[credit Nate Beeler,Washington DC Examiner]
"Wackydoodle axes: Do that have Qdaffy's name on it?"
"Wackydoodle axes: Do that have Qdaffy's name on it?"
The United States appears now fully committed to wining the Libyan civil war as it begins providing financial and material aid to the rebel council in Benghazi. Obama & Folks, Inc. approved $25 million in non-lethal aid in April. The air war has cost $750 million so far. Congress has acquiesced to participation without a formal declaration of war by not insisting that the provisions of the War Powers Resolution of 1973 be complied with. The sixty day limitation on the use of American military without a formal congressional authorization is approaching expiration. The leading conservative in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said publicly the Senate has no plans to consider the issue, but regretted there has "never been the correct focus" in the Senate on the issue of Congress' constitutionally mandated role to declare war against Libya.
The Democratic Chairman of the Committee, Senator John Kerry, seems to think that the imprimatur of NATO exempts this latest use of American Armed Forces abroad from constitutional limitations. Regardless of the label, the fact is the United States is committing acts of war against the Libyan state without a declaration of war, far beyond the scope of a defensive military treaty with western European nations. There is no implementing US statue for the use of American armed forces to enforce provisions of the UN Charter, either. On Tuesday, NATO again struck Col. Qaddafi's "command and control" compound in the capital of Tripoli. These pinpoint attacks are undoubtedly being accomplished with the use of American personnel and weapons.[photo] Either way you slice it, the Libyan intervention is illegal. But if war mongers in the US House have their way, it will not be illegal for long. They have introduced a provision (Section 1034) into the latest 'must pass' Defense Authorization Bill that would give the president unlimited power to wage war anywhere in the world without Congressional approval.
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| AWACS E-3 |