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.

[Just A Nobody]

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

I read on another thread that he had "spoken to congressional leaders" the other day, but they were not named, nor was there a citation for that information.

[Aleya2Fairlie]

McMouthpiece McCain and Linda Graham approve. They’re the only ones that matter.

[Col Frank Slade]

I would guess the vast majority of Congress found out when we did.

Any pompous pronouncements from John F’ing Kerry yet ?

[maine-iac7]

*

[tumblindice]

Laws are an outmoded 20th century construct that only apply to the outer party and proles.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/50/usc_sec_50_00001542——000-.html

§ 1542. Consultation; initial and regular consultations
The President in every possible instance shall consult with Congress before introducing United States Armed Forces into hostilities or into situations where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances, and after every such introduction shall consult regularly with the Congress until United States Armed Forces are no longer engaged in hostilities or have been removed from such situations.

[EternalVigilance]

Apparently Congress was "told" about it on Friday.Not consulted. Not asked for approval. Nothing. Even the Left is outraged at this.

Liberal Democrats in uproar over Libya action (Kucinich calls for Obama's impeachment)

*snip*

Kucinich also questioned why Democratic leaders didn’t object when [Alleged] President Barack Obama told them of his plan for American participation in enforcing the Libyan no-fly zone during a White House Situation Room meeting on Friday, sources told POLITICO. And liberals fumed that Congress hadn’t been formally consulted before the attack and expressed concern that it would lead to a third U.S. war in the Muslim world.

[Just A Nobody]

although I thought that Bush did a terrible job of communicating the reason for and progress in that war.

President Bush did not do a terrible job of communicating the reason for and progress in that war.
The enemedia did however do a terrible job of communicating the reason for and progress in that war...purposely and with malicious intent. Unfortunately, much of the info is not found in the archives.

[Just A Nobody]

Thanks. I’ll continue to ignore or do the exact opposite of anything that thing has to say.

[jakerobins]

More of that Lib group think.....I remember John Kerry saying something about seeking agreement internationally before going to war...

[EternalVigilance]

Good post.

[TopQuark]

President Bush did not do a terrible job of communicating the reason for and progress in that war. The enemedia did however do a terrible job

I merely expressed my opinion. It was not based on what media did or did not tell me; it is based on what I heard when Bush spoke himself.

[Just A Nobody]

Thanks maggie!

Back at you Barry...

"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 Barry and other NWO commu-facists in this regime to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne” while bypassing Congress.

FUBO!

[Billthedrill]

I agree with your argument. The reason this is a war 0bama can love is simply that progressives need their enemies and will create them if necessary. The assumption is that one must by definition be morally righteous if one is opposing evil; the advantage to the argument is that it avoids an examination of one's own actions; the disadvantage is that it depends on the magic of inevitable historical progress in order to make things come out right.

0bama is perfectly clear who and what this is against. What it is in favor of, however, is conveniently vague. Who are we helping? What is their agenda? If we don't know this by the time the shooting starts we're already in too deeply. We saw a similar lack of deliberation when the progressives spent so much moral capital demonizing the Shah and simply assuming that anything that would follow after would inevitably be an improvement. It wasn't. We saw it with respect to Cuba, to Vietnam, to Bosnia, to Zimbabwe and Uganda. They don't learn because they aren't thinking, they're feeling their way through life.

We saw it in Bush Sr, whose need to maintain a coalition led us to cease fire in Iraq too soon. We saw it in his son, who wasted 14 months attempting to obtain UN approval for his own actions and paid when that proved enough time for Saddam to cover his tracks. It isn't restricted to party; it is restricted to internationalists whose allegiance is to something nobler and greater than nationalism but whose blind spots are commensurately expanded. The upshot is that people who are volubly in favor of peace and love and harmony are perfectly willing to kill other people who are insufficiently utopian.

Worst of all, we simply do not have a strategic objective in this thing: neither to eliminate an extant threat nor to advance any U.S. interests. We're doing it because it makes 0bama and his little coterie of internationalists look and feel good. And that simply is not an adequate reason to kill people.

[Just A Nobody]

I haven't seen one from J F’ing, but then again I rarely look to see if he is still breathing, let alone speaking.

[EternalVigilance]

Worst of all, we simply do not have a strategic objective in this thing: neither to eliminate an extant threat nor to advance any U.S. interests. We're doing it because it makes 0bama and his little coterie of internationalists look and feel good. And that simply is not an adequate reason to kill people.

Bears repeating.

[Georgia Girl 2]

“Congress is MIA as usual”

There is the understatement of the year.

[Just A Nobody]

Well, if the communist demonrats are opposed I don't know what to think. LOL

Good old Denny K...he is opposed to his own shadow. I'm off to see if there are any real republicans or conservatives commenting on this recent development.

[EternalVigilance]

Let us know what you find.

[thatjoeguy]

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

Since November 2008 (actually January 2009) why?

2012 Can’t come soon enough.

[dragnet2]

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