Hell has frozen over for sure but when you’re right, you’re right. I could have written every word of this statement by Dennis Kucinich, the lunatic Congressman from Ohio.
“While the action is billed as protecting the civilians of Libya, a no-fly-zone begins with an attack on the air defenses of Libya and Qaddafi forces. It is an act of war. The president made statements which attempt to minimize U.S. action but U.S. planes may drop U.S. bombs and U.S. missiles may be involved in striking another sovereign nation. War from the air is still war. Whether the U.S. takes military action is not for the UN alone to decide. There is a constitutional imperative in the United States with respect to deciding to commit our U.S. armed forces to war.
Both houses of Congress must weigh in. This is not for the President alone or for a few high ranking Members of Congress to decide.”
Right on, brother!
Article One, Section Eight of the Constitution of the United States of America says that Congress has the authority to declare war, not the Executive Branch. Since World War II, America has repeatedly gone to war without Constitutionally declaring war – this needs to stop.
The War Powers Resolution of 1973 is an artifact of the Vietnam conflict which was started and escalated without Congressional approval by Presidents: Kennedy, Johnson and finally Nixon. The law restricts the President’s power to use force. The President can send U.S. armed forces into action abroad only:
· If authorized by Congress or by Congressional declaration of war.
· The President may defend the nation if under attack or serious threat but must notify Congress within 48 hours of committing armed forces to military action and forbids armed forces from remaining for more than 60 days without Congressional action.
· Nixon vetoed this law and was overridden.
· Every President since its passage has treated it as unConstitutional and has claimed that the President is therefore not bound by its statutes.
· Against the passionate advice of Vice President Cheney, President Bush went to Congress and asked for authorization to attack Iraq. The [Democratic] Congress obliged or we would not have attacked. Clearly, the despised President Bush respected the Constitution and the Congress more than others and worked to avoid a Constitutional crisis. I suppose it might also be so that he knew he had the votes.
· In 2006, Senators Clinton, Biden and Obama made it expressly clear that President Bush needed Congressional approval just to escalate in Iraq.
We are not under attack from Libya and nobody thinks that Libya threatens Americans. In fact, the Obama Administration is saying that our actions regarding Libya are to protect innocent civilians and prevent genocide. The case for the White House needing Congressional approval could not be clearer. The Administration is almost certainly counting and buying votes as we speak.
We’ve all taken our own lessons from America’s engagement in Iraq and Afghanistan. My own reactions have caused me to revisit all of our engagements starting with World War I. My deepest wish at the moment is that Democrats were asking the same questions about Libya that they shouted about the planned 2006 Bush surge in Iraq.
Our Libyan objective is to protect civilians but:
· What is our exit strategy?
· What happens if fighting stops and Gaddafi remains?
· What if Gaddafi is killed or leaves and civil war erupts between the three tribal provinces that make up Libya?
· Are un-uniformed fighters civilians?
· What if rebel fighters win and start to kill civilians?
· Will we pay for this war or cut taxes and go shopping?
· How do we know that genocide is truly a risk? There has been none yet. This is important to figuring out that the risk has ended.
· We are in a support role for France and others. What will we do if France doesn’t shoot or if our partners leave?
· Since the Security Council voted 10 in favor and 5 abstaining and if Russia, China, Brazil, India and Germany are against intervention while South Africa, Bosnia and Nigeria are in favor [at our urging], does that mean America is part of a coalition of the willing?
· The Arab nations that have agreed to join us in the fight are all our allies and all governed by monarchies. Will that help or hurt our image in the Muslim and Arab Street?
· I understand the UN commitment to “never again” regarding genocide but – forgive me – doesn’t there have to be some killing before we know there is genocide?
· Does anyone remember the legalistic semantic arguments in the UN about genocide in the Sudan where thousands or tens of thousands were killed and raped?
Colin Powell declared genocide in the Sudan but nobody intervened. The war monger Bush said no but the peacenik Obama says yes. Irony? Better moral compass?
· Forgive me again, but saving 700,000 people from murder is compelling but so were WMD in Iraq.
· I understand that President Obama will not put troops on the ground in Libya but that was the same objective we had for the no-fly zone over Iraq which ran from 1991 until 2003.
· When sovereign foreign nations enter civil war, the “army” often attacks the “civilian” rebels. Many people die in a civil war. Will we always intervene? Will we always intervene on the side of the rebels?
President Obama has been vague. He owes the nation an explanation. He needs to get approval from Congress and he should answer our non-military questions – Congress should get answers to the rest in closed session. The President looks weak on this – again.
There is a note worthy side bar to all this. Three women in the White House have convinced a President to go to war over the advice of three men and the men represent the nation’s military and national security. Who’d have thunk it? Details below.
According to the NYT, the uncertain President Obama was swayed on Libya at the last moment when Hillary Clinton shifted her view.
I think everyone knows that Bill Clinton publically supported intervention in Libya about a week ago. An unusual move for an exPresident and something Clinton has specifically avoided for more than a decade. Bill Clinton and many Clintonites in today’s White House still regret not having intervened in Rwanda.
In an interesting movie called “The Special Relationship”, President Clinton and Tony Blair are seen planning the progressive takeover of western politics for a generation. Finally conservatives have been driven from the Executive and progressives have their mandate.
Blair pushes Clinton to intervene in Bosnia and Clinton says no – not unless the UN, EU, NATO and Russia request it, which was impossibility. TV coverage finally exposes mass graves in Bosnia and a disgusted Clinton is moved. He calls his wife – the two are shown as partners in government – and Hillary tells him intervention is the right thing to do.
Tony Blair tells Parliament, to universal cheers, that never again will military intervention in a sovereign nation for the prevention of genocide be questioned.
So back to this White House and the internal debate about Libya. The NYT says that insiders witnessed a long and divided debate. Obama was swayed when Hillary changed her mind and joined Samantha Power, a senior aide at the National Security Council, and Susan Rice, Mr. Obama’s ambassador to the United Nations, in pressing for action. On the other side were Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, the national security adviser, Thomas E. Donilon, and the counterterrorism chief, John O. Brennan; they urged caution.
Obama Takes Hard Line with Libya after Shift by Clinton by Helene Cooper and Steven Lee Myers NYT, March 18, 2011
It’s note worthy also that the Clinton/Gates break is unusual, that Rice was an Africa adviser when we failed to intervene in Rwanda and Power is a human rights advocate who currently works for Donilon who advised caution.
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