Quote:
Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
The WPA doesn't lend that power to the Executive, and if it did it would likely be unconstitutional. It delegates the power to "introduce[] into hostilities" the armed forces in the absence of a congressional declaration of war when certain criteria are met, but it doesn't make what the President does "war" or "declare war."
Indeed, the text of the WPA tends to support the view that Congress saw a difference between introducing the American armed forces into hostilities on the one hand and declaring war on the other. And well they should --- their President was telling them there was a difference.
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What do you call the prisoners that are taken by US forces that were introduced into hostilities under no official declaration of war? Like Vietnam. Were the Viet Cong we captured considered POWs? If so, if a US citizen had gone to Vietnam and fought for the Viet Cong and was captured, would he get a lawyer to represent him or would he be treated as a POW?
Now what if the Viet Cong had attacked the US on US soil and a US citizen had participated in the attack. Would that be merely a crime or would the US citizen have been committing an act of war?
The most important issue to me is that AQ has declared war on us, not that we have declared war on them. The fact that they think they are in a war is good enough.
