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Congress approves bill barring any president from unilaterally withdrawing from NATO (thehill.com)

submitted 9 months ago by tsonfeir@lemm.ee to c/worldnews@lemmy.ml

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Congress has approved legislation that would prevent any president from withdrawing the United States from NATO without approval from the Senate or an Act of Congress. The measure, spearheaded by Sens. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), was included in the annual National Defense Authorization Act, which passed out of the House on Thursday and is expected to be signed by President Biden.

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[-] obinice@lemmy.world 26 points 9 months ago

Only a fascist trying to be a dictator would actually do this.

Sounds like rather than patchwork mini laws like this, they need to revamp the system to ensure no single person can take such drastic overreaching action.

Lets not forget that a president/prime minister isn't the singular person in charge, they're merely the figurehead/frontman of an entire government of elected people, as well add representing their party, and of course ultimately are a civil servant working at the pleasure of the people.

95% of the things the president does should go through proper democratic channels within the government and not simply rubber stamped by a single person, that path is the path towards dictatorship.

The few exceptions are rare things that can't be put to a vote or through regular channels, like launching nukes, etc. But these are exceptions only.

There should never have been a situation where it was possible for a president to personally decide to change the future of the entire nation and indeed world, in such a dramatic and drastic way, without any checks and balances to ensure that it is the will of the people, out even the will of anyone else in government.

Which is why it sounds to me like they need some significant reform, rather than just making this one little change :-(