans.

Is a majority vote of Congress too much to ask? On the contrary. The Founding Fathers should have made it two-thirds. Every time a president has asked for a war, Congress has given him one — even in 2002, when George W. Bush offered falsehoods about "weapons of mass destruction."

Recall that Bush said he didn't need a vote of Congress. There was an outcry, and Bush agreed to a vote. Public pressure may be the only way to enforce the Constitution in regard to war powers. The courts won't do it. Congress could do it, if it had the courage.

I talked to former Rep. Mickey Edwards, who is involved in an effort called The Constitution Project. Like Gorton, he thinks joining the war in Libya required a vote of Congress.

Edwards is a Republican, but in 2008 he voted for Obama because of the unconstitutional things done under Bush — torture, extraordinary rendition, detention without trial, etc. Obama denounced those things and forswore wars by executive authority.

Now he has the power, and forgets his promise.

I asked Edwards if electing Obama has brought any big change in the matter of war.

"No," he said. "It hasn't. I sort of bought into the idea that Obama had taught constitutional law, and he was going to be different.

"I was wrong. In that area, I see very little distinction now between Obama and Bush."

Bruce Ramsey's column appears regularly on editorial pages of The Times. His email address is bramsey@seattletimes.com