We've heard a lot of ridiculous attempts to justify going to war with Iran and for doing so solely at President Trump's whim - or I should say his "feelings."

No, I'm not joking. I wish I was.

Unfortunately, past presidents have done this so often that most Americans have become desensitized to it. They've even internalized the bizarre suggestion that merely bombing another country, as long as there are no "boots on the ground," isn't really war. It's just a "military operation."

This is at least partially due to what is otherwise a very good thing: Americans have not experience war on their own soil in 161 years. Even when there have been "boots on the ground," they haven't been on American ground. U.S. soldiers fight "in country," meaning someone else's country. If buildings in New York and Chicago were being blown to smithereens along with hundreds or thousands of people inside, Americans would think about war completely differently.

In addition to this strange view of war in general, Americans have come to accept a number of untruths about their own Constitution, particularly the presidency. The past 100 years has seen an enormous, unconstitutional expansion of power in the executive branch. And its going on so long Americans have come to see it as normal, just like bombing countries that never attacked us.

War powers are, of course, no exception. As recently as 25 years ago, President George W. Bush still felt it necessary to seek authorization from Congress before invading Afghanistan or Iraq. That was in the wake of 9/11 and he still asked Congress.

Note: He didn't "notify Congress." He asked permission. That's what the Constitution requires. 

That quaint little custom went out the window with Obama, who claimed he didn't need Congress' permission to invade Syria - not even to put "boots on the ground." And when Congress passed a resolution telling him he was not allowed to go to war in Syria, he did it anyway. And nobody really cared. 

So, it's understandable that Trump wouldn't bother to obey the Constitution, either, after so much precedent has been set. But it being understandable doesn't make it right. And to justify this to the public, the Trump administration is making all sorts of bogus arguments about why the Constitution really allows the president to initiate war.

They speak as if all we have are the words in the Constitution themselves, but we don't. We have all sorts of primary sources about exactly what the framers meant by the words they put in the document. And they were very explicit that the president could only "make war" without authorization from Congress while responding to a live attack on the United States in the present.

Even after the attack is repulsed, the president is not allowed to take further military action without permission from Congress.

In fact, the whole "separate and coequal branches" theory of the Constitution is also fiction.

Yeah, I have receipts. Watch here:
 

Watch Episode 224 here...

Tom Mullen is the author of It’s the Fed, Stupid and Where Do Conservatives and Liberals Come From? And What Ever Happened to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness? 

 Tom