A Quote by Gore Vidal
Presidents have absolutely gone against the will of Congress. Congress hasn't declared a war since December 7, 1941, and yet we've been at war ever since with somebody or other in order to justify the war machine. Now we have alienated almost the entire earth
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Most US presidents since World War II have led military actions without a declaration of war by Congress, though most, if not all, have properly consulted and sought support from Congress. That is the wise thing to do.
President Obama is asking Congress to support a military strike in Syria. If they approve, it will be the first time Congress has officially declared war since Obamacare.
Again, in Wag the Dog, war has to be declared by an act of congress. But if you go to war, you don't have to declare war. You're just at war and we did that, which is not legal.
Since the enactment of the War Powers Act in 1973, which I supported then and support now, Congress has been reluctant to assert its authority when presidents decide to send American soldiers into harm's way.
We are organising our enemies into a formidable force, we are The US public has turned against the war, the Republicans and Democrats have turned against the war. And so when the American public turns against the war and the Congress turns against the war, it suggests that Americans feel we cannot win that war in those conditions. So the Iraqi Commission says, "Well, we can't win this war militarily, we need to reassess potential allies." There's Syria, there's Iran.
We know something of the cost of that war. We were in it from December seventh, '41, till August of '45. Ever since that time, we have been waging peace. It has had its ups and downs just as the war did.
The catch-all phrase "the war on terrorism", in all honesty, has no more meaning than if one wants to wage a war against "criminal gangsterism". Terrorism is a tactic. You can't have a war against a tactic. It's deliberately vague and non-definable in order to justify and permit perpetual war anywhere and under any circumstance.
America is at war with itself because it's basically declared war not only on any sense of democratic idealism, but it's declared war on all the institutions that make democracy possible. And we see it with the war on public schools. We see it with the war on education. We see it with the war on the healthcare system.
Little Bush says we are at war, but we are not at war because to be at war Congress has to vote for it. He says we are at war on terror, but that is a metaphor, though I doubt if he knows what that means. It's like having a war on dandruff, it's endless and pointless.
The reason given by the President in asking Congress to declare war against Germany is that the German government has declared certain war zones, within which, by the use of submarines, she sinks, without notice, American ships and destroys American lives.
'Pearl Harbor' is definitely about December 7, 1941, but it is not of December 7, 1941. It's not even really of our age, either. It has more of the feel of a film from, roughly, mid-war.
after a generation or two of shedding the deliberate political encumbrances to war ... of dropping Congress from the equation altogether, of super-empowering the presidency with total war-making power and with secret new war-making resources that answer to no one but him, of insulating the public from not only the cost of war but sometimes even the knowledge that it's happened - war making has become almost an autonomous function of the American state. It never stops.
We have gone into a war, an unelected president sending us into a war that the Congress frankly had no right, I believe, to authorize.
With 450,000 U. S. troops now in Vietnam, it is time that Congress decided whether or not to declare a state of war exists with North Vietnam. Previous congressional resolutions of support provide only limited authority. Although Congress may decide that the previously approved resolution on Vietnam given President Johnson is sufficient, the issue of a declaration of war should at least be put before the Congress for decision.
When you have war, whether it's a war against drugs, war against terrorism, war overseas, the mentality of the people change and they're more willing to sacrifice their liberties in order to be safe and secure.
To have security against atomic bombs and against the other biological weapons, we have to prevent war, for if we cannot prevent war every nation will use every means that is at their disposal; and in spite of all promises they make, they will do it. At the same time, so long as war is not prevented, all the governments of the nations have to prepare for war, and if you have to prepare for war, then you are in a state where you cannot abolish war.
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