Suchergebnisse

The United States intervention in Haiti concludes another chapter in the development of the constitutional common law of presidential power. The Haiti experience further confirms the constitutional authority of the President to deploy armed forces into hostile foreign environments, and to initiate the use of force without prior, specific congressional authorization. The facts of the situation limit the "precedent" to small-scale interventions where the risk of major military engagements, either initially or upon escalation, is negligible. The cases of largescale hostilities, like Korea, Vietnam and Iraq, are quite different in fact and perhaps also in law. But the Haiti "precedent," coupled with the recent interventions in Grenada and Panama and innumerable examples earlier in history, strongly supports an unqualified presidential power to carry out small-scale military operations in support of foreign policy goals.

In the wake of Vietnam and Watergate, Congress set out to attack the imperial Presidency and to recapture its "historic constitutional role" in foreign policy. The tools of congressional activism included the National Commitments Resolution, the War Powers Resolution, the Case Act, the legislative veto over arms sales and nuclear exports, trade restrictions aimed at the Soviet Union and regulation of intelligence activities. In response, Presidents Carter and Reagan charged that Congress was invading presidential prerogatives. Joined by former executive branch officials and academic commentators, they saw an imperial Congress and believed the solution was a strengthened Presidency.