General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Fuck. [View all]ConservativeDemocrat
(2,720 posts)I certainly hope you appreciate the time I'm taking to educate you.
So let me get this through to you, the President did not request Congress for approval to bomb Libya, so your statement that Congress "rejected his request" is 100% false.
Further, the U.S. armed forces simply enforced the UN Sanctioned No Fly Zone, which involved extremely minimal bombing of anti-air defenses to prevent them from shooting down patrolling aircraft. It was NATO, and largely the French, who were the ones who intervened in the Libyan Civil War, with massive U.S. logistical support (refueling tankers and the likes).
The phrase "Protecting the American people" involves any action which can be reasonably construed as lowering the threats to U.S. citizens from armed hostile groups, regardless of whether a threat is immediate to an American or not. This is the exact justification also used to battle Somalian piracy, regardless of whether the victim is U.S. or Iranian. The very act of arresting and/or killing pirates protects the American people, because these pirates will otherwise continue to act unless stopped, and they will inevitably attack Americans.
Finally, the War Powers Act is not the only act on War. Though Bush clearly stretched the law beyond its legal limit almost as soon as the ink was dry, the AUMF is an explicit authorization for the President - any President - to go after terrorists anywhere they are, and/or regimes that harbor terrorists. This is the exact justification used to kill Osama bin Laden. And Ghadaffi proved himself a similar threat and was harboring similar people (since he ordered them). In fact, he harbored terrorist far more than Saddam ever did.
By the way, this is nothing new. George Washington fought the Whiskey Rebellion without a declaration of war, President Jefferson went after the Barbary Pirates in Tripoli without a declaration of war, and Clinton prevented a human rights disaster in the Balkans without a declaration of war. So if anything, we're a bit more careful now with war powers than we've been in the past.
And finally, by your own statements, your hatred of President Obama is so great, you clearly would have preferred Ghadaffi to have been allowed to prosecute a mass slaughter of Libyans. You clearly would prefer to live in an alternate world where Ghadaffi, a terrorist murderer of Americans was still alive, and they were all dead. So it isn't an "unfounded claim" to say you are an apologist for terrorists. Just the unvarnished truth, stated in a way you don't like.
- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community