Tim Kaine in National Public Radio

On War & Peace: Wanted a War on ISIL vote in Congress and would support it

Kaine said, "Article 1 of the Constitution says, you shouldn't be at war unless Congress declares it. Now a president has power under Article 2 to defend the US. And when the bombing campaign first began in August 2014, the president was defending a US consulate in Erbil. But within a few weeks, the US was under no imminent threat. Once Obama said, 'it's time to go on offense against ISIL,' at that point, congressional authorization was required.

"But Congress doesn't want to touch it. Congress wants to criticize the president but neither authorize nor stop what the president is doing. And it's just a huge abdication of responsibility, and it sets a horrible precedent. We all think ISIL is bad, but what we're basically doing is setting a precedent where a president can start a war and take it, you know, for more than a year without Congress getting involved at all, and that's just not what should happen," concluded Kaine. [He did introduce this Senate bill on 9/17/2014].

Source: National Public Radio, "Kaine criticizes Syria strategy" Oct 31, 2015

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