{"id":69354,"date":"2017-03-22T08:23:24","date_gmt":"2017-03-22T12:23:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=69354"},"modified":"2017-03-22T11:18:58","modified_gmt":"2017-03-22T15:18:58","slug":"is-congress-finally-taking-responsibility-fro-stopping-endless-us-wars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=69354","title":{"rendered":"Is Congress Finally Taking Responsibility For Stopping Endless US Wars?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><!--more-->Thousand Oaks, CA<br \/>\nMarch 21, 2017<\/p>\n<p>by Rich Scheck<\/p>\n<p>Under the Constitution, it is the responsibility of Congress to declare war. The<br \/>\nFounders wisely entrusted that power to them in order to constrain the natural<br \/>\ntendency of monarchs and executives to wage war as a way of expanding<br \/>\ntheir powers and distracting the public from other problems.<\/p>\n<p>The history of America since the end of WWII has been to avoid that mandate.<br \/>\nIn the name of secrecy, Congress has consistently delegated that requirement<br \/>\nto the president allowing the national security state to emerge triumphant.<\/p>\n<p>Both parties have gladly participated in this most serious derogation of their<br \/>\nhighest duty. In 2016, there was no peace candidate as even Bernie Sanders<br \/>\neschewed challenging hawk Hillary on this issue although Donald Trump did<br \/>\nmake noises that sounded like he was antiwar.<\/p>\n<p>After 2 months of constant war-mongering rhetoric and the dispatching of<br \/>\ntroops hither and yon, elements in Congress seem to have had enough.<br \/>\nA bipartisan group of law-makers have apparently awoken to the inconsistency<br \/>\nbetween what Trump said during the campaign and what he has done since<br \/>\nJanuary 20th. <a href=\"http:\/\/lee.house.gov\/news\/press-releases\/congresswoman-barbara-lee-we-must-stop-endless-war\">http:\/\/lee.house.gov\/news\/press-releases\/congresswoman-barbara-lee-we-must-stop-endless-war<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The comments by Barbara Lee echo the efforts by Tulsi Gabbard and Rand<br \/>\nPaul to prevent the government from funding terrorists<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/news.antiwar.com\/2017\/03\/21\/left-and-right-us-lawmakers-unite-against-escalating-war-in-syria\/\">http:\/\/news.antiwar.com\/2017\/03\/21\/left-and-right-us-lawmakers-unite-against-escalating-war-in-syria\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p>This small group is tired of endless wars and Trump&#8217;s abandonment of his<br \/>\nforeign policy vows:<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/nationalinterest.org\/blog\/the-skeptics\/why-trump-abandoning-the-foreign-policy-brought-him-victory-19738\">http:\/\/nationalinterest.org\/blog\/the-skeptics\/why-trump-abandoning-the-foreign-policy-brought-him-victory-19738<\/a><\/p>\n<p>With trouble brewing across the planet and with most in Congress and the MSM<br \/>\npromoting greater US involvement abroad, it will be very difficult for these leaders<br \/>\nto constrain the MIC which has just received a pledge to increase its funding.<\/p>\n<p>It will take a concerted effort by these few leaders to arouse the public which is<br \/>\nbasically anti-war,\u00a0but\u00a0is consistently unwilling to go against the unitary executive<br \/>\nand say no to more fighting.<\/p>\n<p>Trump brilliantly evoked the natural patriotic fervor during last month&#8217;s address to<br \/>\nCongress.<\/p>\n<p>We shall see if these few gallant Congressional leaders are able to mobilize a<br \/>\nstrong peace movement and bring the troops home. As things now stand, that<br \/>\nis a highly desirable goal which is unlikely to be achieved in the near future.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps in the days ahead, this small group can work together to form a new party<br \/>\nthat rejects the failed Washington consensus for constant reliance on military force<br \/>\nand reflects the revulsion of the public for endless wars.<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=32281\">https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=32281<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-69354","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=69354"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69354\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=69354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=69354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=69354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}