60 days after the March 21 informing of Congress of the attack, President Barack Obama has missed his legal deadline to obtain Congressional approval for the Libyan War. NATO insists the war will continue, but under US law, it is now completely illegal.
The administration was perfectly aware of the requirement to obtain such approval under the War Powers Act of 1973, even using the act as justification for their lack of authorization during the 60 day grace period. Despite this, no authorization was even sought until late Friday afternoon, literally hours before the deadline slipped.
Which of course meant Congress had no time to even consider holding a vote on the conflict. An successful authorization vote is the actual requirement of the law, not simply a last second request for one.
The law was an attempt to settle what many presidents at the time saw as a loophole in the Constitutional requirement for Congress to declare all wars – granting only a short grace period for conflicts of any size so presidents could no longer claim a fight was too small to be a real war.
And indeed, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates brought this age-old claim out early this week, claiming the Libya War was technically just a “limited kinetic action.” Unfortunately for him and the rest of the administration, the act provides no exemption for such an “action.” Whether war, kinetic action, or any other term is applied, there is one label that fits quite neatly – federal crime.
Great! But what can we DO?
Impeach.
Not really: War is an openly declared state of organized conflict, typified by extreme aggression, societal disruption, and high mortality
But: Invasion is a military offensive consisting of all, or large parts of the armed forces of one geopolitical entity aggressively entering territory controlled by another such entity, generally with the objective of either conquering, liberating or re-establishing control or authority over a territory, forcing the partition of a country, altering the established government or gaining concessions from said government, or a combination thereof :^/
Has anybody in the great USA got the guts to seek the impeachment of this ROGUE President?????
"Federal crime"? Using such words! How uncough!
How about "dynamically exploring the boundaries of the law"?
"Whether war, kinetic action, or any other term is applied, there is one label that fits quite neatly – dynamical exploration the boundaries of the law."
Yeah, much better.
I love the picture that accompanies this article. The bubble over his head reads, "Oops, did I break another law today?"
This entire administration, much like the one it replaced, it nothing but a giant law-breaking gaggle of fools and knaves. How bad does it have to get before Americans withdraw their consent?
Another example of the illegitamacy of the US government. These officials don't even pretend they're abiding by the law any more.
The US constitution is no longer respected because the criminal government thinks they are above bthe law.But all the talk about going to congress is nothing because they will vote for anything the president wants.And the president does what he is told by the corrupt people that are really in charge.The US government needs to be replaced with one that has the ciyizens of it at heart.We call these corupted people NEOCONS,ZIONISTS,NWO and what ever other names they have one thing is forsure they make the laws that send people to jail thats were they should be and with the prison population.Not defending people in jail but the reason most are there is because some communitys threwout the US are poor and the people that keep 90 persent of the money to themselfs well the other the rest off use share the 1 persent the scrasps.IT'S NOT ROCKET SCIENCE (BIG BROTHER)
The action was illegal and unconstitutional from Day 1. A lot of people (including me, until I read the actual text) think that the War Powers Resolution gives the President a blank check to make war for 60 days. But the law actually suggests this only "pursuant to…a national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces." The law appears to me very badly written and unnecessarily ambiguous — the clause above is itself questionable, because it's like an attempt to define the meaning of the Constitution with Congressional legislation. In any case, continuing after Day 60 ought to be regarded as a violation of the WPR by anyone's interpretation. Will Congress now debate this? If they don't then they're to blame. Please contact your Senators and Representative.
The Libyan war is not about democracy nor is about Libyan oil or anything in that regard.., is about stopping African Union and its progress toward a unity of all African country and Barack Hussein Obama and French president Sarkozi so as Cameron know about it. Sarkozi is a thieve so is the Americans government whom is withholding the Libyan peoples assets in US. Is $32 billion dollars and that is why there is a war in Libya and Muslim Brotherhood and Saudis are part of it.., what they are trying to do is first to sallow the Libyan assets then for NATO to have a military base in Libya where they eventually proceed and have more military bases in African Horn Country protecting Saudis from Red Sea stopping the African Unifications by all means . That is what is going on behind the closed doors and that is why there is rape accusation against IMF former president Khan.., read this:
AFRICAN MONETARY FUND, AFRICAN CENTRAL BANK, AFRICAN INVESTMENT BANK
The US$30 billion frozen by Mr Obama belong to the Libyan Central Bank and had been earmarked as the Libyan contribution to three key projects which would add the finishing touches to the African federation – the African Investment Bank in Syrte, Libya, the establishment in 2011 of the African Monetary Fund to be based in Yaounde with a US$42 billion capital fund and the Abuja-based African Central Bank in Nigeria which when it starts printing African money will ring the death knell for the CFA franc through which Paris has been able to maintain its hold on some African countries for the last fifty years. It is easy to understand the French wrath against Gaddafi.
The African Monetary Fund is expected to totally supplant the African activities of the International Monetary Fund which, with only US$25 billion, was able to bring an entire continent to its knees and make it swallow questionable privatisation like forcing African countries to move from public to private monopolies. No surprise then that on 16-17 December 2010, the Africans unanimously rejected attempts by Western countries to join the African Monetary Fund, saying it was open only to African nations.
http://www.rightsmonitoring.org/2011/04/why-the-w…
That is why there is a war and that is why US/NATO are nothing but a militarism regimes wanting to be the pirates of the world stealing the people assets at the same time.., this is the nature of capitalism.
Deadlines for Obama, the Commander in Chief? The only dead lines he cares about are lines of dead civilians with colored skin, the longer the better.
The fact that his own skin is colored no longer occurs to him. Why?
He's in the White House!
The good folks commenting on this site and/or story should keep in mind that Obama is acting as a faux-emperor/president of the global corporate/financial/militarist Empire which now controls our former country (as well as U.K. Israel, et al) by hiding behind the facade of the empire's bought and owned TWO-Party modernized Nazi-like 'Vichy" sham of faux-democratic government, and equally "Vichy" corporatist (fascist) media (which provides propaganda lies to Americans of both the left and the right).
As such faux-emperor/president it is certainly true that Obama does not represent the interests of the general population of honest, average, middle/working-class Americans in the subsumed US territory any more than all of the previous faux-emperor/presidents; Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, and Bush II have helped this disguised Empire capture our country.
Therefore, it is entirely rational and reasonable, in line with the majority of comments, that any and all of these political pawns posing as faux-emperor/presidents were not legal presidents of our fading democratic country — and that all posters who have voiced such valid criticism and disgust with Obama should work toward insuring that no further faux-emperor/presidents of the disguised global EMPIRE that now IS the US should be allowed to take office for the EMPIRE.
I applaud any effort to expose, educate, expunge, and excise any candidates for the office of President of the US who are actually pawns of the hidden global Empire. Only through serious and principled efforts can we recover our country from the clutches of this disguised global Empire. And all good Americans should avoid voting for any such phonies and pawns of Empire by avoiding any voting for any Empire endorsed, Empire captured, Empire funded, and Empire disguised candidate of either phony political party —- by requiring any candidate for president of our country to address the issue of where they stand on the global Empire which is in the process of fully taking over our country. And ANY candidate who pretends not to be able to address the issue of the EMPIRE is clearly a phony stooge and candidate of this global Empire — who should never be voted for by any true American who loves their democratic Republic and hates the type of Empire that oppressed; politically, economically, and militarily our forefathers in the colonies prior to 1776.
Alan MacDonald
Sanford, Maine
Liberty & democracy over violent empire — New America People's Party 2012