Tom Boswell is a lifelong community organizer, journalist, and award-winning poet residing in Brattleboro. Editor's note: The Vermont Defend the Guard Act remains in the Government Operations and Military Affairs Committee and at this point in the legislative session, its fate is grim, and it would have to be filed anew for the next biennium.
BRATTLEBORO-If you are sick and tired of the United States fighting so-called forever wars - wars that seem to drag on for years or decades with no stated goal in mind except to kill people who have never caused any harm to Vermont citizens - there is something you can do about it.
These wars that cause so much death and destruction technically don't even exist because they have never been formally declared. Yet they sap our local resources, particularly the National Guard, which is supposed to protect and defend us.
A good part of a solution to this dilemma is a bill sitting in the Vermont State House right now, waiting for your state legislators to sign on and grant it a hearing. It's called the Defend the Guard Act.
This state-based, nonpartisan legislation would prohibit the deployment of our National Guard into active combat without a formal declaration of war by Congress, as required by Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution.
Our Guard troops have a unique role in the military - both state and federal - as spelled out in this article of the Constitution. It requires that Congress declare war because it's the government body closest (and assumedly most responsive) to the people.
The Constitution then mandates that the president (commander in chief) is to prosecute the war.
It may surprise some people to learn that World War II was the last time the U.S. actually declared a war despite decades and decades of war in places like Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Somalia, Libya, Grenada, Guatemala, Chile, and, let's not forget, the present genocide in Palestine.
Our military under George W. Bush dropped 70,000 bombs on five countries but we were not at war.
Barack Obama, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009, dumped 100,000 bombs on seven countries during his two terms without a declaration of war and won the for his efforts.
In his first year in office (of his first term), Donald Trump dropped 44,000 bombs, an average of one bomb every 12 minutes.
During his second term in the White House, Trump's military interventions, according to the Council on Foreign Relations, include Iraq, Nigeria, Somalia, Syria, Yemen, Venezuela, and Iran. That's (at least) seven sovereign nations, but not quite enough to earn him the Nobel Peace Prize he so yearns for.
But the point here is that a half dozen presidents, Democrat and Republican, have made a bad habit of violating the U.S. Constitution and international law in pursuit of their mutual goals of U.S. hegemony on the world stage.
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The immediate context for this Defend the Guard Act legislation, of course, is that President Trump has deployed the soldiers and F-35 fighter jets of the Vermont Guard for his two latest military adventures: the attack on Venezuela and kidnapping of its president, and his current undeclared war against Iran, with his crony in crime, the state of Israel.
John Daniel "Raizin" Caine, a U.S. general and venture capitalist who became chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff last year, was quoted in a press release from March 2 as confirming that the Vermont Air National Guard was part of the buildup of forces that attacked Iran on the last day of February.
"This is not a single overnight operation," Caine admitted. "[It] will take some time to achieve, and in some cases, will be difficult and gritty work."
Indeed. The Project on Government Oversight (POGO) reported that "the illegal war started by our executive branch in Iran is rapidly spreading and escalating - and the costs are ballooning."
POGO's defense experts estimate that the U.S. spent nearly $630.6 million on Tomahawks missiles alone in the first four days. The White House is already floating a request of $50 billion in supplemental funding.
Meanwhile, our National Guard troops are not available here at home to respond to forest fires, floods, or future pandemics if they are overseas fighting illegal and unconstitutional wars of aggression.
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The Defend the Guard Act in the Vermont Legislature is actually part of a national movement to pressure Congress to fulfill its Constitutional responsibility. The goal is to use the American principle of federalism to restore the balance of power between the executive and legislative branches and require a shift in foreign policy to curtail the governments' ability to wage endless war without Congressional oversight and accountability.
Other state legislative chambers that have already passed a similar bill include our neighbors in the New Hampshire House of Representatives and the Arizona and Idaho state senates.
In Texas, more Republican primary voters in 2024 supported that state's Defend the Guard ballot measure than voted for Donald Trump. It was approved by 85% of voters. Defend the Guard legislation has now been introduced in 28 state legislatures, supported by Democrats, Republicans, and Libertarians.
Darin Gaub, who served the U.S. military from the rank of private to lieutenant colonel, including seven overseas deployments, testified before a standing committee of the Montana House in 2023 in support of the Defend the Guard campaign.
"The U.S. Constitution as the supreme law of the land vests the power to declare war exclusively in the U.S. Congress," he affirmed. "Congress has repeatedly abdicated its duty by unconditionally delegating its authority to the executive branch. This violates the separation of powers."
Gaub proceeded to tell the Montana legislators: "The president cannot declare and execute the war on their own. That's something you see in dictatorships. [...] Today's expeditionary military mindset looks more like the time of the Roman Empire, where those in uniform served at the whim of the emperor, not at the will of the people."
Speaking for the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft in 2021, Dan McKnight said the Defend the Guard movement was the "brainchild" of a member of the House of Delegates of the West Virginia Legislature, who has served as an Air Force intelligence officer across the Middle East. McKnight himself had served in the Marine Corps, Army, and Idaho National Guard and fought in Afghanistan.
"In my deployment to Afghanistan, I found the Guard to be the best trained of all," he reported. "For two decades of war, the National Guard has tried to live up to its motto of "Always Ready, Always There." But the undeniable fact is that every American soldier sent to nation-build in Afghanistan or patrol the streets of Iraq is one less person who can protect and aid his fellow Americans back home.
"Article 1, Section 8, Clause 11 of the U.S. Constitution empowers Congress (and they alone) with the power to make war on another nation. But since World War II, Congress has been content to obfuscate accountability and defer decision-making to the Executive Branch, which James Madison called "the branch of power most interested in war, [and] most prone to it."
"That, unfortunately, has been the result. The U.S. currently has active-duty soldiers in a total of 150 nations across the globe. In 65 of those nations, our troops are engaged in counterterrorism training missions; and in direct-fire combat operations in 14 countries. Meanwhile, seven countries are on the receiving end of drone strikes courtesy of the U.S. military. All without a declaration of war."
McKnight added: "Defend the Guard would not prevent the National Guard from deploying to other states to offer assistance, or participating in training missions overseas, or going into federal service for the reasons explicitly written in the U.S. Constitution. [The legislation's] sole, narrowly defined purpose is to prevent the National Guard from being used in illegal wars and requiring that congressmen put their names on the dotted line before they ask our soldiers to put their boots on the ground."
In early 2024, Wendy Rogers, an Air Force officer and Republican state senator in Flagstaff, Arizona, stood up to champion the Defend the Guard Act.
"Our Founding Fathers were very clear on their intentions when they drafted our system of checks and balances in 1787," she said. "President George Washington said, 'The Constitution 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.'"
For decades, Washington, D.C. has used and abused our National Guard to fight its wars without the popular consent of the American people.
"If it's a war worth fighting in defense of the United States," Rogers said, "there will be no difficulty in finding a majority of Congress to vote in favor, with the unified support of the American people, and the National Guard taking its rightful place as the backbone of the Armed Forces."
But, she continued, "if it is a war without the approval of the people's elected representatives, then it is an illegal conflict, a violation of the government's compact with the states, and a war that Arizona's National Guard should not fight."
Although I certainly wouldn't recommend him as someone to emulate, when Pete Hegseth was just a nominee for secretary of defense, he had this to say concerning the political activity of our neighbors to the east when they considered the Defend the Guard Act: "New Hampshire is simply pointing out that it's supposed to be Congress that declares war. It has become an executive branch function, and as a result unless the Congress declares war, New Hampshire doesn't have to send troops for foreign wars. To me it makes a lot of sense."
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So there you have it.
Given the person who nominated Pete - and who unfortunately sits in the White House now, an authoritarian, half-crazed, megalomaniac - it's probably due time for Vermont residents to assert states' rights and get behind the Defend the Guard movement.
It's time to contact your state legislators and encourage them to support the Vermont Defend the Guard Act (H.355), to add their names to sponsor it, and to do all they can to ensure it gets a fair hearing in the General Assembly.
The bill is in the Government Operations and Military Affairs Committee and is currently sponsored by Troy Headrick, an independent representing Chittenden-15 in the House of Representatives.
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