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We’re ignoring the Constitution’s mandates on waging war

In this Saturday, Oct. 21, 2017, file photo, Myeshia Johnson kisses the casket of her husband, Sgt. La David Johnson during his burial service at Fred Hunter's Hollywood Memorial Gardens in Hollywood, Fla. Myeshia Johnson told ABC's "Good Morning America" on Monday, Oct. 23, 2017, that she has nothing to say to the president, adding that his phone call to her made "me cry even worse."
In this Saturday, Oct. 21, 2017, file photo, Myeshia Johnson kisses the casket of her husband, Sgt. La David Johnson during his burial service at Fred Hunter's Hollywood Memorial Gardens in Hollywood, Fla. Myeshia Johnson told ABC's "Good Morning America" on Monday, Oct. 23, 2017, that she has nothing to say to the president, adding that his phone call to her made "me cry even worse." Matias J. Ocner Miami Herald via AP File

Four soldiers killed and several wounded in a military campaign in Africa that no one seems to understand. A national uproar about Trump’s reaction. Meanwhile, as usual, no declaration of war by Congress, which the U.S. Constitution mandates whenever American forces go to war. That last happened in 1941.

How many wars since then? How many wars based on lies, false “intelligence” and phony propaganda about “defending freedom, liberty and democracy and “protecting the homeland”? The real reasons were to suppress insurgent peoples fighting for national reunification and independence (Vietnam), or for oil resources and control of water and trade routes in the Middle East against regimes and fanatic pseudo-religious movements the U.S. ruling elite created, armed, trained and put into power or propped up in the first place. (Except no war against Saudi Arabia, of course, where three-fourths of the 9/11 terrorists came from. Oil, anyone?)

We’d have far fewer tragic deaths of brave military men and women if we got into fewer wars — especially illegal ones based on manipulation of public opinion, or ones done secretly with no public awareness at all.

Where are the conservative “strict, literal, Constitutional originalists” when it comes to wars and military interventions? Too busy fighting against reproductive rights and universal health care, I guess.

Jim Griffin, San Luis Obispo

This story was originally published October 30, 2017 at 8:02 AM with the headline "We’re ignoring the Constitution’s mandates on waging war."

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