And here we are, with another constitutional crisis, and it remains a low level story. Now, the problem is the War Powers Act, aka the War Powers Resolution of 1973 (50 U.S.C. 1541-1548).
What is interesting about the War Powers Resolution is that while it states that an action is “illegal,” there really is not much in the way of an “or what” about it. With that said, Congress always has the power of the purse strings to respond to a violation of the War Powers Resolution, but it’s not like the War Powers Resolution granted them that.
Robert Naiman’s article in Monthly Review discusses what happens at length, but in a nutshell, congress sent the Obama Administration a stiffly worded diplomatic memo asking the administration to do some explaining, and gave them another two weeks to do it. It’s really not clear what happens after that if the administration ignores them, or gives them lame explanations (of course, the Congress retains the power to withhold funding).
This highlights a fundamental problem with our governmental system, that starts at the level of the Constitution. There are essentially no repercussions for acting outside of the rules, and while a rule can eventually be declared unconstitutional, in the meantime people are deprived of “fundamental rights.”
When we have laws that can essentially be ignored with impunity (or virtual impunity), i.e. laws without consequences to the individual or group that breaks said laws, what is the point?
There was a lot of hullabaloo surrounding the Iraq war, and how it was an “illegal'” war, despite congressional approval. But I certainly don’t recall many claims that the root of the problem was perjury (although there was the mantra “Bush lied, people died). Right now we in fact have an illegal war (although it is a limited war), and there just isn’t much outrage.
I do believe that the media is partly to blame, but it is also the American People who just don’t pay attention to things that are really going on, and important to the functioning of the republic. The real question though, is how can that change?
