RE: In response to Thursday’s letter from Bruce Hallowell: It is not the duty of the president, not does he have the power to declare war. One has only to look at the Constitution (Article 1, Section 8.11). To quote Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia: “Except for the actual command of military forces, all authorization for their maintenance and all explicit authorization for their use is placed in the control of Congress under Article I, rather than the president under Article II. As Alexander Hamilton explained, the president’s military authority would be much inferior to that of the British monarch.”