Proposed Constitutional Amendment:
The US armed forces shall only be deployed on foreign soil under
one of the following conditions:
1. The representative government of the nation where the
deployment is to take place has issued an invitation for such
deployment. Deployment shall be limited to the country that has
issued the invitation, and shall be further limited in any manner the
inviting nation sees fit.
2. Congress has declared war. Deployment shall be
limited to the country upon which war has been declared.
Folks, we have to do something to keep our Presidents from sending
our soldiers off to fight in whatever quagmire their little hearts
decide they want to get us involved in, be it Vietnam or Iraq.
The Forefathers gave Congress the power to declare war for a reason,
and all Congress has done for the past 50 years is shirk that
responsibility. With this amendment in place, if they continue to
shirk their responsibility, at least our boys will remain safe at home.
There may need to be another condition included for the case of defense
treaties. If someone attacks a country which we have agreed to
protect, perhaps our military should be permitted to step in without
waiting for Congress to make up its mind whether or not to honor the
treaty it signed. After all, if Congress wanted to waffle on that
decision, it should have waffled when signing the treaty, not when the
bill came due.
It should be made clear, though, that only public treaties will be
honored at all. Secret defense treaties shall be considered
invalid. If a country attacks another country that the US has
agreed to protect, they should know up front that they are effectively
attacking the US.
Return to Kirby
Palm's opinions page.
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Palm's home page.
Of course, if you have questions or comments, you are welcome
to
send
e-mail to me at "palmk at nettally dot com".