So, tomorrow is a rather big deadline for President Obama, it marks 60 days since we started our engagement with Libya. The War Powers Resolution of 1973 allows the president 60-days to conduct military operations without a declaration of war from Congress. The Obama Administration went out of its way to site this resolution in justification in attacking Libya, and not Syria, Bahrain or several other Arab Spring uprising being crushed by dictators.
Now, with House of Representatives is out of session this week, and the Senate not known for moving fast in anyway, I am not sure how President Obama expects to get an extension.
Of course, certain members of the Obama Administration have gone full-Orwell on the situation. Robert Gates, the U.S. Defence Secretary, refuses to classify the Libyan action a "war." He says the War Powers Resolution does not apply to what he calls a "limited kinetic action."
Really?
The kinetic action of bombs are limited for a few seconds, but you don't exactly drop those on your neighbor. This is like calling Vietnam a "police action".
I am hoping a President who is well-versed in the Constitution and the War Powers Act actually follows the Rule of Law.
That's what use to really rub my the wrong way about the last President and it would be a shame to watch Obama follow in his footsteps. On a brighter note, this should mean we are done in Libya and we can get our troops out of harms way. That is, of course, unless President Obama is against Rule of Law and go against Campaign Obama who was against "indiscriminate warmaking."
I mean, wouldn't it be crazy for the Obama Administration to break out some kind of John Yoo unitary executive justification to keep our troops in Libya?
Or something crazier, like saying if we stopped for a day, then went back in, the clock resets? Don't see how that can be abused when set as a precedent. I bet it would be the kind of abuse which forced Congress to enact the War Powers Act in the first place.
It will be interesting to see what Obama does tomorrow. Does he follow the path of the Constitution and Rule of Law? Or does he travel the path laid out by Kissenger and Yoo, where Congress is no longer the decision maker of when we go to war, and the President rules as a warrior-king.