Obama will break domestic law when he attacks Syria. This attack, uncontested by Congress, solidifies the U.S. empire by extending and baking in the power of its presidents who are its emperors. Even Time magazine acknowledges this:
“If Obama is breaking the law, don’t expect much to come of it in the short term. The consequences of Obama’s legal interpretation, beyond his own discomfort, are not likely very great. The Bush administration showed the bar for legally constraining presidential counterterrorist actions is high, and even when it is surmounted there are little [sic*] or no penalties. Politically, the president has nothing to fear: no matter how angry they are about the new effort against ISIS, the left wing of Obama’s party isn’t going to impeach him, and the right won’t either, at least not for going after Islamic extremists.”
For a reasonably close historical analogue that shows a similar augmentation in the power of the top man, let us use Rome’s first emperor, Augustus. The Wikipedia entry suffices
“After the demise of the Second Triumvirate, Augustus restored the outward facade of the free Republic, with governmental power vested in the Roman Senate, the executive magistrates, and the legislative assemblies. In reality, however, he retained his autocratic power over the Republic as a military dictator. By law, Augustus held a collection of powers granted to him for life by the Senate, including supreme military command, and those of tribune and censor. It took several years for Augustus to develop the framework within which a formally republican state could be led under his sole rule.”
The Roman and U.S. empires have many differences, but also important similarities. An American president now has the capacity, under rather broad conditions, to order forces into a war of his choosing, alone and without requiring a declaration of war by the people’s representatives in Congress. Congress offers no serious impediment.
Illegal precedents are being made that reinforce the transformation of Congress into a rubber stamp in the significant realm of war-making. But of even greater significance is that illegality of presidential behavior itself becomes a precedent. Once the president and his henchmen articulate broad justifications and rationales to support his illegal powers and to claim they are constitutional, and such rationales have already been concocted by White House lawyers like John Yoo and already expressed by White House occupants, then illegality is miraculously given an immaculate conception as presidential legality.
*The correct adjective is “few”.
9:55 am on September 12, 2014
