Posted by
cehwiedel on Tuesday, January 30, 2007 9:44:14 PM
Sen. Barbara Boxer has declared that the Senate has the power to manage the Iraq war, more or less:
Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer of California, for
example, is a sponsor of a bill that would call for troops to come home
in 180 days and allow for a minimum number of forces to be left behind
to hunt down terrorists and train Iraqi security forces."Read
the Constitution," Boxer told her colleagues last week. "The Congress
has the power to declare war. And on multiple occasions, we used our
power to end conflicts."
Congress used its
war powers to cut off or put conditions on funding for the Vietnam war
and conflicts in Cambodia, Somalia and Bosnia.
Under
the Constitution, lawmakers have the ability to declare war and fund
military operations, while the president has control of military forces.
Sen. Boxer mischaracterizes the result of the Congressional use of budgetary power. Conflict was not ended, merely the immediate involvement of the United States. The results were generally catastrophic for those abandoned to fend for themselves.
Further, extracting United States military forces from Iraq will not strengthen domestic security, but rather weaken our ability to influence international events short of the use of force.
Ill-considered, Sen. Boxer.
[You are invited to visit
www.cehwiedel.com, where I write on many topics other than the members of the California delegation to the United States Senate.]