U.S. Congress: Silent on War, Thunderous on Peace

By Chris Rossini

According to the U.S. Constitution, the document that every politician "swears" to uphold, it is Congress who has been designated the power to declare war. Sadly, that hasn't happened since World War II, and the U.S. has been at almost non-stop war ever since. It has been the President, who has illegally taken the U.S. into one conflict after another.

It's perfectly logical as to why Congress would sit by silently when it comes to the declaration of war. Who wants to put their name on a failed foreign intervention? If you vote for the (now regular and predictable) foreign policy disaster, you'll take the blame from voters. It's much easier to let the President do what he wants. 

Watch out, however, should the President strike up the possibility of actual peace. At that point, Congress comes to life. Thunderous opposition crawls from out of the woodwork. How dare the President contemplate peace with a foreign nation without the consent of Congress? How dare he act like a rule-breaking dictator?

In the present day, we're witnessing all aspects of this bizarre set of circumstances. President Obama has finally done a couple of things right. He's taken steps to normalize relations with both Cuba and Iran. Members of Congress and the war-loving media have lost their minds as a result. There seems to be no limit to the hyperbolic responses.

At the same time that members of Congress are railing against peace, we learn that President Obama has sneakily authorized war in Syria. Yes, the same conflict that the American public was overwhelmingly against back in 2013.

Daniel McAdams writes:

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President Obama has for the first time authorized the US military to attack Syrian government forces if they threaten Washington’s regime change army. The battle has been joined.

...President Obama has upped the ante considerably and declared that the Syrian military is a fair target wherever it roams inside the country.

This move is a declaration of war on Syria, while Congress continues to be completely uninterested in its Constitutional obligations. Indeed in this new war it is Congress that is AWOL.

How shameful that the U.S. Congress is silent on war, and frenzied on the potential of actual peace...