War

The Constitution clearly grants the right to declare war to Congress.  Since leadership by group is inefficient, the President is granted the right to lead our troops.  When the Constitution was written, no standing army was envisioned.  The idea was war would be declared, troops mobilized from the sundry States, and that they would be demobilized when the threat was over.  No permanent General-ship was imagined, because it seemed to them to be highly dangerous.

We are witnessing now Obama–for reasons which are opaque, but certainly not connected to valid policy interests, or anything remotely defensible–seemingly trying to provoke Putin, seemingly trying to wring some sense of accomplishment from his eight years of nearly continual failure.

Specifically, we know he has sent troops to Lithuania (or so it has been reported: let me not follow crass mediocrities and liars like CNN and NBC and assume this to be a fact).

Here is the thing: crossing the border could be construed as an act of war, and those soldiers have every right to refuse to follow that order.  All of our troops take an oath to defend the Constitution, and they are allowed to refuse to obey unlawful orders.  Even if they were arrested and court-martialed, Trump could and would pardon them.

Our pilots have the right to refuse orders to provoke the Russians in Syria, or to fly into Russian air space.   Our soldiers, until a formal declaration of war with Russia by Congress, which is not forthcoming, have every right to refuse to obey any order to do anything which could be construed as an act of war by Russia.

Now, I think Putin will keep his cool, Obama’s amateurish and childish provocations notwithstanding.  He has no interest in war.  It helps neither nation, and wars are always expensive and greatly damaging even when won.

We have allowed many small wars, like the one in Libya, and the one in Yemen, and for that matter Panama and Grenada back in the day, to be waged quickly with no Congressional consent.  But if there is anything obvious about this, it is that a war with Russia would be a potentially catastrophic event, and that even ONE life lost in pursuit of nonsensical policy seemingly motivated by petulance and completely inappropriate vindictiveness would be a war crime, a murder, a treason to the loyalty of our troops.  They should just tell Obama to pound sand.  Motherfucker will be out soon enough, and relevant only to a small, small segment of our population, which will quickly forget him, his mediocrity, his failures, and his vast and unearned ego.