I agree with DougJ that the new reality is interventionism in coalition form using mainly airstrikes, in places chosen by a more-or-less arbitrary standard, no matter what neo-isolationists have to say. But, even though it’s like farting in a strong breeze, I’d like to add that Congress has yet again failed to play its Constitutional role in the war on Libya. The War Powers Act, which as far as I’m concerned was already a slide down the slippery slope of imperial Presidency, is pretty specific about the circumstances under which the President can take unilateral action: “under attack or serious threat”. Muammar Gaddafi has neither attacked us, nor he a serious threat.
Of course, I really am just wasting electrons typing this, because most Members of Congress think that it’s a cute trick to push responsibility for possible failure onto the shoulders of the President. That’s why those moral cowards have an approval rating hovering somewhere south of Sarah Palin, and just north of the Catholic priests. Obama is getting a lot of criticism for jumping into this Libyan adventure, but we’re so used to Congress being a non-player in war debates that their non-role is scarcely mentioned. I just wanted to mention it, before we move on to further discussions of cruise missles and civilian casualties.
cathyx
Well it’s not like Congress wouldn’t pass the resolution to go to war anyway.
Mike in NC
The only “checks” of interest to members of Congress are those coming from their lobbyists.
BR
Let’s look at what someone said not that long ago:
salacious crumb
well that didnt take long..in my previous post i had mentioned the Arab League would bail out on us once we took the decision to attack Gaddhafi…and here is guardian reporting
salacious crumb
and the link
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2011/mar/20/libya-air-strikes-live-updates
Elizabelle
OT, but WaPost’s crack website editors strike again. From their entertainment links section:
Maybe the Governator will have something to say about that.
PeakVT
@cathyx: That’s true, but it’s not really in the country’s best interest for the current crop of Congresscritters to essentially give up one of the body’s Constitutional powers.
Zifnab25
The way the GOP has obstructed every Dem initiative, I wonder if Boehner or McConnell would have obstructed a war resolution out of spite, or whether they’d have just used it as leverage for more budget cuts and tax hikes.
bemused
A couple of weeks ago, a relative forwarded a video of drones used in Afghanistan and Iraq operated by pilot controllers in Nevada. I haven’t decided if I can watch it or not.
BGinCHI
Congress is too busy creating millions of jobs to worry about shooting at some towelheads.
/Rush
Uncle Clarence Thomas
.
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Unfortunately, President Obama was reluctantly forced to go to war without Congressional approval and kill all those people.
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joe from Lowell
@cathyx:
But there is more that Congressional action can do than answer the yes/no question.
A debate about goals and means and endgames would be very beneficial. A resolution that spells out exactly what we’re doing is a good way to avoid mission creep, for instance.
John W.
This isn’t unilateral action, this is multilateral action, and thus falls under the the United Nations Participatory Act, which was passed by Truman (sufficiently liberal for y’all?)
I’ve given actual legal analysis here. But please, continue with calling it teh unconstitutional war if it makes you feel better.
John W.
@joe from Lowell:
Since when has Congressional debate ever clarified against mission creep? Iraq? Afghanistan? Vietnam?
If the President wants war X, the President almost always gets war X.
joe from Lowell
@John W.: Good comment.
But don’t turn this into a liberal-conservative thing. There are plenty of people on both sides who come down on both sides of this question.
John W.
@joe from Lowell:
Yeah, it’s not really liberal/conservative, but this crowd leans left (as one of them i feel that’s a safe assertion) so I was emphasizing liberal cred.
Anyways, I don’t think any interventionist on the right gives a shit whether wars are legal or not, so this is a tree falling in the woods where no one is there to see it situation.
agrippa
No surprise with this non participation by Congress. I do not regard Congress as a bastion of moral and political courage. Notice the dithering of the GOP 112th HoR.
Notice what was not passed in the Senate last term; and, what they got from the HoR was not above average.
But, I think that this action is legal. I agree with John W above – #13.
Shoemaker-Levy 9
That’s an odd way of putting it, since Obama just basically said, “we’re doing this” without asking anybody (not counting the UN).
Politico has a piece up on congresspeople who do take the Constitution seriously.
Anya
@John W.: Why do you have to interfere with the outrage du jour with your facts. Most BJ critics can`t see the forest for the trees.
Qaddafi is a madman who’s been oppressing his people for decades. I have a Libyan friend who told me that every Libyan family has someone who’s either in jail or has disappeared. The people of Libya are under daily assault from a madman and he will not stop until he’s defeated. The rebels are not match to his army and without international support they will be crushed. The UN Resolution provides assistance to the Libyan people to win their freedom back from this tyrant. I know this is not ideal but it’s the best that can be achieved under the circumstance. Screaming about ‘imperial presidency’ and equating this resolution with the Iraq war is faulty, at best. But most of all, it will not help the Libyan people gain their freedom.
liberal
@John W.:
Last I heard, statute never trumps the constitution.
Of course, treaties are the law of the land. What I’m not sure is whether they could trump the constitution itself. I don’t see how, though—that would amount to an end run around the design that makes amending the constitution very difficult.
liberal
@joe from Lowell:
IMHO another benefit to having the decision rest with Congress is that it assigns responsibility.
liberal
@Anya:
LOL. Where in his so-called analysis does he show that the statute trumps the constitution?
I suggest you look in the mirror.
Straw man. What serious person arguing against this instance of intervention argues it’s equal to the invasion of Iraq? Rather, the anti-interventionist argument has multiple prongs, to wit:
(1) There’s no national interest at stake in Libya for the US
(2) We don’t know much about the opponents of Qaddafi; and even if we did, we have no ability to predict who would end up on top if the rebels prevail
(3) History shows that getting involved in other nations’ civil wars is a bad, bad, bad idea
(4) History shows that small interventionist projects tend to metastasize
(5) If we’re to invoke the principle of activist intervention to promote freedom, we’ll end up invading half the countries on the globe.
John W.
The Constitution Article 6 makes all treaties the Supreme Law of te Land. The UN implementation Statute, not surprisingly, implements such a treaty, the UN Charter. Hell, Truman didn’t have prior authorization for Korea.
You are making a terrible argument here. If you want to make the case that the UN charter has been unconstitutionally implemented for years, make the case, don’t refer to such an argument.
I certainly don’t expect any President to just willingly leave statutory power on the table because it feels icky to some people.
John W.
@liberal:
1) There is a national interest at stake for some people. Europe and the Arab League are very concerned with refugees, which, yes are destabilizing. Europe at least and the Arab League arguably are allies (or at least we might want them to be allies).
We didn’t have immediate national interests in Europe, but we fought the Nazis before the Japanese. I don’t think “your allies have interests but you don’t” is very compelling at all.
2) So what? Well, we don’t know what will happen, so let’s let a refugee and humanitarian disaster happen. That always works out super, right?
3) And history shows not getting involved can be a bad, bad idea too. Regions can completely destabilize and refugee disasters can spread far and wide. You’re gonna have to be more specific than that.
I don’t think the British policy on intervention in 1862 bear much on current Libya policy either.
4) But not irrevocably so.
5) This is a silly Kantian argument. (and a prime example of why the categorical imperative is an unworkable moral guide in practice). Of course the US or Europe or the Arab League can’t go everywhere. But surely they can do somethings. Do not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. The NYT called for more UN intervention in the Ivory Coast yesterday. Is that ipso facto a bad idea?
Of course Libya or the Ivory Coast or Afghanistan or Iraq or whereever can be run poorly with mission creep and what have you. That’s a great reason to stay vigilant to not let that happen. Not a reason to just curl in the ball while dictators promise no mercy on entire cities. That’s some seriously evil shit.
Imagine if white people in Europe or Israel would be threatened with ‘no mercy’ – you think the west would be this restrained?
Bottom line, I’m tired of the lazy comparisons to Iraq. This is better understood as Kosovo (as even Larison allows). Maybe you’d think Kosovo was terrible, but dear lord, you’d think Obama himself was storming Normandy based on some of the reaction.
JR
@John W. A treaty like the UN Charter isn’t necessarily self-executing. Indeed, the Supreme Court declared just a few years ago that the UN Charter was NOT a self-executing treaty. And the law you’re citing specifies that commitments of armed forces in pursuance of UN resolutions be made “subject to the approval of the Congress by appropriate Act or joint resolution.”
And, incidentally, Truman’s commitment of troops to Korea was probably unconstitutional as well. His actions received retroactive sanction and tacit approval in the form of appropriations, but he didn’t follow the proper process in starting the war.
Svensker
@John W.:
Actually, no. Truman dropped the bomb and is a war criminal. But then I’m a real DFH.
Svensker
@Anya:
The question that should be addressed is whether the Libyan people’s freedom is the responsibility of the people of the United States. That is why Congress is supposed to be a check on the President, to ask that very question.
ruemara
A unitary executive gives multiple arms of government and the people an effective scapegoat for their laziness and ignorance. I have wondered since I was a child what the rationale was for following a bad man and performing his bad orders. Doesn’t the human mind desire order and the heart have a natural goal of peace? Well, you grow up and you realize; no. People like to follow someone who gives them something to do. They don’t see order as peace, calm, a shared bounty in a functioning society. It’s knowing what to do, who to follow. And if you can throw off any responsibility for the consequences, even better.
Suck It Up!
Why don’t you tell us what would make their freedom our responsibility or what makes it not? I see so much criticism of the US going into other countries solely to protect their interests and here so many of you are saying we shouldn’t be in Libya because it doesn’t serve our interest.
Please stop with this. It is immature and played out. For real.
Svensker
@Suck It Up!:
I don’t think it is in our interest. Apparently you do. The role of the Congress was supposed to be to represent the interests of the people and if there is a disagreement among the people, to wrassle out the issue until a consensus of sorts is reached. Do enough Americans think it is a good thing to do? Then do it. If enough don’t, then don’t.
As for your board monitoring, I’m too much of a DFH to pay attention.
Shoemaker-Levy 9
@John W.:
First off, let’s disabuse ourselves of the notion that any of the parties involved give a damn about the humanitarian issue. If that were the case there would be interventions in the offing all over the map. The reason this intervention is happening is that the Libyan civil war is disrupting the world oil markets.
The Arab League has an interest in stability for obvious and cynical reasons.
Britain and France have an interest in stability for obvious and cynical reasons, plus Britain has been successfully humiliated by Qaddafy in recent years so they’d certainly like a little payback.
America’s interest is similar but trickier in application. Obama has undoubtedly concluded that with the fig leaf of European and Arab approval he has a relatively low-risk opportunity to prove his bona fides in desired areas. The downside (from a purely cynical viewpoint) is that it’s not at all certain that the “Arab street” will perceive America’s involvement in the same way that their dictators do, and U.S. approval might dip even further in the Muslim world.
John W.
@JR:
The law I’m citing requirs Congressional approval subject to article 43 agreements, but explicitly does not require authorization by an article 42 resolution.
This is clearly and unambiguously an article 42 resolution.
Reading half the law doesn’t suffice.
John W.
@Shoemaker-Levy 9:
More stupid Kantian logic. Humanitarian suffering en masse is a necessary but not sufficient condition to trigger intervention.
This is pretty damn easy to understand.
And btw, the United States and others should be MORE aggressive in responding to humanitarian crises, not less.
Read the NYT editorial on the Ivory Coast yesterday.
Lastly, I don’t see what’s the problem if our closest ally has an interest and we support them. That’s how international politics has worked for all of recorded history.
Tehanu
Nothing arbitrary about it. There’s oil in that thar Libyan desert.
DPirate
Grigg has a post up about this sort of thing you might be interested in.
JR
@John W. That would then make it an unconstitutional delegation of Congressional power to the Executive Branch.
Jose Padilla
“Muammar Gaddafi has neither attacked us, nor he a serious threat.”
Respectfully, sir, you are dead wrong. Gaddafi attacked us when he blew up Pan Am 103, killing 189 Americans.
Just taken us a while to get around to dealing with it.
Sapient
@JR: “That would then make it an unconstitutional delegation of Congressional power to the Executive Branch.”
Have a cite for that by any chance? The Supremes have had many opportunities to rule on “unconstitutional” wars (such as Vietnam, for instance). They haven’t.
The Sheriff's A Ni-
@Svensker: Ask yourself what Roosevelt would’ve done if he had survived another five months.
Svensker
@Jose Padilla:
He reportedly did that as a response to our bombing of Libya in 1986.
Suffern ACE
@Svensker: And we did that in response to killing off duty soldiers in Berlin.
Svensker
@The Sheriff’s A Ni-:
I don’t know. Do you? My gut feeling is that he would have dropped the first bomb, but not the second. But how the hell do either of us know? And why should that speculation have anything to do with what I think of Truman?
Svensker
@Suffern ACE:
Yes, this is why I’ve become a Quaker in my old age. The tit for tat never stops. Everyone always has a reason why their war is justified but the other guy’s isn’t. Mostly, it’s just hogwash, a bunch of little kids with grownup weapons. He made me do it, teacher! He hit me first! He made faces at me and called me names!
Bah, humbug. There is no way to peace. Peace is the way.
Yutsano
@The Sheriff’s A Ni-: Considering we had firebombed the living shit out of Tokyo and Osaka and Hirohito was looking for a way to surrender without total humiliation already, the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were most likely unnecessary.
Shoemaker-Levy 9
@John W.:
Humanitarian concerns played little to no role in the triggers for the Afghanistan or Iraq interventions, only cited after other pretexts started to lose their explanatory power. So I’m not sure what logical point you think you are making here, Kantian or otherwise.
Some aspects are. For instance, since pretexts for intervention, whether humanitarianism or something else, are routinely shown to be complete fabrications (including by the U.S.) we can dismiss them except as data points in our understanding of how states act. The logical thing to do is not to look at pronouncements but at behavior.
Not sure what Canada’s interest is here. Maybe you mean Great Britain? Their interest is entirely cynical, as made numbingly obvious by their recent foreign policy toward Libya and Qaddafy. Perhaps the U.S. should support GB for reasons of stable oil markets and naked revenge. We can at least argue that, without recourse to “humanitarian” nonsense.
True, but when I noted as much you went off on “stupid Kantian logic.”
John W.
@JR:
It’s arguable as such (maybe Congress was just giving Executive flexibility in C-in-C powers) and secondly, it’s up to Congress to take it back (SCOTUS really doesnt intervene with war powers).
If Congress wanted to cut off the President from participating in sanctioned UNSC exercises, they are more than able to do so.
John W.
@Shoemaker-Levy 9:
1) The police cannot stop every murderer or person who drives drunk. The UN cannot stop everyone who violates established norms of international behavior.
Just because you can’t always do something does not mean you never do it. Consistency is not the most important value.
This is why I’m pissed at Kantian logic: the categorical imperative is that you should act the ssame way in response to the same circumstances. But that’s completely meaningless in the real world, where Saudi Arabia threatens the entire relationship with the US if there’s any intervention in Bahrain, etc. In short, yea, there’s suffering all over, but we can’t help everywhere. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t help anywhere.
And yes, I’d like to do more in response to bad situations like spend on mosquito nets and what have you. But sometimes acute action is necessary too.
2) I’m quite happy to question my government and to look at behavior. If they’re lying about a humanitarian or refugee threat to get oil, then yeah, that’d be horrendous and I would be wrong. I don’t think that’s true based on the evidence but I can’t say for sure.
But neither can you.
3) Great Britain is a closer ally than the Canadians. It takes a certain delusional sort of ally to tie yourself to the Iraq invasion. Doing something that stupid is like backing up your best friend or spouse when you know he’s completely wrong.
Either way, if there’s legitimate interests for close US allies (if not the US) than I think that matters. We can’t just act in pure selfishness.
This comes down to the same thing: either the interests are real or fake. If they’re all manufactured and GB only wants oil then of course it’s a terrible war. I don’t think the evidence supports that. You do.
DPirate
@Jose Padilla: But the Pan Am flight was not an actual attack on the US, unlike, say, the Israeli attack on the Liberty. Anyhow, Carlos the Jackal was a rogue in every way. You cannot blame all of his actions on Muamar.
@Yutsano: We could have just sailed home. They were done for.
liberal
@John W.:
Yawn. You still haven’t shown it trumps the constitution itself.
So? Doesn’t mean it was right then, either.
liberal
LOL! You don’t even have the bar minimum understanding of history, you fool. The US declared war on Germany after they declared war on us, in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor.
Not surprising, since you’re not even familiar with the basic historical facts.
I will specify that in this case, there’s no such threat that would come of us not intervening in Libya that would destabilize North Africa in a manner that would harm our national interest.
Last I checked, the Arab League was sending out decided mixed messages, and American news reports were claiming that the attacking force was predominantly American.
Uh, yes, actually it is.
Except it usually does happen.
Who’s curling up in a ball? I’m rather enunciating the principle that getting involved in such affairs does the US no good, nor those we’re trying to help any good either.
I think if Israel, Britain, or France were threated with “no mercy,” they’d laugh, as they’re nuclear power states. As for whether the “west” would be restrained, it’s irrelevant to the argument, as we’re talking about what policy ought to be, not is.
Bottom line, I’m tired of lazy interlocutors who apparently can’t read, as I made no such reference to Iraq, nor does my argument rely solely on Iraq as a datum.
Ija
@Suck It Up!:
Exactly! It’s the same with the oil thing, in one breath, people are condemning the intervention by saying it’s all about the oil, and in the next breath saying we should only intervene if it is in our national interest.
Well guess what, protecting our oil supply IS in our national interest right now. We haven’t yet reached the land of puppies and rainbows where renewable energy is plentiful. So which is it? Is it a bad intervention because it is all for the oil, or is it a good intervention because it is protecting our national interest?