[Peace-discuss] Congress Must Debate the Libya War
E. Wayne Johnson
ewj at pigs.ag
Mon Mar 21 13:25:39 CDT 2011
I understand the threat much more clearly and it really does make so more
sense to worry about war when it is framed in the spectral context of
"President Palin".
*
And this one woman, she was 23 or 24 And she was laying on the bed And
you knew she was going to die... And, erh, we gave her a bottle of
shampoo...
On 3/22/2011 1:33 AM, Robert Naiman wrote:
>
> http://my.firedoglake.com/robertnaiman/2011/03/21/congress-must-debate-the-libya-war/
>
>
> Congress Must Debate the Libya War
> <http://my.firedoglake.com/robertnaiman/2011/03/21/congress-must-debate-the-libya-war/>
>
> By: Robert Naiman
> <http://my.firedoglake.com/members/robertnaiman/> Monday March 21,
> 2011 1:12 pm
>
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>
> The U.S. is now at war in a third Muslim country, according to the
> “official tally” (that is, counting Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya but
> not Pakistan or Yemen, for example.) But Congress has never authorized
> or debated the U.S. military intervention in Libya. (A sharply
> disputed claim holds that the Pakistan and Yemen actions are covered
> by the 2001 authorization of military force, but no-one has dared to
> argue that the 2001 AUMF covers Libya.)
>
> Some will no doubt claim that the President is acting in Libya within
> his authority as Commander-in-Chief. But this is an extremely
> dangerous claim.
>
> To put it crudely: as a matter of logic, if President Obama can bomb
> Libya without Congressional authorization, then President Palin can
> bomb Iran without Congressional authorization. If, God forbid, we ever
> get to that fork in the road, you can bet your bottom dollar that the
> advocates of bombing Iran will invoke Congressional silence now as
> justification for their claims of unilateral Presidential authority to
> bomb anywhere, anytime.
>
> Some Members of Congress have strongly objected to President Obama’s
> bombing of Libya without Congressional approval.
>
> On the Democratic side, John Larson, chair of the Democratic Caucus in
> the House, called for President Obama to seek congressional approval.
> Reps. Jerrold Nadler, Donna Edwards, Mike Capuano, Dennis Kucinich,
> Maxine Waters, Rob Andrews, Sheila Jackson Lee, Barbara Lee and
> Eleanor Holmes Norton “all strongly raised objections to the
> constitutionality of the president’s actions” during a Saturday call
> organized by Larson, the /Politico /reports
> <http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0311/51595.html>.
>
> “They consulted the Arab League. They consulted the United
> Nations. They did not consult the United States Congress,” one
> Democrat[ic] lawmaker said of the White House. “They’re creating
> wreckage, and they can’t obviate that by saying there are no boots
> on the ground. … There aren’t boots on the ground; there are
> Tomahawks in the air.”
>
> “Almost everybody who spoke was opposed to any unilateral actions
> or decisions being made by the president, and most of us expressed
> our constitutional concerns. There should be a resolution and
> there should be a debate so members of Congress can decide whether
> or not we enter in whatever this action is being called,” added
> another House Democrat opposed to the Libyan operation.
>
> “Whose side are we on? This appears to be more of a civil war than
> some kind of a revolution. Who are protecting? Are we with the
> people that are supposedly opposed to [Qadhafi]? You think they
> have a lot of people with him? If he is deposed, who will we be
> dealing with? There are a lot of questions here from members.”
>
> On the Republican side, Senator Richard Lugar, ranking Member on
> Senate Foreign Relations, told /CBS/‘ Face the Nation yesterday that
> if we’re going to war with Libya, we ought to have a declaration of
> war by the Congress:
>
> A memo distributed to Republican aides in the Senate Armed Services
> and Foreign Relations Committee made the case that Congressional
> authorization is necessary and used Barack Obama’s own words to make
> the case, /ABC/ reported
> <http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/congress-vote-libya-fly-zone/story?id=13167045>.
>
> The memo quotes Obama when he was in the Senate and there were
> concerns that then-President George W. Bush would take strike Iran.
>
> “The president does not have power under the Constitution to
> unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does
> not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation,”
> the memo quotes then-Senator Obama saying on Dec. 20, 2007.
>
> In times like this, you can be sure some journalist will marvel at the
> “strange bedfellows
> <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/20/obama-libya_n_838219.html>”
> coalition of Democrats and Republicans standing up to the President.
> But there’s nothing strange about this bed. Everyone who wants to live
> in a constitutional republic belongs in this bed. Everyone who wants
> to hold the Administration to its promise of a “limited intervention”
> aimed at “protecting civilians,” rather than overthrowing the Libyan
> government, and to avoid “mission creep” from the former to the
> latter, belongs in this bed.
>
> Congressional debate is a key means of compelling the Administration
> to clearly state its case and its objectives, to be honest and
> transparent about the potential cost of its proposed policies, and to
> limit its actions to its stated objectives; and to force Members of
> Congress to go on the record, in opposition or in support, and to
> state clearly, if they support, what it is that they support. On cost,
> for example: each Tomahawk missile is reported to cost on the order of
> a million dollars. So, firing 110 of them over the weekend cost about
> $100 million, far more than House Republicans cut from National Public
> Radio with great fanfare. Shouldn’t Congress consider this expenditure?
>
> Two days into the military intervention, there was already sharp
> dispute over whether the military intervention that has unfolded has
> already gone beyond what the UN Security Council authorized and what
> the Arab League endorsed.
>
> Yesterday, the /New York Times/ reported
> <http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/21/world/africa/21libya.html>:
>
> A day after a summit meeting in Paris set the military operation
> in motion, some Arab participants in the agreement expressed
> unhappiness with the way the strikes were unfolding. The former
> chairman of the Arab League, Amr Moussa, told Egyptian state media
> that he was calling for an emergency Arab League meeting to
> discuss the situation in the Arab world and particularly Libya.
>
> “What is happening in Libya differs from the aim of imposing a
> no-fly zone, and what we want is the protection of civilians and
> not the bombardment of more civilians,” he said, referring to
> Libyan government claims that allied bombardment had killed dozens
> of civilians in and near Tripoli.
>
> Today, Moussa appeared to walk back
> <http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110321/wl_nm/us_libya_arabs_moussa_1> these
> remarks.
>
> But with Benghazi apparently no longer under Libyan government threat,
> and with Western bombs falling in Tripoli, this dispute over the scope
> of Western bombing is virtually certain to intensify.
>
> You can debate the constitutional issue of war powers until the cows
> come home; but as a practical matter, if Congress doesn’t formally
> address the issue, such debate isn’t very relevant. If a majority of
> the House and the Senate support the present US military intervention
> in Libya, let them say so on the record, at least, by voting for a
> resolution to authorize military force. If the majority of the House
> or Senate are opposed, let them say so on the record. A minimum
> standard for transparency in government is that the House and the
> Senate go on the record for or against a new war.
>
> *UPDATE:* Former MoveOn and Democracy for America staffer Ilya
> Sheyman, who is exploring a run for Congress in Illinois’ 10th
> Congressional District, has a petition
> <http://www.ilyasheyman.com/on-libya/> calling for Congress to debate
> the war in Libya.
>
> /Robert Naiman is Policy Director at Just Foreign Policy
> <http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/>./
>
>
> --
> Robert Naiman
> Policy Director
> Just Foreign Policy
> www.justforeignpolicy.org <http://www.justforeignpolicy.org>
> naiman at justforeignpolicy.org <mailto:naiman at justforeignpolicy.org>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
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