The Imperial Presidency Attacks Syria

As I discussed one year ago, for the United States to intervene in Syria's civil war on the side of the rebels would be a violation of the very UN Charter that the United States helped establish after the Second World War. It is treason of the worst kind, for the act of initiating warfare against a sovereign nation is the "original sin" that unleashed so many others and plunged the world into chaos, as Justice Robert Jackson noted when heading the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg.  

Unsurprisingly, King President Obama has unilaterally declared that the United States indeed will do this, compounding the betrayal by shredding our Constitution and its requirement that Congress declare war. The unilateral power of the British monarchs to take their subjects -- including those living in America -- into war was a major contributing factor to our Revolution and the motivation for entrusting that power to Congress, the body most representative of the people. It makes no difference whether Obama plans to put American "boots on the ground"; he is openly declaring hostilities against a sovereign government, and in so doing he has imperiled us all without our consent. Likely we will have to surrender even more of our rights to the NSA, DHS, and any number of other federal agencies to "protect" us from the consequences. 

Another historical parallel I drew was with Abraham Lincoln, who told the rest of the world to keep out of the War For Southern Independence. Yet now I hear that Obama has quoted Lincoln as justification for intervening in someone else's problems. Although this initially struck me as a contradiction, I admit it makes sense on further reflection. Lincoln destroyed the sovereignty of the states to create a new central government with open-ended power to bring "civil rights" to every corner of the country (in truth, to hold the power of life and death over us all). Obama and those like him seek to accomplish something very similar on the world stage -- to destroy the sovereignty of nation-states to erect a central and supra-national authority with open-ended power to bring "human rights" to every corner of the world (again meaning that the power over us will be complete).  

I should pause to mention that the UN Charter still has a role to play here.  Because the United States is now attacking Syria, Article 51 of the Charter entitles any other country to come to the defense of Syria and attack the United States, without seeking approval from the Security Council.  In other words, Obama has just placed a seal of legitimacy on foreign violence against us. This is a man who swore to uphold the Constitution and protect us. He has betrayed those oaths and placed us in danger to pursue what he believes are the best interests of foreigners. Though this is no different from what presidents have been doing to us for roughly the past century, it needs to be called out for what it is.