| ▲ | BartjeD 12 hours ago |
| Bombing another country is literally a declaration of war. With explosions. Isn't an act of congress required for this, in the US? |
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| ▲ | riffraff 12 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| Countries stopped doing declarations of war decades ago, cause you know, war is not something _we_ do, it's something bad people do. _We_ do special operations, interventions, liberations, preventive strikes, weapon destructions. |
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| ▲ | karmakurtisaani 10 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | And then you make movies on how you were the good guys, and that's how we all will remember it. | | |
| ▲ | whilenot-dev 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | I'm all for a collective change there, so every foreign movie just ends in the same deus ex machina moment: every protagonist gets bombed out of existence. Might get repetitive after a while, but I guess that's the idea. |
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| ▲ | jiggawatts 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Also the enemy is always a guerrilla, terrorist, or a rebel and works for a regime, dictator, or king. |
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| ▲ | IceHegel 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Any reasonable understanding of the term "war" obviously includes bombing a country's strategic military sites. Today Congressmen's main job is soliciting bribes. I expect they want their name on as few pieces of paper connecting them to a conflict as possible. They are not in charge of the government. |
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| ▲ | GuardianCaveman 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Obama bombed a lot of countries with no act of congress: Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Libya, Syria, etc. I don’t know the legality but plenty of precedent besides him. |
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| ▲ | PeterHolzwarth 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| By the body of American legislative tradition, no this is not an act of war. In fact, we haven't declared one since WWII. |
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| ▲ | BartjeD 9 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | If Mexico bombed area 51 with bunker busters and stealth planes, it would be interpreted as a declaration of war. By anyone. The world over. If you're seriously saying this isn't war, bombing Iran, you're just engaging in willfull self deception at this point. | | |
| ▲ | zorobo 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | I don’t recall USA saying death to Mexico | | |
| ▲ | dunekid 7 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Squint a bit harder and see if US toppled a democratically elected government in Mexico and installed a cruel dictator for oil? And shot down a civilian flight from Mexico? Maybe not. | |
| ▲ | BartjeD 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | So if we change the example to Canada, responding to threats of annexation, you'l engage on the point in substance? |
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| ▲ | alkonaut 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Bombing government military infrastructure (not terrorist cells or similar) is as clear as it gets. If this isn’t an act of war then nothing is. And that’s a terrifying thought because that means a single person can start a war without congressional approval. Even impeachment doesn’t help prevent war since it’s after the fact. What happens if a president orders strikes on a friendly country? It could be due to dementia, narcissistic personality disorder, personal vendettas (hypothetically, in real life I trust the US wouldnt elect that kind of person). | |
| ▲ | einpoklum 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artI-S8-C11-2... Use of military force requires congressional approval. Well, in principle. In practice, the US executive does not observe this restriction, or at most - makes a flimsy connection the 2001 AUMF following the twin towers attack. The courts do not enjoin it from using military force pretty much arbitraly; and congress does not impeach nor even adopt declarative denunciations of this behavior. | | |
| ▲ | Refreeze5224 11 hours ago | parent [-] | | George Washington was the first president to take military action without congressional approval, so on the sense of precedent providing legality, it's quite an old concept. |
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| ▲ | BartjeD 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | [flagged] | | |
| ▲ | PeterHolzwarth 11 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | WWII was the last time American declared war. | |
| ▲ | khazhoux 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | We were already at a declared war at that time. | | |
| ▲ | BartjeD 11 hours ago | parent [-] | | The point being that under your definition, a thermo nucleair device also isnt a declaration of war. Hence highlighting the completely schizofrenic bind this position entails. Because no one would consider a nuke anything other than a war, and the same applies to these planes dropping these bombs. |
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| ▲ | ExoticPearTree 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > Isn't an act of congress required for this, in the US? Yes, but when only when you really need to go to a full wartime economy. Otherwise is just business as usual. |
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| ▲ | BLKNSLVR 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| The US, as rational thinking US citizens may have thought it to be, no longer exists. In fact, it may never have actually existed. |
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| ▲ | lotyrin 12 hours ago | parent [-] | | Intelligent, rational, empathetic people need to realize that when they are doing theory of mind for others (and especially groups) they are projecting their own qualities where they do not exist. |
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| ▲ | khazhoux 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| That ship sailed decades ago, my friend. |
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| ▲ | blahyawnblah 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| No. The president is the commander in chief. I can't remember the president or the situation but a long time ago a president attacked and said "I'm sending the troops" then senate/congress had to approve it or troops would be stranded. |
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| ▲ | Anduia 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | You are thinking about Truman sending the troops to help South Korea. However, he had UN backing. The War Powers Act of 1973 was approved literally to avoid it happening in the future. |
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