In Pilate’s Footsteps: Congress Washes Its Hands of Responsibility for Wars

SPUTNIK NEWS  –   Paradoxically, although the US Congress “loves war,” it habitually shirks its Constitutional obligation to “authorize” America’s overseas operations, Ron Paul and Daniel McAdams note, warning that it smells danger.

US congressmen “love war,” why then they don’t like to have to vote for it, former US Republican congressman Ron Paul and political analyst Daniel McAdams ask in their latest Ron Paul Liberty Report.

“Congress perpetuates a willful misunderstanding of the role of the President in times of war. How many times you hear them saying ‘the President is the Commander in Chief’. But they fail to point out to the American people that Congress is the authorizing body and the President is not the Commander in Chief until there is a declaration of war. So, I think they purposely conflate that because they don’t want to take responsibilities for these wars,” Daniel McAdams, the Executive Director of the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity, underscored.

“When you vote for a war you are on record having supported it,” McAdams stressed.

Therefore, US congressmen, like biblical Pilate, are habitually washing their hands of the responsibility for authorizing military actions.

By shirking its Constitutional obligations Congress is paving the way for general policy recklessness, the experts warned.

Meanwhile, the US has found itself in a vicious cycle of perpetual overseas campaigns, having to deploy its military forces again and again to conflict zones — Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan.  CONTINUE READING