Senators Obama and Biden oppose military action in Libya

Did you hear what Senators Barrack Obama and Joe Biden had to say about U.S. military intervention in Libya?

Let's start with Obama:
"The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation."
Here is a source for that quote, from Boston.com:
"Barack Obama's Q&A" by Charlie Savage
http://www.boston.com/news/politics/2008/specials/CandidateQA/ObamaQA/

This article, from Yahoo News, provides additional context:
"President Obama Exceeds Constitutional Authority by Attack on Libya" by Stewart Lodge
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20110330/cm_ac/8168549_president_obama_exceeds_constitutional_authority_by_attack_on_libya

Now for Hairplug's "thoughts":
"I made it clear to the president that if he takes this nation to war without congressional approval, I will make it my business to impeach him. That is a fact."
As with Obama's quote, you can find it all over. Here's one source, from the Patriot Post:
http://patriotpost.us/edition/2011/03/25/digest/

Both of these quotes are from 2007. How soon they forget what they stand for--if they ever stood for anything at all.


Here is another article discussing this issue (the limits of executive power, if any, with regard to using military force), with some historical context. From Salon.com:
"Obama's new view of his own war powers" by Glenn Greenwald
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/03/31/executive_power/index.html

More than anything, this article makes me sad. Helpless. No matter who we vote for, they are all the same. Power for its own sake, no accountability, no respect for the Constitution. Does the Executive Branch have any limits on its power?

There is a lot of great content in this article by Greenwald, but let me focus on the key part, in my opinion.

"To say that the President is 'Commander-in-Chief' is not to say that he has the power to start wars. That power is expressly assigned to Congress under Article I, Section 8. The 'Commander-in-Chief' power means nothing more than, once a war starts, the President is the top General with the power to decide how it is tactically prosecuted."

Believe it or not, even Supreme Court Justices with radically different opinions agreed on this. From Greenwald again:

"Both Scalia and Stevens insisted [in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld] that any such attempt was plainly unconstitutional, and emphatically rejected the Bush/Cheney (now-Obama/Clinton) view that Presidents have unconstrained national security power under Article II.  They explained just how limited of a power the 'Commander-in-Chief' clause vests, and that the expansive Bush/Cheney view would replicate the worst excesses of the British King:

The proposition that the Executive lacks indefinite wartime detention authority over citizens is consistent with the Founders' general mistrust of military power permanently at the Executive’s disposal. . . . No fewer than 10 issues of the Federalist were devoted in whole or part to allaying fears of oppression from the proposed Constitution’s authorization of standing armies in peacetime. Many safeguards in the Constitution reflect these concerns. Congress's authority "[t]o raise and support Armies" was hedged with the proviso that "no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years." U.S. Const., Art. 1, §8, cl. 12. Except for the actual command of military forces, all authorization for their maintenance and all explicit authorization for their use is placed in the control of Congress under Article I, rather than the President under Article II. As Hamilton explained, the President's military authority would be "much inferior" to that of the British King:

"[The Commander-in-Chief power] would amount to nothing more than the supreme command and direction of the military and naval forces, as first general and admiral of the confederacy: while that of the British king extends to the declaring of war, and to the raising and regulating of fleets and armies; all which, by the constitution under consideration, would appertain to the legislature." The Federalist No. 69, p. 357.

A view of the Constitution that gives the Executive authority to use military force rather than the force of law against citizens on American soil flies in the face of the mistrust that engendered these provisions.

"That bolded section -- quoting Alexander Hamilton, the founder most enthusiastic of executive power -- is dispositive.  The British King could start wars on his own; the American President cannot, as that power is reserved exclusively for Congress.  The Bush/Cheney 'Commander-in-Chief' view suffered a death blow two years later, in 2006, when the Supreme Court, in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, rejected the claim that the Commander-in-Chief has the unconstrained power to decide how prisoners will be detained during wartime.  The Court emphasized 'the powers granted jointly to the President and Congress in time of war,' and -- citing Youngstown, which rejected Harry Truman's efforts to seize steel mills to support the Koren War in the absence of Congressional authorization -- explicitly held that the President 'may not disregard limitations that Congress has, in proper exercise of its own war powers, placed on his powers.'  The notion that Presidents have unconstrained war powers is an obsolete, discredited relic of the Bush years, no matter how much Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton attempt to revitalize it in pursuit of their own Freedom-Spreading War."



Greenwald's conclusion is spot-on:
"Most Democrats, liberals, and even traditional conservatives and libertarians purported to find such lawlessness outrageous and dangerous during the Bush years. It isn't any less so now."

So where exactly did the war protesters, who were ubiquitous during the Bush years, go? Hypocrites.


Okay, I can't resist adding one more link. Here is Ann Coulter's take on our intervention in Libya:
"Obama Cried, Kids Died"
http://www.anncoulter.com/cgi-local/printer_friendly.cgi?article=416

It's hard not to disagree with her conclusion:
"The only just wars, liberals believe, are those in which the United States has no stake. Liberals warm to the idea of deploying expensive, taxpayer-funded military machinery and putting American troops in harm's way, but only for military incursions that serve absolutely no American interest."