One can argue about the need for consultation with Congress before using major military force. Most of us think the requirement is essential, with ample constitutional support. But the question takes on new dimensions if the commander-in-chief is a progressive, antiwar, Nobel Peace Prize–winning politician whose political career was predicated on demanding just such congressional oversight of presidential war powers — and his vice president has strutted and boasted that he would impeach a president for doing just this sort of preemptive bombing against a Middle East country that poses no immediate threat to U.S. security.
For a president like Bush (who obtained congressional authorization for Afghanistan and Iraq) or Clinton (who did not originally in the Balkans), the non-authorization would be serious; for an Obama, it reflects a level of hypocrisy that makes a mockery of his entire worldview, past and present. Fairly or not, Obama almost single-handedly is rewriting the history of dissent between 2003 and 2008 — from Guantanamo, renditions, tribunals, Predators, Iraq, and preventative detention to now-optional war-making in the Middle East — and proving that prior loud protests were more partisan attacks than matters of principle. More than any other individual in recent history, the career of Obama (2002–2011) will be a historical touchstone for understanding the nature of protest in the war-on-terror years.
Second, much of this mess hinges on a number of puerile assumptions: that a bunch of televised rebels swarming a Libyan city equals the birth of democracy, as if an unknown group of dissidents could be assumed to be competent and well-intentioned; and that a monster like Qaddafi — with a four-decade pedigree of near-constant violence — could be expected to simply step down. Apparently, we were to believe that he would follow the example of Mubarak’s tail-between-the-legs flight; or that he would depart because Barack Hussein Obama ordered him to, or because there was some chance of serious violence if he did not; or that he would find exile a preferable alternative to a stormy continuance of his rule. I think most adolescents in the real world would know that the above assumptions were all fantasies.
A ruler like Qaddafi is part Milosevic, part Saddam, part Noriega, and part Kim Jong Il. They stay in power for years through killing and more killing (to paraphrase Dirty Harry, “They like it”), and they do not leave, ever, unless the U.S. military either bombs them to smithereens or physically goes into their countries and yanks them out of their palaces. Period. They most certainly do not care much for the concern of the Arab League, the U.N., or a contingent from Europe, or a grand verbal televised threat from a U.S. president — again, even if his name is Barack Hussein Obama and he is not George Bush.
Sorry, but that is where we are and where we’ve always been, so we can either quit, as in Lebanon and Somalia; send in the Marines to take charge of postwar stabilization, as in Afghanistan and Iraq; target Qaddafi and bomb him incessantly until he is broken, as in Clinton’s Balkan air campaign; or schedule a multiyear, Iraq-style no-fly zone, with ample latitude to bomb now and then to carve out sanctuaries within Libya. Those are the options, and one will be chosen one way or another, even if the president thinks he can once again vote present on all of them.
Reports are the President made his decision on Libya and only told Congress on Friday, litterally minutes before he made the announcement to everyone. Why? Why not call in Congressional leaders, make the case, and get authority? Beyond being a hypocrite, it is also an amazingly boneheaded more politically.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseOh oh...move politically. My bad.
BTW, I do not care for the new "captcha". Often times you can barely see the letters (and I am not color blind) and have to do it multiple times. I miss the little math questions.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseSince Obama is so thoroughly committed to the erosion of American power and leadership, one wishes he would simply pronounce to the entire world that he's presiding over our nation's purposeful decline.
Because this dog-n'-pony show to that same effect is SO much more utterly painful to watch.
At least now, one thing is abundantly clear: Democrat presidents are only willing to use the American military for the achievement of purely humanitarian objectives. It is not in their disposition to marshal it in advancement of OUR national security interests.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseObama is a kinetic wrist action.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe winners get to write and rewrite history. There's more than one dimension to this disastrous President and his handlers. Pray the country survives in any recognizable form.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseVictor
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseYour second paragraph has made my day.
Thanks
Barry O-- he is a hardcore Alinsky Lefty. Fortunately/Unfortunately he is organizationally inept and a political and moral coward. As our British friends say, he is a Muppet. Everyone is on to his game by now; if he wasn't so bad for the republic he'd be pathetic.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbusePresident Obama's Libyan adventure has shown him to be among the most unprincipled Presidents in history. What remains to be seen is, will the American electorate recognize this? If so, will the punish the President at the ballot box in November 2012? The answers are, respectively, probably not and definitely not.
A liberal friend actually maintains that a war approved in advance by Hezbollah, Bashir Assad, the civilian-killers in Bahrain and Yemen, a handful of equally hypocritical member nations sitting on the UN Security Council, and zero American Congressmen is legitimate solely by virtue of these ratifications, while Bush 43's Iraq war, approved in advance by 534 Congressmen and numerous democratically elected allied nations, is not. Apparently the lack of an official acronym to put in front of the Iraq War's "coalition of the willing" is fatal on the moral plane. Such logical gymnastics are entertaining in a schadenfreude way, but the fact that they are also likely to be effective kind of spoils the fun.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWhile it is tempting to accuse someone of hypocrisy, it does not apply to President Obama, nor to libs in general, at least from the lib perspective. The logic goes something like this:
1. Liberals are good, and their intentions are good. (Conversely, conservatives are bad, and their intentions are evil).
2. President Obama is a liberal.
3. Thus, President Obama is good, as are his intentions.
4. Good people don't do bad things.
5. Thus, what President Obama does is good.
There is no guiding principle, as there was none with President Clinton. Whatever is decided by good people (see item 1 above) must be good. If President Obama intervenes in Libya, then it is good. If he refuses to intervene, that is also good.
The assumption is rooted in the conceit that smart people can run the world. When it is proven, time and again, that they cannot, the liberal logic is that the wrong person was in charge.
To call President Obama a hypocrite, which is logical to most, is nonsensical to a liberal.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"Fairly or not, Obama almost single-handedly is rewriting the history of dissent between 2003 and 2008...and proving that prior loud protests were more partisan attacks than matters of principle. "
Maybe in Obama's case, but this pretty obviously doesn't generalize to the many leftists (Michael Moore, for instance) who opposed our war in Iraq and now oppose our "action" (or whatever the euphemism is) in Libya. Whatever one thinks about their arguments, they at least have the virtue of consistency, whether or not Hanson is capable of recognizing this.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAmong other things, Obama is showing the entire Democrat/Left wing objections to Bush/war/etc. to be solely motivated my politics. From 2001 through 2009 there was hardly any dissent that was honest or thoughtful.
And while there were certainly exceptions...they remain just that...exceptions.
In day to day discussions with family, friends, co-workers, etc. it is what I am enjoying most about Obama's presidency. Call it the one bright spot.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseYes, Lorraine, you are right. Michael Moore remains one of the few vocal beacons of consistency among Democrats.
Must be what the "Proud to be Democrat" bumper sticker is all about.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAs always, great post Mr. VDH.
You write: "They most certainly do not care much for ... a grand verbal televised threat from a U.S. president — again, even if his name is Barack Hussein Obama and he is not George Bush."
I agree with your point, but my guess is that if the televised threat had come from George W. Bush, he might care. He might care very much.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThere was never and is not now any reason to believe that Obama would do anything but make a total mess of this, as he does everything else. Only in this case he has much more leeway as C-in-C.
These facts alone, which NRO bloggers on this site are surely aware of, makes it incomprehensible why they would advocate the U.S. engage in military action in Libya. Apparently, sympathy for the much put upon citizens there caused them to (temporarily, one hopes) forget essential facts.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse180 Out -- SF CA: I'm guessing that you liberal friend has managed to forget that Bush's wars also had the approval of the UN.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseSo, in other news - the Syrian government has recently opened fire on local protesters. I look forward to the 'logical' & verbal gymnastics used by the current administration to justify overlooking Assad's actions but not Ghaddafi's. The folks at 1600 Pennsylvania have left themselves no logical or even rhetorical basis on which to distinguish the two...
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI saw a photo on the news of Obama talking earnestly on the telephone, so I'm sure that everything is going to turn out okay.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWe're in a war with no entry strategy. Hard to believe it will end well.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseDr. Hanson's insights are as usual right on the money. The last little bit of the veil has fallen from in front of Obama's radical leftism. Obama's actions or lack thereof where the Libyan uprising is concerned arise straight out of his core beliefs which were reinforced for twenty years in Jeremiah Wright's church. America is not worthy to lead but the Left knows when an opportunity exists to show its superior humanitarianism - and Obama embodies that conceit. He is above everything including the country he is too good to lead. If you members of Congress and ordinary citizens fail to grasp this, that is your shortcoming.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseBlast from the past:
Albright was an early opponent of the Powell doctrine that the United States should restrict its military interventions to situations in which its vital interests are threatened, and should always insist on using overwhelming force. In his memoirs, Powell recalled that he almost had "an aneurysm" when Albright challenged him to explain "What's the point of having this superb military you're always talking about if we can't use it?"
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