The news these days is full of pundits and saber rattlers who want the U.S. to go back to war in Iraq. The whole gang at Fox News, it seems, but also Senator Lindsey Graham and his cronies, are calling for war. Regardless of what former presidents did, it is not the job, or legal prerogative, of the president to declare war. The president has the authority to use military action if America’s safety is at risk, or American lives are under immediate threat. This is not the case here.
Why isn’t Congress cutting short its vacation, going back to Washington and engaging it the deliberative job it has, debating this issue and coming to the conclusion that it’s time to declare war – or not? Only Congress can declare war.
I am tired of listening to congressmen on TV spouting off about the president doing nothing. I want them to put their vote where their mouth is. I want them on the record. It’s easy to wage war from a comfy chair in the Senate.
I want them, and all the pundits asking for war, to send their own children and grandchildren to Iraq and Syria to do this noble job of defending the safety of America in the forsaken deserts of the Middle East. Let them take the first bullets shot by crazed, hypocritical zealots spewing medieval dogma, somehow protecting America.
Once their children are there, doing the shooting, they may just have a right to call up ours and send them there, too.