Before I get into the heart of this piece, I want to once again applaud Bruce Ackerman, professor of law and political science at Yale, and author of “The Decline and Fall of the American Republic.” Mr. Ackerman has sustained a laser-like focus in recent years on exposing Obama’s brazen and unconstitutional penchant for illegal war-making.
I’ve highlighted his powerful opinion pieces on the topic twice before, first in the 2014 post, Obama’s ISIS War is Not Only Illegal, it Makes George W. Bush Look Like a Constitutional Scholar. Here are a few excerpts:
President Obama’s declaration of war against the terrorist group known as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria marks a decisive break in the American constitutional tradition. Nothing attempted by his predecessor, George W. Bush, remotely compares in imperial hubris.
Mr. Bush gained explicit congressional consent for his invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. In contrast, the Obama administration has not even published a legal opinion attempting to justify the president’s assertion of unilateral war-making authority. This is because no serious opinion can be written.
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