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by ButlerianJihad 7 days ago
> Trump declared war on Iran.

No, that is actually a lie, and quite obviously false.

In the United States, nobody can "declare war" except Congress. Our President has authorized military action against Iran and plenty of strikes, this is true. However, Congress has not passed a War Powers Resolution, much less an open declaration of war.

Therefore, nobody in the United States has "declared war on Iran", the current situation notwithstanding. That is why there are many arguments against it.
1 comments
throwaway2037 6 days ago
For the record, the US is a bit weird internationally about how it "declares" war. As a historical fact, the US never formally declared war against Vietnam. Anyone with a middle school education or greater would look at that "conflict" and say, "Obviously, that was a war." Weeks of aerial bombing of military targets in Iran? Again, common sense would say that is a war, regardless of what the US Constitution says.
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ButlerianJihad 6 days ago
But anyone who grew up during the conflicts in Korea or Vietnam will distinctly recall how controversial they were as "police actions" and calling it anything-but-a-war, because they were undeclared by Congress.

Obviously, anyone can look into the Wikipedia articles for any of those conflicts and see that they're all properly labeled as "wars", but it is also quite possible for a nation or entity to be a belligerent and participate in an actual war without formally and legally declaring it so.

So to say that "[President] Trump declared war" is definitely false, and it is rather amusing to me, reading the "Iran War" article, how often it says "Trump declared ..." something on X. Perhaps it's a fiction that haters like to hate with, like the way that the executive branch can't pass a law without all of Congress passing that law first, but they still take all the credit for passing those laws?!

I think that the US Congress is reluctant to declare wars because of the many ramifications for our own nation and the entire world. Nobody wants to see WW3 erupt, and WWII was well underway before the US was goaded into wholeheartedly joining the fray.

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throwaway2037 6 days ago 

    > Nobody wants to see WW3 erupt
Slightly off-topic, but I think WW3 is already happening: the Russo-Ukraine war. Over 50 nations are involved in both sides of the conflict.
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