Horowitz: House Republicans should force a vote on troops on the ground in Ukraine

The real story in America now is not that a 21-year-old National Guardsman leaked details of Biden’s illegal war in Ukraine, but the actual implications of the content of that leak: that we have boots on the ground in Ukraine without a declaration of war from Congress.

In response to the story of the alleged intel leak from National Guardsman Jack Teixeira, Speaker Kevin McCarthy demanded that the White House get to the bottom of the security breach.

But why is there no concern about the revelation that there are boots on the ground in Ukraine? Why is there no concern 14 months later as to what we have gotten ourselves into and to what end? Why are we fighting for Russian-majority areas like Crimea and Donetsk? Why is it worth risking nuclear war on behalf of corrupt Ukrainian officials who make the Nigerian princes look like Mother Teresa? Moreover, with allegations that the U.S. blew up the Nord Stream pipeline – with no other plausible explanation – why is Congress not concerned that Biden has commenced WWIII, destroyed our economy with meaningless sanctions, and flushed U.S. talent and treasure on an escapade that will make our 20 years in Afghanistan look prudent in comparison? These are the questions that should be the subject of congressional investigation.

Moreover, it’s quite evident that Israel, which has close cultural ties with Ukraine, has been cautious about going all in with the “Slava Ukraini” agenda. In fact, former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett made it clear he had tried to broker a negotiation with Putin to end the war. While people will quibble over the exact nature of the deal and who did or did not sabotage it, what is clear is that the U.S. never placed positive energy behind striking a deal and was always antagonistic toward such a proposal.

Last year, Israel National News reported that several weeks after the commencement of the war, Bennett urged Zelenskyy to accept Putin’s demands.

"If I were in your place, I would think about the lives of my people, and take the offer," Bennett told Zelenskyy in the phone call, according to the Ukrainian official. According to him, Zelenskyy's response to Bennett was short: "I heard you."

So why would our government fight so hard to block Russia’s initial demands, and why invest so much for areas that were already gone without a feasible plan to defend them until the end of times against their next-door neighbor?

Even if our government didn’t blow up the pipeline, the amount of money and arms it has sunk into this war is more than most of our direct kinetic actions cost throughout history. So with revelations that we have boots on the ground, why is there no demand from McCarthy that Biden secure a formal declaration of war against Russia before continuing this conflict? If this is really a fight that is worthy of hundreds of billions of dollars, depleting our already dwindling weapons supply, higher prices for consumers, and yes, actual American soldiers on the ground, how is it defensible to continue this without a declaration of war?

Our Founders were very deliberate in leaving the power to initiate a war in the hands of the legislature, not one executive. They believed it would be the number-one opportunity for administrative abuse. "Nations in general will make war whenever they have a prospect of getting anything by it," John Jay wrote inFederalist No. 4. "Absolute monarchs will often make war when their nations are to get nothing by it, but for purposes and objects merely personal, such as thirst for military glory, revenge for personal affronts, ambition, or private compacts to aggrandize or support their particular families or partisans." Such factors could motivate the executive "to engage in wars not sanctified by justice or the voice and interests of his people."

It is therefore very clear that our Founders, based on the reality of warfare defined in their time, believed that any initiation of offensive action taken against another nation must be approved by Congress. As James Madison said, there must be “rigid adherence to the simple, the received, and the fundamental doctrine of the [C]onstitution, that the power to declare war, including the power of judging of the causes of war, is fully and exclusively vested in the legislature; that the executive has no right, in any case, to decide the question, whether there is or is not cause for declaring war …”

George Washington, in a 1793 letter to the governor of South Carolina regarding conflict with the Creek Indians, made it clear that the question to initiate any major offensive war was out of the hands of the president: "The [C]onstitution vests the power of declaring war in Congress; therefore no offensive expedition of importance can be undertaken until after they shall have deliberated upon the subject and authorized such a measure."

On the other hand, any decisions about the execution of the war thereafter or to immediately repel an invasion were placed squarely in the hands of the president. This arrangement was born out of the Article I Section 8 enumerated congressional power to declare war on the one hand, but the president’s role as commander in chief of the armed forces on the other.

This is also why Madison had the convention members alter the original draft of the Constitution, which gave Congress the power to “make war,” to a more limited language of “declare” war, making it clear that all operations beyond the initial declaration would not be subject to the chaotic whims of 100 people. However, the all-important decision to initiate such an action was left in the hands of Congress. And even if one wants to defend surgical strikes in today’s world as a necessary tool for national defense, how can one defend over a year of involvement in Ukraine without congressional input? I guess it’s under the same rationale as a president utilizing unilateral emergency pandemic powers for three years without ever getting approval from Congress.

Ironically, the only warfare for which Biden would not need congressional input is the use of the military against the cartels at our border because that is purely defensive. But of course, that is the one theater in which we will not use our military because, in the view of the elites destroying the social compact, our military exists for every other country but our own.

Meanwhile, the Biden administration is contemplating an effort to expand how it monitors social media sites and chat rooms in response to the leak. Like a thief caught at night, they lash out against the homeowner aka the American people so that we are the ones considered criminals and not their officials for selling out our country to Ukraine. Of course, they will get away with it, because, alas, we have a uniparty.