Starting wars...

[ovate14]

Reading a Heinlein book, 'For Us the Living' and it has a neat idea about declaring war. None of this applies if we were attacked, all defensive wars and reactions are declared normally. But in order for the president or congress to declare war on someone else when we're not attacked, it has to be voted on

Comments

[sheherazahde]

Well, technically the US Congress has to vote for us to get in a war that is supposed to be "national approval". The founders didn't really trust "the people" to make good decisions.

ARTICLE 1, SECTION 8
The Congress shall have Power:
To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;
To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;
To provide and maintain a Navy;
To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;
To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;
To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress...
The President can move troops without

[ovate14]

In a time of no instant communication, I can agree with Congress representing the will of the people. But in this age there's no reason why us the peole can't be the ones making these decisions directly.

Vietnam was one of the ones the president started on his own, though I'm sure there's a couple others as well.

[malkatsheva]

If memory serves, the public in large part did support starting war with both Afghanistan and Iraq. This was no doubt because the public in large part has little grasp of history or logical thinking, and is easily manipulated by slick-talking demagogues.

p.s. Nice to see you posting again.

[ovate14]

I have no doubt that war against afghanistan would have been overwhelmingly approved (if, that is, we would have needed to vote sine we were attacked. But not attacked by a country)

But Iraq i'm not so sure about. Think about how many military aged citizen don't speak out much. I think the outcome would have been no.

And thank you, it's nice to be back.

Citizen of the Galaxy - Heinlein

[mrflash626]

Highly recommended, if you have not already read it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen_of_the_Galaxy

Oh, and another fav, 1st in a series, you might enjoy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Never_Missed