You’re right, John’s a straight shooter when it comes to non-mammalian morphology.
Sorry John, I just didn’t like the implication that supporting Obama’s humanitarian justifications means I’m sanguine about putting servicemen and women at risk. -Or about killing foreign citizens, or messing about in foreign intrigues.
Were you intending to post a cite giving a defined mission and an exit strategy? Can you tell me who we’re supporting?
I think here that talk of a exit strategy is somewhat of a misnomer. To exit, we just stop flying planes over the area (and perhaps recall any special forces we have there). Our mission objectives also seem pretty clear, in that we’re essentially there to neuter Quadaffi’s forces, but perhaps a bit more elaboration would help there.
Ah! I see. Pay close attention, this gets complicated.
The people we are supporting belong to that subset of people who were about to get killed by Ghaddafi. Their agenda was not to get killed by Ghadaffi. No real investigation was conducted to ascertain whether or not they deserved to get killed by Ghadaffi, and in this regard the procedure was sloppy. The expedient position was simply that, being people, they had every right to resist being killed by Ghadaffi. Not very rigorous, I grant you.
That being the case, they applied for help from the United Nations, to alter their effective status to people who are not going to get killed by Ghadaffi anytime soon. Operations are in motion to that end, and appear to be successful.
One cannot doubt that they may have a further agenda, i.e., a prevailing desire to see Ghadaffi buggered to death by camels. I have not heard any reports that the UN has endorsed the secondary agenda, most likely because it has not been articulated as such.
Glad to help.
This is not rocket surgery.
When someone says that the president needs authorization from Congress to engage in military action unless there is a direct or imminent threat to the US, it means that he thinks the president needs authorization from Congress to engage in military action unless there is a direct or imminent threat to the US.
Some people seem to think it’s just an oops, I didn’t think about humanitarian situations, but that’s just so much BS. And if Bush had said this instead of Obama in the same circumstance, you’d be pissing all over him. As much as I hate to use that argument, this is absolutely one instance when I know it’s true.
I thought you had to vote ‘No’ or ‘abstain.’ But that’s not really the point, the point is if a UN resolution, by itself, gives legal authorization to the President to use the military. The UN Charter was ratified as a treaty. Ratified treaties have the effect of US law. That we know, and so that’s really the end of it. A resolution is just an obligation under the treaty/law that we ratified.
Now I’m going to flog a dead horse…Let’s use NATO. Italy is attacked. That invokes NATO Article 5 “an armed attack on one equals armed attack on all.” The US is obligated under that treaty to respond to an invocation of Article 5. You’re saying the President can use the military without congressional approval in that situation, right? But where would that be allowed in the WPR (if the UN resolution equivalent is not)? To me, because it doesn’t stem from one of the three outlined scenarios (declaration of war, congressional approval, attack against United States proper) it would have to come from (d)(1) “nothing in WPR is intended to alter existing treaties” part…meaning, whatever treaties are out there and whatever they say, this WPR doesn’t change them. I just think that would also apply to the UN Charter treaty and the obligations under it.
And this is purely academic, because the President since the WPR was passed has used the military as needed, but never for more than the WPR allowed for (except once).
Missed the edit window… And I’m not even talking about whether I agree with the policy or not. I don’t, but even if I did, that doesn’t mean I excuse Obama from at least trying to get Congressional approval before committing an act of war against another country when there is ZERO threat the United States.
As I’ve said previously, I really do believe that Congress would have voted “yes”. What pisses me off is the arrogance of someone who knows what the constitution says but who doesn’t care when it’s expedient not to.
If you want to pursue that line of reasoning, then it’s easy: legislation enacted after any prior legislation takes precedent. The WPR takes precedent over any UN treaty we ratified. Not that I agree that we are obligated to take military action in the absence of the WPR, but given the existence of that resolution, the Congress still needs to authorize military action.
Honestly, I’m not sure about the NATO situation. But this is not a NATO situation, so it really doesn’t matter. An attack on Italy is what would be called in debate circles a “bad analogy”.
This is an honest question: Is there any Republican member of Congress on record with objections to the constitutionality of Obama’s actions? If so, I’m having trouble finding any news stories about it. So far the most prominent political figure to object has been… Dennis Kucinich.
I have not noted any previous restraint among GOP politicians when presented with opportunities to oppose Obama. If they are not taking this avenue, I do not believe it’s due to their agreement with the action or any newfound respect for the President, but because they don’t think he’s violated the law.
This is a NATO situation. They are taking over the operation within days. They will do the NFZ and will decide later if they will do strategic bombing to help the rebels,.
I agree later statutes take precedent. However, WPR: (d)(1) “nothing in WPR is intended to alter existing treaties.”
I just brought up NATO because you previously mentioned that would trigger a situation requiring a US response without needing congressional approval (maybe I misread). Italy is just an example of an attack on a member country (could be any member country not the US), but something that would trigger an obligation of US force without the US being directly attacked. A direct attack is something the WPR explicitly requires without needing congressional approval.
That was the exact mission in Afghanistan when we armed Osama bin Laden to fight the Russians.
Gadddafi didn’t up and decide to bomb his own people because his tuna salad sandwhich was a bit off. He did it because of civil unrest. Now you can side with his opposition and replace one despot with another but in this case we don’t who we’re backing.
“NATO situation” means, as we were arguing, an attack on a NATO country. Mo NATO country was attacked.
I’ve heard of only 2: Ron Paul and some other guy. It’s mainly Democrats who object on constitutional grounds. Even Jim Webb (former Republican, former Sec of Navy) has expressed concerns, though, so it’s not just the far left.
I would guess that most Republicans want the president to be able to take military action when needed.
We went through this exercise when Clinton attacked Serbia. The situations are almost identical, although I don’t remember if the UNSC passed a resolution or if it was just NATO. I think the latter.
Thanks John. I agree that the Republicans are generally more supportive of the “unitary executive” idea. I remember Clinton being criticized more roundly, but frankly I can’t remember all the grounds for condemnation that were used.
Well, you asked about our exit strategy (stop flying there and go home) and our mission objectives (stop Quadaffi from slaughtering his people). Whether or not you agree with the mission objective is another matter, but I think that they’re fairly clear cut at this point.
The way I see it is that the WPR requires Congressional approval of non-defensive military actions. The UN treaty puts an additional burden on the US as signatories that we don’t take military action unless approved by the UNSC.
Yes, I brought it up, but I’m not as certain about this as I originally thought. What I think we have with NATO (and I’m not 100% certain of this) is a treaty, approved by Congress, that says “Any attack on one NATO member is assumed to be an attack on all members”. So, Congress has already indicated that any defense of NATO members is a defense of the US, and so is exempted from the WPR. This is not true for non-NATO members. It would be absurd to say that any attack on any country in the world by any other country is to be construed as an attack on the US.
Well, I think we actually mostly agree. I would just extend it to include the UN treaty and say Congress has already indicated that they agree with the UN Charter and all the obligations it entails. But you’re right, neither necessarily means you still shouldn’t have to get Congressional Approval per the WPR.
Regardless, under the WPR Congress can, at anytime (today, yesterday, tomorrow), remove the forces by concurrent resolution. If they don’t do anything for 60 days, then it’s presumed the President does not have their approval. So this can’t last longer than 60 days (unless extended another 30). Conversely, the President, after initially consulting (which he did?), has up to 60 days to get their approval.
Instead, Congress will just complain on tv.
Cited by tagos in the Pit thread, this argument is pretty persuasive, and I think is what CoolHandCox has been going for.
Obviously, the argument doesn’t address the rights or wrongs of our participation, but I think it confirms my sense that the POTUS has the authority to commit our forces as required for UNSC actions without an act or resolution by Congress. How far that can be pushed, I’ve no idea.
But that act was passed in 1945, prior to the WPR of 1973. Also note that it speaks of restoring “international peace and security”. This was not envisioned as a mandate to interfere in the internal affairs of a sovereign state.