Bill Lee: “I stand to support my friend Senator Rand Paul and to encourage my colleagues in the U.S. Senate to support his proposed…”

“I stand to support my friend Senator Rand Paul and to encourage my colleagues in the U.S. Senate to support his proposed amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act. In the Declaration of Independence, the Founding Fathers lodged the following grievance against King George III: ``He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to civil power.'' A decade later, the Founders included a safeguard in the Constitution so ``civil power''--in other words, the people and their duly elected representatives--would play an important role in matters of war and peace. The safeguard takes up all of seven words in the Constitution: ``The Congress shall have Power . . . to declare War.'' Today this safeguard--this crucial check on government--has been eroded in several ways and in ways many Americans would find downright alarming. Congressional authorization for the use of military force is being used in a contorted way to justify wars with an ever-growing list of adversaries without any input from Congress or the American people about whether we should be fighting those wars in the first place. Senator Paul has submitted an amendment to sunset two such authorizations: the 2001 authorization of military force against the perpetrators of 9/11, and the 2002 authorization of military force against the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq.…”