Happy Valentine’s Day to all my readers and their loved ones.

The US is engaged in several wars (all of which are undeclared) and with our troops are stretched so thin the country has turned to the state’s National Guard to fill the gaps in troops.

I have a problem with this on several levels…..Nat Guard is the state’s to use in time of emergencies…they should be used by the states not the national military muscle.

There has been a movement to keep the troops out of unauthorized wars…….

According to the Constitution, Congress has the sole power to declare war—but that hasn’t stopped presidents from sending U.S. troops to many conflicts that haven’t been congressionally authorized. Now state lawmakers across the country are introducing legislation that could challenge unconstitutional deployments.

“Defend the Guard” legislation would allow state governments to prevent their National Guard units from being deployed into conflicts abroad unless U.S. military involvement has been officially authorized by Congress through a declaration of war. “Over 45% of the soldiers deployed in the Global War on Terror have been National Guardsmen,” notes Defend the Guard, a project of BringOurTroopsHome.US. By withholding this manpower, Defend the Guard notes that states could compel the federal government to limit “its endless wars and ensure that the U.S. Constitution is followed.”

Congress last issued a declaration of war in 1942, during World War II. The U.S. military footprint abroad has ballooned in the 80 years since. Active-duty American soldiers are involved in counterterrorism training missions in 65 nations and are engaged in direct-fire combat operations in 14 of them. The U.S. conducts drone strikes in seven countries.

None of these activities have been explicitly authorized by Congress, but many have been made possible through Authorizations for Use of Military Force (AUMFs) issued in 2001 and 2002. The AUMFs give the president broad discretion “to use all necessary and appropriate force” against “nations, organizations, or persons” determined to have been involved in the September 11 attacks. The 2001 AUMF has been used to justify 41 operations in 19 countries, while the 2002 AUMF hasn’t been the sole authorization used in any military force since 2011.

Defend the Guard legislation seeks to hobble this presidential carte blanche. Lawmakers in Arizona, Idaho, Kentucky, Oklahoma, and other states have introduced bills in the past month that would keep their National Guardsmen out of unauthorized conflicts. Should these bills pass, the federal government would still be able to deploy the National Guard to other states or send them to training missions abroad, among other explicitly constitutional activities. A 1990 Supreme Court decision ruled that the federal government could deploy a state’s National Guard for peacetime training purposes without a governor’s approval.

These Bills Would Keep the National Guard Out of Unconstitutional Wars

This in my opinion is a good thing….the states should be in control of their troops.  If the US wants to use these troops then they need to grow spine a start declaring these wars.

In stead they just keep using troops that are not theirs to use.

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