Since when does the UN authorize the US to go to war?

Israpundit ^ | March 19, 2011 | Ted Belman

[EternalVigilance]

Andrew C. McCarthy says Go to Congress first before warring against Libya.

On Thursday evening, the U.N. Security Council voted 10–0 (with five abstentions, including China, Russia, and Germany) to authorize the use of military force (i.e., “all necessary measures”) against Libya. Ostensibly, the resolution is designed to protect the Libyan people. But not to mince words, it is a license for war against the regime of Moammar Qaddafi. It would kick hostilities off with a no-fly zone over Libya. As a practical matter, American armed forces must do the heavy lifting if the strategy is to have a prayer, and indications are that [Alleged] President Obama intends to oblige.
There is a catch: The Security Council is powerless to “authorize” the U.S. military to do a damned thing. The validity of American combat operations is a matter of American law, and that means Congress must authorize them.

Our Constitution vests Congress with the power to declare war. That authority cannot be delegated to an international tribunal that lacks political accountability to the American people. The decision to go to war is the most significant one a body politic can make. Thus the Framers designed our system to make certain that the responsible officials are answerable to the people whose lives are at stake and who are expected to foot the bills.

and concludes

But there should be no debating that absent a hostile invasion of our country, a forcible attack against our interests, or a clear threat against us so imminent that Americans may be harmed unless prompt action is taken, the United States should not launch combat operations without congressional approval.

But James V. Capua in Obama and the Libya decision has a different take.

Barack Obama finally has a war he can believe in. The intervention in Libya promises to conform just about perfectly to the president’s world view. He hastened to declare in his Friday afternoon statement what it would not entail– no US troops on the ground, and somebody else will lead it.

Now at first glance it might appear he is merely being cautious – limiting our exposure to minimize any unfortunate foreign or domestic fallout should the television images get unpleasant, but one cannot help but suspect that the motive is less to minimize the US role than it is to exalt that of the UN and other supra-national organizations, such as the Arab League, and all of the NGO camp followers that normally feed off such international coalitions.

Additionally, this action promises finally to use American military power in the kind of international relief and social service agency capacity Obama’s internationalist foreign policy team would like it to be, its mission unsullied by grubby considerations of national interest. One observer has already compared it to the international intervention in Kosovo, intervention that delivered the Kosovars into the hands of UN and EU caretakers, despite their declaration of independence.

[..]

Even more significantly Obama’s world view requires victims to be serviced, and not winners to be supported. As long as the Libyan rebels had a chance to prevail, they were of little value to a messianic narcissist bent on removing the “Incomplete” from his Nobel Peace Prize citation. Pitiful, battered, pleading Libyans huddled around Benghazi are the prerequisite for making this this intervention work politically. In just the same way Obama and Pelosi needed the image of sick, desperate, hard up Americans to make the case for ObamaCare, the Stimuli, and financial services “reform.”

[..]

War without victory, intervention that produces dependency, Americans shouldering the burdens but obscured in a fog of UN acronyms, a maze of rules of engagement and process that squeezes every last bit of spirit and motivation out of warriors, it may not be a strategy, but it sure as hell explains the motivation.

[Squantos]

BTTT !

[paulycy]

Since when does the UN authorize the US to go to war?

That's what I want to know.

I'm sure we'll hear from code stink soon. /s

[CommieCutter]

Someone should make an entire PARODY website devoted to Obama with photoshop pics and fake stories based on the same logic of “Bush’s wars”.

[paulycy]

FR is going to look like that for a few days... ;0)

[BenLurkin]

bttt

[Las Vegas Ron]

Seems the UN said jump and bammie said “how high”

With all the emphasis on this being an international coalition and “we're not leading this”, who is?

And is our military taking orders from them?

[CodeToad]

Seems an "illegal war" since we never declared war yet Obama is using the military for hostile actions against a sovereign nation.

Obama is the War President of an Illegal War!

(Seems fair. It's what the liberals said of Bush.)

[rockinqsranch]

“Since when does the UN authorize the US to go to war?”

Thanks for posting. I’ve been yelling, and pounding my fist into my ‘puter table wondering that myself. This is IMO another assault on American sovereignty. Another Leftist sleight of hand move to set Leftist precedence shifting more undeniable authority to the United Nations.

It’s another dirty Leftist trick of major consequence, and it had better be addressed by other than this damned RINO McPain I’m reading about speaking out in support of that asshat Obama.

[EternalVigilance]

"War without victory, intervention that produces dependency, Americans shouldering the burdens but obscured in a fog of UN acronyms, a maze of rules of engagement and process that squeezes every last bit of spirit and motivation out of warriors, it may not be a strategy, but it sure as hell explains the motivation."

[Texas Eagle]

He hastened to declare in his Friday afternoon statement what it would not entail– no US troops on the ground, and somebody else will lead it.

Being fluent in Obonics, I can translate this:

We will send thousands of troops in as peacekeepers under U.N. command.

[davisfh]

"Since when does the UN authorize the US to go to war?"

The United States, under weak and distracted leadership, allows it once. Then successive events occur and the US allows it again and again and it becomes custom. And, finally, under continuing weak and irresolute leadership, it becomes law. In the end there is no more United States and the United Nations is left in charge. And that, my friends, is the path to oblivion that we are on.

[Lurker]

Barack Obama finally has a war he can believe in.

Of course he does. There's no vital American interest nor is there any clear and present danger to the US so he's on it like ugly on an ape.

And if you think those Marines are floating around in the Med for their health, well... This is going to be Somalia Part II. Never mind that pesky little Constitution thingy, he can do whatever he wants apparently.

L

[immadashell]

This is Odumbo voting “present” on declaring war. When the SHTF he can hide behind the jerks at the UN (or blame it on Bush).

[Logical me]

Moammar Qaddafi killed Americans!!!! This is a case where this nitwit should be hanged. I believe war can be only declare in the Senate with the blessing of the President but in this case get the bastar!.

[vicar7]

Since Gulf War1 when GHWB sent the troops. However I think twas also done for the Korean War. I am not in favor of such goings on but that is the way it is. Lord knows Reagan would have made a decision long ago and the world be damned. This having to beg others to lead to get something done is not leadership. Obama’s lack of leadership will be a template for 2012.

[ex-snook]

Where are the ‘constitution’ people when they are needed? Presidents from both parties have been using work-arounds to avoid formal declarations of war. The last were against WW II enemies in Germany and Japan. Note further that was the last war we won. A formal declaration of war unites the nation in the war effort, something that has been lacking ever since WW II.

[maggief]

FLASHBACK

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/politics/5138389.html

CAMPAIGN 2008 - Some Democrats rap depth of Obama’s anti - war stance - Critics contend position revised during campaign
Houston Chronicle (TX) - Sunday, September 16, 2007
Author: PERRY BACON JR., Washington Post

For anti - war Illinois Democrats, the speech that made them fall in love with Barack Obama was not the one he gave in Boston in 2004 at the Democratic National Convention, but one two years earlier at a hastily organized rally in Chicago on the eve of the congressional vote to authorize the Iraq war.

“I don’t oppose all wars,” Obama , then a state senator, said on Oct. 2, 2002. “ ... What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war. What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and other armchair, weekend warriors in this administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne.”

Last week, Obama quoted his own words in a speech on Iraq that chastised those who “took the president at his word instead of reading the intelligence for themselves.”

(snip)

[EternalVigilance]

Does anyone know of ANY congressional involvement in this adventure at all?

[Starboard]

Congress is MIA as usual.