Raimondo: Rand Paul's Declaration of War is Loopy

Justin Raimondo correctly notes:

I was always made a little bit nervous every time I heard Ron Paul – and other libertarians – inveigh against the modern practice of going to war without a formal declaration of war. Well, yes, it’s unconstitutional, and, yes, process is important, but what made me uneasy is that I was always worried someone would actually take Ron up on his suggestion – that is, introduce a formal declaration of war. And when my worst fears were finally confirmed, and someone did introduce just such a resolution, wouldn’t you know it would be Ron’s son – Sen. Rand Paul!...

Sen. Paul is here establishing a whole new principle: the rather loopy idea that we are compelled to go to war whenever one of our "diplomatic facilities" is endangered. Which means we should’ve declared war on Iran when they took over our Tehran embassy in 1979 – and bombed the heck out of the Egyptians when they besieged our Cairo embassy in 2012. If we attacked every country where our embassy or consulate has been surrounded with threatening protesters screaming "Yankee Go Home!" we’d have invaded the whole of South America and half of Asia by this time.

There’s absolutely nothing in Paul’s resolution that justifies a declaration of war. Nor is there any attempt to show how the Islamic State represents a "clear and present danger" to the US: indeed, this claim is plainly comical, rather like an elephant being brought to its knees on account of the intimidating presence of a fearsome mouse.