The war with Iran: Part Four, Presidential authority under article II

Presidential authority as the commander in chief of the armed forces, under Article II of the US Constitution, is real and important, but it surely isn't all that President Donald Trump needs it to be for this war to be even remotely lawful.

To review six familiar points: (1) The US Constitutional reserves to Congress exclusively the right to "declare" war; (2) Probably because the framers considered the point too obvious to require stating, there is no specific statement that undeclared wars are illegal wars; (3) The courts have refused to make that inference leaving a gap in the whole notion of the checking of war powers, but (4) Congress, overriding President Nixon's veto, filled that gap with the War Powers Act of 1973, and (5) if Congress does not approve President Trump's action, then under the War Powers Act, the President will have to end hostilities within 60 days of starting them -- which would be by the end of April, but (6) nobody expects President Trump to act as if he cares.

To set a baseline on the subject, let us harken back to the Obama period.

In February 2011, Libyan grassroots protests against Muammar Gaddafi, and their violent repression by the Gaddafi regime, inspired fears of a civil war. On March 17, the UN Security Council approved resolution 1973, authorizing the taking of “all necessary measures” by member states to protect civilians, including a no-fly zone.

The Obama administration relied on this resolution, and did not consult the US congress, in what followed.

Obama in conjunction with leaders of other world powers announced a no-fly zone and on March 19, the US began airstrikes.

In April, Senator Rand Paul introduced a resolution opposing Obama’s use of force in Libya. [To his credit, Senator Paul -- pictured above -- is now acting in a way consistent with that -- he plainly thinks neither Obama nor Trump is entitled to an executive-branch-alone war.] Nine other Senators, all Republican, supported this resolution. To their disgrace, none of the other nine is showing Randian consistency now. Those who are still in the Senate are now prepared to defend a President’s constitutional authority to throw our forces at any country on which his own deliberations have painted a bulls’ eye.

I’m looking at YOU, Senator Ron Johnson!

A Story About Coleridge

This is a quote from a memoir by Dorothy Wordsworth, reflecting on a trip she took with two famous poets, her brother, William Wordsworth, and their similarly gifted companion, Samuel Taylor Coleridge. We sat upon a bench, placed for the sake of one of these views, whence we looked down upon the waterfall, and over the open country ... A lady and gentleman, more expeditious tourists than ourselves, came to the spot; they left us at the seat, and we found them again at another station above the Falls. Coleridge, who is always good-natured enough to enter into conversation with anybody whom he meets in his way, began to talk with the gentleman, who observed that it was a majestic waterfall. Coleridge was delighted with the accuracy of the epithet, particularly as he had been settling in his own mind the precise meaning of the words grand, majestic, sublime, etc., and had discussed the subject with William at some length the day before. “Yes, sir,” says Coleridge, “it is a maj...

Searle: The Chinese Room

John Searle has become the object of accusations of improper conduct. These accusations even have some people in the world of academic philosophy saying that instructors in that world should try to avoid teaching Searle's views. That is an odd contention, and has given rise to heated exchanges in certain corners of the blogosphere. At Leiter Reports, I encountered a comment from someone describing himself as "grad student drop out." GSDO said: " This is a side question (and not at all an attempt to answer the question BL posed): How important is John Searle's work? Are people still working on speech act theory or is that just another dead end in the history of 20th century philosophy? My impression is that his reputation is somewhat inflated from all of his speaking engagements and NYRoB reviews. The Chinese room argument is a classic, but is there much more to his work than that?" I took it upon myself to answer that on LR. But here I'll tak...

The Lyrics of "Live Like You Were Dying"

Back in 2004 Tim McGraw recorded the song "Live Like You were Dying." As a way of marking the one-decade anniversary of this song, I'd like to admit that a couple of the lines have confused me for years. I could use your help understanding them. In the first couple of verses, the song seems easy to follow. Two men are talking, and one tells the other about his diagnosis. The doctors have (recently? or a long time ago and mistakenly? that isn't clear) given him the news that he would die soon. "I spent most of the next days/Looking at the X-rays." Then we get a couple of lines about a man crossing items off of his bucket list. "I went sky diving, I went rocky mountain climbing, I went two point seven seconds on a bull named Fu Man Chu." Then the speaker -- presumably still the old man -- shifts to the more characterological consequences of the news. As he was doing those things, he found he was loving deeper and speaking sweeter, and givin...

Jamesian Philosophy Refreshed

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