Posted on 06/15/2011 12:44:58 PM PDT by tobyhill
The White House is telling Congress that President Obama has the legal authority to continue American participation in the NATO-led air war in Libya, even though lawmakers have not authorized it.
In a broader package of materials the Obama administration is sending to Congress on Wednesday defending its Libya policy, the White House, for the first time, offers lawmakers and the public an argument for why Mr. Obama has not been violating the War Powers Resolution since May 20.
On that day, the Vietnam-era law’s 60-day deadline for terminating unauthorized hostilities appeared to pass. But the White House argued that the activities of United States military forces in Libya do not amount to full-blown “hostilities” at the level necessary to involve the section of the War Powers Resolution that imposes the deadline.
“We are acting lawfully,” said Harold Koh, the State Department legal adviser, who expanded on the administration’s reasoning in a joint interview with White House Counsel Robert Bauer.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
I never said he did. If Obama feels the WPR is un-Constitutional he should come out and say it. Then Congress can do whatever they wish. But until that time it is the law.
I don't like it either, but it is the law until it's either repealed or struck down. That's the simple fact.
Allow me to explain again, and more simply, what's going on here.
If it is hypocritical for the Democrat caucus as a whole to ignore the War Powers Act, it is hypocritical for conservatives - who have recognized the Act as a dangerous example of unconstitutional Congressional overreach - to invoke it.
The War Powers Act is poisonous and if fake conservatives like Paul and real enemies like Kucinich hoodwink conservatives into backing it and invoking it, we are on our way down the rabbit hole.
I think that if someone fired 228 cruise missiles at us, we would be fairly certain that that particular someone was engaged in full blown “hostilities” with us...
where is all the outrage from the left? IF GWB had done this, there would have been no end to the kicking and screaming.
The Act does not apply. At all.
Even if it were legal - which it is not - it is self-contradictory in light of the UN and NATO treaties that Congress has signed.
Bush and the other presidents since its enactment have abided by it (Republicans more than others).
In point of fact, the Presidents have made it very clear that while they may put things before Congress (like Grenada or Iraq) they are not bound by the WPA in any way from executing their authority under the treaties.
If he feels it’s wrong, he should challenge it and announce that he’s doing so, not simply ignore it and pretend he has the right to do whatever he wants...which has been his approach to every single US law (and even the more vaguely defined checks and balances) since day one.
Rather than waiting for Obama to do the right thing, which will never happen except by accident, these Congressmen are trying to get him to endorse their own misdeeds, specifically the WPA. The cure is worse than the disease.
The problem is that Congress wants to have their cake and eat it too.
They want to have the benefits of UN and NATO without any of the drawbacks. They want to have the benefits of military pork without any of its drawbacks, either.
So, rather than do the difficult yet legal, Constitutional thing and terminate treaties or hold up spending, they prefer instead the illegal, unconstitutional yet easy route of picking and choosing when the President is allowed to be the executive and how.
Our treaty obligations under NATO (let alone the UN Charter) do not remove the power of Congress under the Constitution to declare war.
Congress need not defund the entire DOD either, they can decide that no U.S. money will go to funding any military missions in Libya or to NATO or to the UN or to any other cause that they feel doesn't deserve taxpayer money.
Since when is lobbing hundreds of missiles into a country not an act of war? What if Canada sent a couple of missiles to the White House (I wish they would) would we not consider that an act of war? This is setting a terrible precident. Just because Libya cannot fight us back in a big way that doesn’t make any excuse. Hell, lets just bomb the $hit out of Venezuela while we’re at it. This president has got to be stopped. He is out of control.
That is questionable.
This is a way for Congress to never have to declare a war and to still be able to pull funding at any moment they want.
It gives them an unconstitutional legal strategy for never having to commit to any policy along with the President and to be able to defund it the second the polls go against the President.
Any Congressman can then claim after the fact that he was either for or against the war depending on its popularity.
This is not the way the Framers intended it and not the way they wrote it.
Well, here’s to hoping they do impeach and he’ll take the path Nixon took. God willing!!
Consider, though, Article I, Section 8 “The Congress shall have the Power To: ... make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval forces” clause. I’m not so sure the “unconstitutionality” of the War Powers Act is so cut-and-dried. The Founders were opposed to standing armies and certainly to the Chief Executive as King. The Continental Congress wasn’t hands-off when it came to the Revolution. I think a framer’s analysis of the WPA would find it to be a very good balancing of powers while permitting the CiC to act in extremis in defense of the Nation.
The President doesn't have to do what you think the law requires of him. He doesn't even have to do what the Supreme Court thinks the law requires of him. He has to do what he thinks the law requires and what Congress is willing to insist that the law requires. That's exactly what he's doing in this case. Find something else to get hot under the collar about.
http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/official_texts_17120.htm
Was a NATO member attacked? And even if attacked - the treaty obligates us to treat an attack on a member state as if it were an attack upon ourselves.
An attack on the USA, like the one at Pearl Harbor, did not remove the power and obligation of Congress to declare war. Neither would a similar type of attack on England that must, under NATO obligations, be treated as an attack on the USA.
It isn't really that difficult a concept.
Clinton ignored it when he bombed Serbia back in 1999.
And what about Yemen now too???
4 freakin wars now....I LOATHE this man....and what he’s doing to our country.
I’d seriously like to know where all the hippies and pinkos are now, when under Bush, when we were in LEGAL wars, they were screaming for impeachment. But now we have 4 wars, of which 2 ARE ILLEGAL and not a peep. Pisses me off to no end!!!!!!!!!!
Not a very high quality counterargument.
Our treaty obligations under NATO (let alone the UN Charter) do not remove the power of Congress under the Constitution to declare war.
So the treaties authorize executive actions only when Congress is in the mood? They should have written that into the text of treaties. And the definition of war is not "any time the US military does anything" - to have a war you need to have a legitimate sovereign government to declare war against. Otherwise the term is meaningless.
Congress need not defund the entire DOD either, they can decide that no U.S. money will go to funding any military missions in Libya or to NATO or to the UN or to any other cause that they feel doesn't deserve taxpayer money.
The Constitution says nothing of the kind. They can raise or support armies or they can decline to. They don't get to tell the Commander in Chief how or how much he is allowed to command.
If they want to rewrite the DOD budget next time around, fine. But ex post facto law is unconstitutional.
The Act was written purposefully to skirt around the Constitution - they knew what they were doing.
But any rational analysis says that the President cannot start a war (i.e. initiate hostilities against a legitimate sovereign government) without Congress declaring it, and that he cannot have the resources to conduct any military action at all unless Congress signs the check.
However, once Congress signs the check to fund the armed forces, he is the Commander in Chief of those armed forces and can deploy them in any way he sees it necessary to execute his legal responsibilities - for example enforcing UN resolutions.
The WPA is an attempt by Congress to keep their powers while taking away some of the President's.
Congress doesn’t have to formally declare war. The USC says congress has the power to ‘make war.’ There is no constitutional requirement that congress votes and passes a bill called a ‘declaration of war’ prior to the US military being engaged. Their mandate to ‘make war’ can be met by passing a military budget, for example. To the extent the War Powers act holds the president or congress to a higher standard than the USC, a case can be made that the War Powers Act is unconstitutional.
Dear Mr President....
It appears.... yada, yada, bs, yada, yada,.... more bs.
Signed,
Respectfully yours,
Cowardly Spineless Boner & Fellow Cowardly Repukes
.
.
I bet that really has 0dumb0 quaking in his golf shoes!
Tis merely a police action. BTW, why are they calling it the War Powers Resolution? To my mind it has always been the War Powers Act. When did it change to a mere resolution? Is that supposed to make it sound like it gives Congress only the right to “suggest”?
The House has the power to stop this thing in its tracts, I think.
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