"Accountability is the essence of democracy. If people do not know what their government is doing, they cannot be truly self-governing. The national security state assumes the government secrets are too important to be shared, that only those in the know can see classified information, that only the president has all the facts, that we must simply trust that our rulers of acting in our interest." ~ Garry Wills
It's, unfortunately, not illegal unless the military action continues for more than 60 days without Congressional approval. This is due to the War Powers Resolution of 1973.
The last formal declaration of war by the US was during World War 2.
We got very good at gray area nonsense. The Korean War is not a war, it's a conflict. The Vietnam War is not a war, it's an engagement. We have police actions, "peacekeeping" operations, and a hundred other things...but not "wars".
We have the "global war on terror" and the accompanying Authorization for the Use of Military Force, created in the wake of 9/11 and still in effect today.
Congressional approval of military action is fundamentally dead.
Congress has been happily shedding its powers for decades. They don't want to be held responsible if a war turns out badly, so they haven't declared a war since 1945, I believe.
It wasn't supposed to be how it worked but our legislature is basically dysfunctional and either vaguely gave away or just won't protect its own power.
> Gödel's Loophole is a supposed "inner contradiction" in the Constitution of the United States which Austrian-American logician, mathematician, and analytic philosopher Kurt Gödel postulated in 1947. The loophole would permit America's republican structure to be legally turned into a dictatorship.
Generally no, but if you gaslight yourself into thinking you're the greatest democracy in the world with no equal and you need no patches or bugfixes, you can achieve a lot without any real checks or balances.
The strong do as they will while the weak suffer what they must.
I’m glad that trump has returned us to a world where quotes from the 5th century bc seem like commentary on current affairs, since it means that all my time learning about power dynamics in political systems during antiquity is now completely relevant to dealing with current events, rather than a giant waste of time.
For a similar situation to Trump bombing Iran and only notifying a few members of Congress:
1983 Granada
1989 Panama
2011 Libya
2012 Syria
The 1990s actions in Yugoslavia were done without fall declaration of war, but Congress was more fully engaged in saying no at least.
The 1991 war against Iraq was approved, in part, because the administration allowed a witness to flat out lie to Congress about the horrors of the Iraq invasion of Kuwait.
The 2003 invasion of Iraq was approved, in part, because the administration lied to Congress about weapons of mass destruction.
I mentioned these last two because they make a mockery of the act itself, or of the US congress, or both...
> The War Powers Resolution requires the president to notify Congress within 48 hours of committing armed forces to military action and forbids armed forces from remaining for more than 60 days, with a further 30-day withdrawal period, without congressional authorization for use of military force (AUMF) or a declaration of war by the United States.
So it seems he's allowed to do this? It's still within 48 hours, so he has time to officially "notify" Congress, if he hasn't done so already. And since this was an aerial bombing, no armed forces remain there, so the 60-day bit is irrelevant.
