The Perils of Obama's Latest Undeclared War

[Pointedstick]

In addition to being unconstitutional, it's a terrible geopolitical mistake. The people our troops are going to be fighting alongside are the people that the Russians are bombing. The chance of American casualties at the hands of the Russians is non-zero. Our presence is too small to be effective but just large enough to get us involved in a volatile and preventable confrontation with Russia.

What is this guy thinking?!!

[MachineGhost]

Now he is engaging in the very actions that he specifically declared to be illegal. And Congress is abdicating its responsibility to either empower him to wage war or to rein him in. Its passivity is enabling Obama to exceed the limits of his power in a way that has, in the past, led to failed wars as catastrophic as Vietnam and as recent as Libya.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend.  This is what the evil NeoCon ideology does to people.

[MediumTex]

And Pat Buchanan has a column today about this as well.  I highlight parts that call out Congress.

War in Syria? Where Is Speaker Ryan?

Yet, if we put U.S. forces onto sovereign Syrian territory, against the will and resistance of that government, that is an act of war.

Would we tolerate Mexican troops in Texas to protect their citizens inside our country? Would we, in the Cold War, have tolerated Russians in Cuba telling us they were establishing a no-fly zone for all U.S. warplanes over the Florida Strait and Florida Keys?

Obama has begun an escalation into Syria’s civil war, and not only against ISIS and the al-Nusra Front, but against Syria’s armed forces.

Mission creep has begun. The tripwire is being put down. Yet, who authorized Obama to take us into this war? The Russians and Iranians are in Syria at the invitation of the government. But Obama has no authorization from Congress to put combat troops into Syria.
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In deepening America’s involvement and risking a clash with Syrian, Russian and Iranian forces, Obama is contemptuously ignoring a Congress that has never authorized the use of military force against the Damascus regime.

Congress’ meek acquiescence in being stripped of its war powers is astonishing. Weren’t these the Republicans who were going to Washington to “stand up to Obama”?

Coming after Congress voted for “fast track,” i.e., to surrender its constitutional right to amend trade treaties, the capitulations of 2015 rank as milestones in the long decline into irrelevance of the U.S. Congress. Yet in the Constitution, Congress is still the first branch of the U.S. government.
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Not only does a Congressional debate on an authorization to use military force appear constitutionally mandated before we intervene in Syria, but the debate itself on an AUMF might induce a measure of caution before we plunge into yet another Middle East quagmire.

When Saddam fell, we got civil war, ISIS in Anbar, and a fractured and failed state with hundreds dying every week.

And, as of today, no one knows with certitude who rises if Assad falls.

The leading candidates are Jabhat al-Nusra, the front for an al-Qaida that brought down the twin towers, and the butchers of ISIS, who captured another town on the Damascus road this weekend.

Monday, The Wall Street Journal wrote that Erdogan’s regrettable victory is “a reminder of what happens when America’s refusal to act to stop chaos in places like Syria frightens allies into making unpalatable choices.”

Now there’s an argument for America’s plunging into Syria: Send our troops to fight and die in multisided civil war that has cost 250,000 lives, so Turks will feel reassured enough they won’t vote for “strongmen” like Erdogan.

America needs an America First movement.

If not Congress, will any 2016 presidential candidate call out Obama on this?  The only possibilities I see are Trump, Paul, and Sanders.  Have they?

The Republican primary is strictly a non-substantive affair.  No substantive points are permitted.

The point you are describing it substantive, and thus it will not be made by any Republican candidate.