Why Congress Should Debate Wars.
This is something the media should cover.
The United States, in partnership with Israel, attacked Iran. Prior, we (briefly) invaded Venezuela to seize Maduro. In neither case was congressional authorization sought. If it had been, it may well have been granted, given the Republicans are incapable of thinking for themselves, and at least in the case of Iran, enough Democrats want to help Israel (and, to a lesser extent, Saudi Arabia and other regional interests).
If you are preparing for major international actions, well—you should prepare. That means Congress needs to adjust budgets, authorize spending, make sure we have enough bullets and bombs and missiles and tourniquets, stage aid to flow to those who are inadvertently affected. To do all the things a serious and responsible nation does in the face of the harms of war. Things that Israel failed to do in Gaza.
There are other important reasons for Congress to make the final call. In cases of bad leadership, requiring authorization requires proof-of-work: has the executive thought the action through? Do they have good cause? Or are they about to pull a pin and fumble a live grenade at the national scale? Is there an exit strategy? Do we know how other nations will react? Congress can help shape the style and reach of any action. Some of them may have good ideas about the conflict, but if you never ask them, you won’t know. Another is to own their responsibility as leaders of the nation. They are supposed to weigh the costs and benefits of a conflict, think about its implications, and plan for our future.
And that last one, weighing the cost of conflict, that’s the most important reason: do we want people to die, theirs or ours? Is it worth the deaths? Is it worth the inevitable civilian deaths? Is it worth the other, lesser crimes of war: shortages, deprivations, disease, profiteering, looting, quartering troops, all norms in a ground war? The idea of letting one person take all of America’s fate into her or his hands without asking the legislators (and, by proxy, the people)? Among the highest of crimes.
None of that happened. The media reports point out that while we have stockpiles of munitions, they are finite and need to be maintained for unexpected needs. They didn’t get buy-in from our international partners.
The result may well not be a total disaster. If there is no ground war, the main result may simply be a shuffle of who particularly runs Iran without changing much about the regime in power. The dead ayatollah was no friend of mankind.
None of that changes the fact that the action was illegal under American law. If a member of Congress cannot bring themselves to follow their oath, and they haven’t resigned as a result, they are empty suits in every way that matters. From where I stand, every member that does not call for a war resolution and who still supports these actions is unfit for duty. If they support it, they should be clamoring for the chance to vote for it. If they aren’t, yet they still support it, they are nought but poachers, stealing from our garden.
I’ll quote Mencken here, not because he was right about everything, but because he was right in this instance:
The difference between a moral man and a man of honor is that the latter regrets a discreditable act, even when it has worked and he has not been caught.
Every American knows that Donald John Trump is neither a man of honor nor a moral man. But we expect some of our legislators to be of each type. Even the Republicans.