The President has no right to wrest that fundamental power from Congress - and we have no right to cede it to him.
We, Members of Congress can no more absolve our president of his responsibility to obey this profound constitutional mandate then we can absolve ourselves of our failure to rise to the instant challenge that is before us today.
We violate our sacred trust to the citizens of the United States and our oath to uphold the constitution if we surrender this great responsibility and through our own inaction acquiesce in another terrible war.
We must courageously defend the oath that we took to defend the Constitution of the United States of America or we forfeit our right to participate in representative government.
How can we pretend to hold other sovereigns to fundamental legal principles through wars in foreign lands if we do not hold our own presidents to fundamental legal principles at home?
We are staring not only into the maelstrom of war in Libya, but also the code of behavior we are establishing today sets a precedent for the potential of evermore violent maelstroms ahead in Syria, Iran, and the horrifying chaos of generalized war throughout the Middle East. Our continued occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan makes us more vulnerable, not less vulnerable, to being engulfed in this generalized war.
In two years we have moved from President Bush's doctrine of preventive war to President Obama's assertion of the right to go to war without even the pretext of a threat to our nation.
This Administration is now asserting the right to go to war because a nation may threaten force against those who have internally taken up arms against it. Our bombs began dropping even before the UN's International Commission of Inquiry could verify allegations of murder of non-combatant civilians by the Gaddafi regime.
The Administration deliberately avoided coming to Congress and furthermore rejects the principle that Congress has any role in this matter. Yesterday we learned that "The Administration would forge ahead with military action even if Congress passed a resolution constraining the mission.'
This is a clear and arrogant violation of our Constitution. This is war. Even a war launched for humanitarian reasons is still a war. And - only Congress can declare war.
We saw in the President's address to the nation on March 28, 2011 how mismatched elements are being hastily stitched together into a new war doctrine:
1. Executive privilege to wage war
2. War based on verbal threats
3. Humanitarian war
4. Preemptive war
5. Unilateral war
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