Who needs congressional approval to start wars? No one, according to Rudy Giuliani.
Washington Examiner reports:
On CNN Tuesday morning, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani suggested that President Obama should have bombed Syria without congressional authorization.
Giuliani said Obama “mishandled” the situation in Syria, calling it the greatest mishandling of foreign policy by a president in his lifetime.
CNN host Chris Cuomo pushed back against Giuliani’s statement, pointing out that Obama wanted military action in Syria but was met with resistance from Congress.
“He could have anyway, he did before,” Giuliani said with a chuckle. “He bombed before without congressional authorization, Bush bombed — Clinton bombed without congressional authorization.”
Of course, to any respectable neocon, if the U.S. doesn’t go to war, it must be because the President “mishandled” the situation. That’s a given.
But how about Giuliani’s bluntness? What about the complete disregard for the U.S. Constitution and the rule of law? The President has unlimited power to declare war, Giuliani says. Why? Because Bush did it, and Clinton did it, and heck, even Obama himself did it. Once the Executive usurps such powers, what’s the point in going backwards? Why follow the law?
There’s a major lesson here: Never let any President create a precedent of breaking the law by fiat. The moment that the first one does it, the rest of the authoritarians that follow will treat it as legitimate, and as justification for their own mischievous actions.
Flickr/ OhBuoyancy!
