Is GW a lame duck?

[vidcc]

I don't claim to be an expert on this part, but, the president needs the approval of congress to go to war,

I was going to question this, as I'm sure that isn't the case, but j2k4 has cleared it up.

I made the point of saying I am not an expert on this because it an ongoing debate
the whole article is an interesting read it gives a brief history of presidential "power grabs", but the best way to get someone to ignore a post is a huge c&p, so I'll just put the link.

The decision to go to war is exclusively that of Congress

Sadly, it seems we've reached the point where the Constitution is no longer relevant on matters of a president's war-making powers. Presidents, the Congress and the courts have made going to war, once a serious constitutional issue, a purely political question.

As a result, in the last half century, the war powers clause of the Constitution has become a nullity, if not a quaint relic. While conservatives often insist on following the letter of the Constitution on most issues, on matters of war they ignore it.

That's a disgrace, because the Framers of the Constitution carefully laid out the decision-making process for war. Pursuant to the document, war is a decision to be made exclusively by the representatives of the people -- the Congress. Only Congress is authorized to declare war, raise and support armies, provide and maintain a navy, and make the rules for these armed forces. There is nothing vague or unclear about the language in Article I, ¤ 8, clauses 11-16.


Our history of Congress declaring war

On five occasions, Congress has, indeed, declared war, just as the Constitution contemplates: with England in 1812, Mexico in 1846, and in Spain in 1898, and in World War I and World War II. In each instance, Congress did so at the request of the President.

On at least two occasions, Congress has refused to declare war despite a president's seeking such a declaration. In 1815, Congress turned down President's Madison's request to go to war against Algiers -- authorizing instead limited naval action. In 1999, by a tie vote of 213 to 213, the House of Representatives refused to give President Clinton a declaration of war against Yugoslavia for action in Kosovo.

From 1789 until 1950, presidents repeatedly engaged the nation in military hostilities through unilateral exercise of their powers as commander-in-chief. Yet when doing so they always sought congressional authority, even if after the fact.

An often-cited example of the practice of unilateral Presidential warmaking is President Lincoln's commencement of the Civil War while Congress was in recess. Yet what is less frequently noted is that he sought ratification of his action when Congress returned.

All this dispute over powers aside, the the president is in reality limited unilaterally (authorised by the War Powers Resolution.) to short military operations due to the fact that wars cannot be fought if congress refuses to fund them.

Another area where I am not an expert is where "war" isn't actually declared. I believe that we went into Iraq using only "an authorisation of the use of force"