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Usurping Congress

For nearly two decades, U.S. presidents have used two laws to justify sending the U.S. military to conduct operations in at least 18 different countries that we know of. The U.S. Constitution says that decisions of war and peace are to be made by Congress. Standing on the sidelines, Congress has spent money on wars without debating and voting on said actions.

In the prescient words of James Madison, “The Constitution supposes what history demonstrates, that the Executive is the branch most prone to war and most interested in it, therefore the Constitution has with studied care vested that power in the Legislature.”

Congress should debate and vote every time that our country considers military operations. As a first step, Congress should repeal the 2001 and 2002 Authorizations for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) that have been used by three presidents to justify endless wars.

Anne Wright

Liberty Lake

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