Editorial -- Biden’s Escalation in Ukraine Unconstitutional

A few weeks ago, Paul Venable, the Constitution Party candidate for US Senate, came to Worth County and talked about the 12th Amendment and the proper procedure for states to select electors. Thursday night, he came to Nodaway County and talked about the ability, under the 14th Amendment, to remove elected federal officials for treason.

Here is our own contribution to the discussion. Article 1, Section 8 gives Congress the sole power to declare war on another nation. This means that regardless of what one thinks of Putin’s “Special Military Operation,” it is not Joe Biden’s place to escalate that conflict, even if one thinks that Ukraine’s cause is right and just. Only Congress can declare that a state of war exists between the US and the Russian Federation. As of this writing (Friday, July 15th, 2022), Congress has not seen fit to do so.

There were only four conflicts that we ever should have gotten involved in. The Revolutionary War was a matter of throwing off a dictatorial British regime that sought to exploit us for profit and abolish our civil liberties. In the case of the Civil War along with World Wars I and II, our national existence was in danger. As for the attacks on 9/11, we should have declared war on Al-Qaeda, gone into Afghanistan, gotten Bin Laden (preferably alive), and gotten out again. 

When President Truman ordered US forces into combat in Korea, ostensibly to protect it against Communism, it created a dangerous precedent since it did not involve a formal declaration of war against North Korea. Since then, other Presidents have ordered forces into combat without a declaration of war, such as Reagan (Libya, Grenada, Lebanon), Bush I (Panama), Obama (Libya, Syria, Iraq), among other instances.

The President is the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces. As such, he can order forces into combat to repel sudden attacks against the US or its allies. But in the case of the sudden Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Congress rushed into session that afternoon and declared war. The President can also deploy US forces in situations that do not amount to war, such as when Bush I deployed troops to Saudi Arabia after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, or any number of Presidents since 1952 deploying troops to Europe to protect NATO. But what the President cannot do is declare war on another country.

The power to declare war was given to Congress for a reason, to prevent the exact sort of situation that is happening between the US and Russia – a situation where two men with a personal grudge against each other are escalating a conflict to the point that billions of lives are in danger.