I don’t want to get into the middle of this stink but I do want to go on the record as saying that I believe it was foolish to involve the United States in Libya, that the president should have treated our efforts there as “hostilities” from the beginning and assumed a responsibility to comply with the requirements of the War Powers Resolution, that he was wrong to subvert the normal Office of Legal Counsel procedure, that he took the wrong advice when he rejected the OLC and the Attorney General and the Pentagon’s legal advice, that he has no obvious justification for his actions, that he could have avoided controversy and bolstered support for the mission by simply following the clear meaning of the law, and that I wrote a letter to a well-placed person I know in the White House telling them all of these things and also telling them that I thought they were being stupid and arrogant, and that I couldn’t accept their explanations or defend them, and that I can’t for the life of me figure out what they think they’ve gained out of this.
All that being said, this is not something I would impeach the president over. It is a potentially impeachable offense, but a more reasonable response is either to (threaten to) cut off funding until the president complies with the law and gets an authorization to use force, or to censure him. I think Congress would have approved this mission if asked respectfully. I think Congress continues to believe in the mission. And, so, this is really not about the policy as much as separation of powers and the prerogatives of Congress. Congress doesn’t need to go impeaching anyone when they can simply insist on their rights, and use their existing powers to get their way.
I am somewhat disappointed, both politically and as a matter of principle, but I am not surprised to see the Executive Branch give the middle finger to Congress. I have no problem if Congress gives the middle finger right back, just so long as they don’t overreact.
As for the mission? What can I say? I told you so.
Censure? That’s one of the most meaningless things they could do.
Meaningless compared to what they will do, which is nothing?
I wrote a letter to a well-placed person I know in the White House telling them all of these things and also telling them that I thought they were being stupid and arrogant, and that I couldn’t accept their explanations or defend them
Well look at you, Mr. Big Swinging Dick. I imagine that WH staffer is having a nervous breakdown after being denied your oh so crucial support. Once you’ve lost Booman, you’ve lost…what again?
But no matter.
As for what the President gets out of this, it’s obvious. It doesn’t matter. That’s not the way these decisions get made. People in power get self-absorbed and drunk on their own power. And then when they run into things beyond their control (like an unreachable dictator killing his own people or a treasonous, reactionary, and unreachable Congress who can no longer be expected to act “patriotically” in a time of war/hostilities/kinetic military actions/not hostilities at all shut up shut up shut up), they get bitter and they get sloppy.
It doesn’t help that nobody seemed to consider the question of what if Qaddafi doesn’t give up, and somebody has to go into Tripoli and yank him out of his bunker or outright assassinate the guy (maybe those French commandos who dealt with the Ivory Coast thing are on call). But considering this war was started by military luminaries like Sarkozy and Hillary Clinton, I can’t be too surprised. I’m sure the Misrata rebels are up for the fight, but that’s not exactly optimal.
It always goes down this way. Whatever abstract principles these leaders think they have, they always go out the window once they get lost down the rabbit hole of Pakistani counterespionage, encircling Russian naval assets, offshore balancing, oil price movements, Chinese bond putbacks, and whatever else next level shit global power players spend their time on. So it goes.
If you need to duck to avoid my swinging dick, I understand.
Shouldn’t be a problem actually. I’m chilling at floor level at the moment, trying to console your “well placed” WH chum. Sobbing wreck, that one. Suicidal even. Been huddled in the fetal position on the floor ever since your letter arrived.
We’re all so proud of you, by the way.
why the nastiness? it’s only unpleasant and, please note, an insult is not an argument.
I feel like you would have said I told you so unless this whole mission was wrapped up in about a week. This was never going to be a week or even month long operation. I have always assumed 6-8 months with the US taking a step back and its allies running the show after the initial campaign. So far that is exactly what has happened.
The other thing you never include in your analyis is what if we didn’t intervene despite the African Congress asking us too and Gaddafi turned Libya into a mini Darfur. I would say that path, which looked to be a strong possibility, held just as many potential pitfalls and intervention did.
As for the President’s actions I agree that it would have been better to dot the I’s and cross the T’s but then again this campaign actually has less US involvement than Kosovo and Congress didn’t raise a stink with Clinton. I wish Congress were more consistent over the years with this issue
The folks in Darfur could not easily flee to Italy and then Europe. That is why Darfur dragged on and on.
Fleeing to Italy which is drowning in the Euro crisis is not an answer. That would precipitate a crisis that would dwarf the mortgage crisis. Euro union collapsing, resumption of closed borders, and militarization of Europe. The socio-econo- politico- nomic effects on the US would plunge us back into Great Recession/WW II country.
Exactly why the European Union countries are taking the Libya crisis so seriously. And Turkey is pulling in every chit it has with the Assad regime in Syria.
I hesitate to say it, but “in for a penny, in for a pound.” Maybe, (I really really hate to say this), we have to invade and blow Gaddafi’s ass to Hell. After all, if it’s his ass or my grandkid’s, “Sayonara Muamar”.
I agreed with you that the war in Libya was a ground war and for that reason the US should not have been involved. Tough call. But the War Powers Act issue wasn’t even close. If a Republican president had middle-fingered Congress on this, Democrats would have been rightly outraged. President Obama was a Constitutional Law Professor. And the constitution specifically says that Congress alone has the authority to declare war.
Congress has the power:
The President:
It does not say Congress “alone”. It assumes that Congress and the President can come to a reasonable agreement on what to do. The system was based on checks and balances, not a perpetual war between the three branches.
I think we make too much of Obama’s experience as a Constitutional law professor. In this case he no doubt like his predecessors is defending the powers of the President as Commander in Chief. And making it up to the Congress to defend their powers. Which Congress, based on the history since World War II, will probably dodge. Especially since not one of the critics in Congress has consistently stood up for Congress’s war powers. Not one. For them, it depends on the party of the President and who the war is against. If it were Iran instead of Libya, there wouldn’t be a whimper on the GOP side.
Please read this with an open mind.
http://jurist.org/forum/2011/05/jordan-paust-libya-war-powers.php
I agree with this position.
My point was that neither the Congress nor the President have absolute power over decisions about war and peace. And so far, the Supreme Court has been reluctant to be the umpire between the Congress and the President too frequently. And have generally kicked the war powers controversy down the road.
Congress does have the power to cut off funding for the operation, and based on the precedent of Iran-Contra, the President dare not seek an end run of such a cut.
But in this case, the Republicans are engaged in pure kabuki to split the lefter than thou even further from the President.
Agreed.
where Obama represents “change” from Bush.
From the NYT:
Same bullshit.
Announcing an “aggressive” plan to remove the troops HE sent in 2009.
“Surge forces”.
“Up to commanders in the field”.
I’m waiting for Obama to find some brush to clear back home in Chicago.
Your complaint makes no sense. Very few people believed he would withdraw any troops at all and now the new complaint is that he is withdrawing people he sent in? At the end of the day thousands of troops are going home to their families. period.
Wait a second, when did Bush ever withdraw anybody?
Never, that’s when.
If you don’t see a difference, that’s your problem.
I would agree with if the whole thing was real and not a bunch of childish posturing.
If he thinks the level of operation does not rise to the level of “hostilities”, he should outline exactly what US operations are.
As I’ve said before, this operation is in Europe’s interest more than that of the US. NATO has called in its chits on us. And what drives it is the refugee crisis that has caused some EU nations to close their borders. And which threatens to bring to power anti-immigrant parties who seek to destroy the EU. And the Greek financial crisis and weak economic recovery has made the situation delicate. Sarkozy doesn’t want a Le Pen victory because of the economy and immigrant influx. David Cameron doesn’t want a return to a divided Europe that might threaten the UK. Don’t think that it cannot happen. The failure of the MOTU to deal realistically with the economic crisis could cause a lot of unthinkable things. This is where the danger is.
But this is just another distraction right now when the wars that Congress should be exerting its power over are Iraq (no continued presence to create the next crisis) and Afghanistan (our persistent presence delays the arrival of stability).
The easiest thing for Obama to do would be give NATO two weeks notice and begin to stand down US assets. Because, the purists will interpret even a relief ship to Misrata as engaging in hostilities.
Obama’s foreign vision is beginning to emerge through the handling of this crisis, its continuing consultation with the Arab League, African Union, and Gulf Cooperation Council, and its support of AU intervention using Ethiopian troops to keep the combatants apart in the Abeiyeh region of South Sudan. And you can see it in NATO member Turkey’s engagement with the Syrians about the refugee crisis on the Turkish-Syria border. (There is also a Syrian refugee crisis in Lebanon.)
That vision sees a slow disengagement of the US from global security functions and the provision of global security by interlocked mutual security pacts. What this means is strengthening the resolve of these pacts to actually do something when a crisis occurs. To police their own neighborhoods, as it were.
The Pentagon is not yet on board with this vision; it threatens significant cuts to their budgets. And if the Republicans become genuine isolationists, they will want us to withdraw from the mutual security pacts as a matter of protecting our sovereignty. That isolationism would make the world a more dangerous place–more so if the economic meltdown continues much longer.
You restore Constitutional stature of Congress when Congress faces up to this larger issue. Bitching about Libya on principle might be intellectually correct and politically satisfying to those who oppose the President either from the left or the right. But it’s like insisting on the enforcement of drug laws and letting major fraudsters go free. Wait, we’re doing that too. The only difference is that according to Charlie Savage, Eric Holder is on their side of the argument and recommended a course that the President did not take.
What the Congress does for the next two months is pretty much irrelevant beyond the debt ceiling action. If they want to “stand up for a principle”, they can have their kabuki. But I, for one, am not deceived that Congress has rediscovered even one Constitutional principle. The fixation of the blogosphere on this is unfortunate; there are much bigger issues of principle. But progressives and Democrats are divided enough on it to create a substantial number of comments.
You told us what? why does anyone think this is a folly? because we haven’t hog tied ‘Daffy yet? because there are members of congress not happy with it or pretending to not be happy with it for political gain? We don’t have soldiers on the ground, we haven’t massacred anyone. We did prevent one.
As I recall you were against this from the beginning, although I wouldn’t say unreservedly so. So credit where credit it due.
I disagree, though, that this is clearly impeachable. The dude is breaking the law — twice, once for federal law (the 60 day military limit) and once fore international law (for launching an unnecessary war). Moreover, the laws he is breaking involve death of hundreds, probably thousands. If that isn’t “high crimes” I don’t know what is.
The problem is that the bar for impeachment has been set so impossibly high that unless the President is caught on TV shooting his wife his party won’t agree to it.
First there was Nixon, who really set the standard of the smoking gun with the Watergate tapes. After that anything less — anything that didn’t have the President admitting the crime aloud and in a short sound bite — was deemed insufficient.
Then came Clinton — in which a technical violation of a rarely enforced law that had nothing to do with his Presidency was used as an excuse to make impeachment a political stunt. Thereby allowing the defenders of future presidents to compare any impeachment attempt to Clinton’s and deride it — thus again raising the bar.
Then came GW Bush, who broke the laws openly and yet even the opposition party (thanks, Nancy) refused to even consider impeachment after the press pushed her to “take it off the table”.
So, it won’t happen. But it should. This was a high crime, and Mr. Constitutional Law Professor knows it. But in Washington the Scalia Five are openly taking bribes (sorry, “payments for outside activities”) that dwarf their current salaries and interpreting the law however they want, so no one pays any attention to the law in Washington any more unless it fits their agenda.
The reason this isn’t an impeachable offense is pretty simple. First of all, you’re simply wrong about the war’s legality under international law. It’s as legal as legal can get. It’s actually more legal than necessary since not only the UN Security Council authorized it but the Arab League requested it.
There are zero legal issues under international law.
Second, this isn’t an operation that Congress is trying to stop or refusing to authorize. If they were, then Obama’s actions could be impeachable, but they are not.
So, Congress should focus instead on asserting their rights and powers, and they have several tools short of impeachment or derailing the operation to choose from.
This.
Congress SHOULD be asserting their powers under the Constitution. If they did that it would be a back and forth between the branches and either it would lead to impeachment, Obama agreeing that Congress has that power, or Congress deciding that they don’t actually have the power they’re asserting. That’s actually how its supposed to work.
Instead Congress is not exercising its power – because too many people in Congress don’t want to tie the hands of the executive branch. They WANT the President to have this power – they just object to who the President is.
If Congress started exerting its authority in a real way – not in this meaningless whining way that they’ve been kind of sort of doing to keep up appearances – it could be resolved. But it has the possibility of toppling 70 years of “the way things are done in the US”, and when it comes to shit like that Congress is small-c conservative all the way. They’d rather not challenge Obama’s interpretation of presidental powers than challenge them and overturn the last century of “how we do things in Washington DC”.
Congress will not be credible in exerting its authority so long as the issue is raised as partisan point-scoring. The War Powers Resolution got bipartisan support because both LBJ and Nixon had abused their war powers.
The best way to avoid this is to not treat the world as it is as a permanent US national security crisis.
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You’re right on the international approval. I totally forgot about that. My flabber is still gasted about that one — apparently even the international diplomatic community has completely bought into the Pentagon view of how-the-world-works.
On the second, my understanding is that the 1970s law requires Congressional approval before 60 days, period, regardless of whether the Congress chooses to intervene.
The problem is that there is a dispute between the legislative and executive branch. When that happens, the only way it can decided in a legal sense is if the judicial branch intervenes and takes a side. That’s what Kucinich et. al. are attempting to make happen. But, until the judiciary weighs in, the matter remains in limbo. Ordinarily, the judiciary demurs under circumstances like this, preferring the other two branches work it out among themselves, which is really preferable, even in this case. It’s up to Congress to stand up for themselves.
Until the judiciary weighs in, the matter remains in small-p politics between the legislative and executive branches. The judiciary weighing in is not likely to change that context. And would probably be unwise because the way that the Court would decide now might create a future problem that would bring it back to the Court.
The Constitution establishes and routinizes inter-branch conflict.
“apparently even the international diplomatic community has completely bought into the Pentagon view of how-the-world-works.”
Well, that’s one theory. How committed to it are you?
How about something a tad more likely: your “Pentagon view of how-the-world-works” isn’t actually what’s behind this action.
“I can’t for the life of me figure out what they think they’ve gained out of this.”
Boo — you are a savvy political commentator, and you can’t figure this out? The politics of this are pretty straightforward. By not bowing to congressional authority in this matter, Obama
a) looks like a strong commander in chief to the public, particularly those in the south who like this sort of thing (see your post on the recent Tennessee poll– think there’s a connection?)
b) does not unilaterally give away authority to congress.
Many on the left are always talking about what a lousy negotiator Obama is; how he gives away too much to the other side. Here is a counterexample.
He is risking little in this, since congress is pretty much on board with the whole affair anyway.
Boo, Obama is dealing with a congress which has been successfully lobbied with the millions from Gaddafi. Those millions got the Lockerbie bomber out of jail and you think Obama would have gotten a quick favorable decision from congress?
Also, all of you seem to forget/overlook that Gaddafi is not your ordinary third world dictator…he puts bombs on planes…kills and destroys the lives of innocent Americans.
Finally, this mission should have happened 23 years ago by either Reagan or the first Bush. Clinton did try.
Someone might check on which lobbyist represented Libya’s interest up until the crisis began. Somehow (I could be wrong) the name Podesta comes to mind. Wonder who actually handled the account; these firms have both Dem and GOP lobbyists.
I think Angry Black Lady, over at Balloon Juice http://www.balloon-juice.com/2011/06/21/libya-lib-no-lib-maybe/ has this right. She’s a better lawyer than I am, and I think she lays out a clear case for why the War Powers Act is not the issue here. I don’t believe this is about usurping power, and I don’t see any “potentially impeachable offense.”
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“I am somewhat disappointed…. but I am not surprised..”
My sentiments exactly – I wouldn’t expect anything else!
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I want to know if we are looking for al-Megrahi while we are there?
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