Note: You might want to start at the Barack
Obama Index Page, especially
if you arrived here by using a search engine.
Introduction:
By now, even his supporters realize that Barack Obama is an empty suit. Before he got this job, he
had no management experience in any for-profit organization. He only knows how to spend other people's
money, how to read other people's words off the teleprompter, and how to take credit for other people's
ideas. Credit soon turns to blame when the money is all gone, the words make no sense, and the
ideas include participation in a third Middle East war.
You would think that the usual "no blood for oil" protests would have developed overnight, just as
they did when President George W. Bush initiated the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in Iraq.
But, with the possible exception of Cindy
Sheehan*, they are all silent.
President Obama has repeatedly shown in the past that he is ashamed of America, and in particular, he
detests the military power of the U.S. Moreover, he relishes the idea of high gas prices.
This puts him in a most awkward position: He is using America's military power so that America
can ride to the rescue in Libya, finish their civil war for them, and keep the oil flowing. He's
a "community organizer" armed with cruise missiles.
Barack Obama dithers and stalls for as long as possible
Susan Rice:
Another Obama Failure. America's Ambassador to the United Nations has been a failure.
Perhaps Susan Rice should spend less time career-climbing in DC, angling to replace Hillary Clinton (she has
been "wildly inattentive" according to the non-partisan The Hill magazine) and more time doing her job.
Rice (and the US) was AWOL when it came to the vote to allow Libya onto the UN Human Rights Council; was AWOL
in a Sec Council Resolution that condemned Israel (the first time such as Security Council resolution was not
vetoed by America).
Obama takes a stand on
Libya. Obama has finally taken a stand on the ongoing carnage in Libya. After nine days of
silence, he has finally, and forcefully, condemned the "outrageous" crackdown by Libyan security forces on
protesters. He also said that a unified international response was forming. Whew. Translation:
America will stand firmly behind the United Nations.
An Administration Adrift.
As the [Libyan] crackdown began, and then escalated, it was early afternoon on February 16, halfway around
the world in the State Department briefing room, when the Obama administration faced questions about how it
regarded Muammar Qaddafi. "Is Qaddafi a dictator?" State Department spokesman P. J. Crowley,
at the podium for his daily briefing, smiled at the question and turned his head to call on another reporter.
"Are you stumped?" "I'm not stumped," Crowley responded tartly. "So what's your answer to the
question? Is he a dictator?" Crowley smirked. "I don't think he came to office through a
democratic process."
Getting Down While the World Burns.
The President has done nothing about the crisis in Libya except give a press conference in which he called the
situation "unacceptable," then proceeded to accept it. ... Not a word has been uttered from the White House to
condemn the fugitive Democrats who acted to shut down democracy in Wisconsin and Indiana. Widespread
violence and hatred from union foot soldiers has gone unremarked. The pirates of Somalia sail through
the Indian Ocean and Gulf of Aden with confidence after slaughtering four innocent Americans. ... His hapless
Secretary of Homeland Security gapes in wonder as Americans are murdered on the southern border, while a young
Saudi national is caught on the verge of deploying weapons of mass destruction. The nation teeters on the
edge of ruin, and the President responds by submitting an absurd dead-on-arrival budget that increases federal
spending. Where is President Obama during all this? He's enjoying the sounds of Motown at a
star-studded White House event.
Has
Anyone Told Ambassador Rice There's a Crisis In Libya? When President Obama made Susan Rice his
ambassador to the United Nations, in 2009, he thought the job was so vital that he gave her cabinet rank.
Now, here we are, with the Arab world in tumult, two dictators gone in the past two months, and the UN aflutter
over scenes of Libyans dying this past week by the hundreds, or thousands, in outright rebellion against a
raving Moammar Gaddafi — who has been vowing to "fight to the last drop of blood." ... Where's Susan Rice,
the cabinet rank ambassador of the free world's superpower?
Barack Carter-Obama Is
Back. When even CNN implicitly recognizes that Barack Obama probably is, and certainly is
seen in the Arab world as, every bit as spineless as the worst American president in recent generations (until
the current one), Barack Obama and Democrats who hope to get elected or re-elected in 2012 had better hope that
foreign policy magically drops off the table as an issue before the elections. The way things are going in
North Africa and the Middle East, the Obama-Carter comparisons are likely to haunt our current president
through the election and will increase the chances that Barack Obama's first term is also his
last — much to the chagrin of dictators around the world.
Fear and
loathing of the fruitcake. [Scroll down] When the president got around to talking for the
first time about the [Libyan] "situation" he boasted that his "national-security team" had been working around
the clock, in more meetings, and had produced "a full range of options" requiring still more meetings.
His message was something a high-school junior might have prepared for a citizenship essay.
Obama
Bringing Mop To A Gunfight? A superpower must weigh the many evils in the world and target
the biggest threats — not wait impotently for crises, then reach for the mop.
Obama's Gadhafi waffle.
Libya is engaged in a civil war. New protests have broken out in Oman, Bahrain and Yemen. The uprising
in Tunisia, the pioneer state of the so-called "Arab Spring," is entering a second phase. As usual, the
amateurish Obama administration has no idea what to do about any of this.
Obama Never Fails to Disconnect. In
the 2008 presidential primaries, Hillary Clinton pointed to Obama's inexperience by asking who was better
equipped to handle the "3 in the morning" phone call Presidents get. Today it is increasingly
and depressingly clear that Obama is inept and fumbling no matter what time of day the call comes. From
gas prices, unemployment, and federal spending to Gitmo, the BP oil spill, and Gaddafi — every
challenge yet has caught Obama by surprise and resulted in embarrassing gaffes, late reactions, contradictory
statements, phony photo ops, and phony-baloney plans that inevitably require later revision.
Costly Indecisiveness on
Libya. In a remarkably ridiculous statement for a man who has done nothing except charter a
boat in response to the crumbling revolution in Libya, President Obama yesterday [3/16/2011] said that his
administration was "slowly tightening the noose" on dictator Moammar Gaddafi. There has been no noose,
loose or tight, placed on Gaddafi by the U.S. or anybody else.
Obama's
Presidency Hangs by a Thread. Japan may be on the verge of an unprecedented catastrophe.
Saudi Arabia is all but colonizing Bahrain. Qaddafi is close to retaking Libya, with bloodbath to
follow. And, as Jim Geraghty notes, the president of the United States is going on ESPN to talk
about the NCAA and delivering speeches today on his rather dull plan to replace No Child Left Behind
with No Teenager Left Behind, or something like that.
About that trip to Brazil: Why now?
Foreign travel has been seen as a political liability for Obama; and with this trip, the pattern is
likely to continue. The worst nuclear catastrophe since Chernobyl is unfolding in Japan, the
United States and its allies are crafting urgent plans for a Libya no-fly zone operation that could
mean air raids on Tripoli within days, and at home, Republicans and Democrats are in a standoff over
a budget for the federal government, which administration officials say is being hobbled by a series
of stopgap funding measures.
Obama golfs and picks NCAA favorites
while the Middle East melts down. How do we even begin to describe the leadership style
and behavior of President Obama? ... Obama is dangerous, ineffective, cowardly, and most UN American.
The nation must rise up and vote him out in 2012.
All talk and no action. Barack
Obama is in no hurry to see Gaddafi go. Would President Obama prefer a Gaddafi victory?
If that sounds implausible, then just look at the record. On March 3, Obama announced that Gaddafi
"must go". Two weeks have passed since then — and more than a month since the uprising began
on February 15. In the interim, the tide of war has turned in Gaddafi's favour. Yet Obama
[as of this writing, had] done nothing to make his own words reality.
Will Libya be Obama's
Bay of Pigs? Often compared to President Kennedy, President Obama may well find that
Libya has become his Bay of Pigs. Barely remembered now, the Bay of Pigs fiasco occurred early
in the Kennedy administration. It was the first mistake in a string of foreign policy miscues
reversed only when the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 brought the world to the edge of nuclear war. ... Fifty
years later, an eerily similar scenario is unfolding in Libya.
Obama's Tactless
Diversions. One thing's for sure, when an opportunity to celebrate arises, America's biggest
partiers never hesitate to promptly board Air Force One. An irradiated Japan melts and Libyan freedom
fighters die while in Cidade Maravilhosa, the "Marvelous City" of Rio de Janiero, President Obama will ponder
no-fly zones. After sharing NCAA picks on ESPN, "global citizen" Barack Obama is taking the teleprompter
to Latin America.
Barack Obama's paralysed presidency. While Barack Obama has
dithered, and his Secretary of State has worshipped at the altar of the United Nations, one of the most brutal
tyrants on the face of the earth is getting away with murder, with a death toll that could reach as high as
15,000. It is a sad day when the foreign policy of the United States, the world's greatest power, is
subordinated to the whims of the UN, for decades a playground for dictators and unabashed anti-Americanism.
Obama is too busy with
his March Madness bracket to take a stand on Libya. While President Obama has been busy
focused on filling out his March Madness college basketball brackets on television here at home, there
is a global version of March madness sweeping the Middle East, most seriously in Libya, whose violent
uprising affects not only our own interests — namely, oil — but the security of
our allies in that region.
Our
Libyan March Madness. The president seems more knowledgeable about the tournament chances of
two dozen college basketball teams than he does about the Libyan labyrinth.
On-the-job
training for Obama. "Never attribute to conspiracy," a wise man once said, "what can be explained
by incompetence." Maybe we should cut Barack Obama a little slack. ... Watching a folk dance in Brazil was
certainly less stressful than spending time in the War Room, taking only bad news.
President Obama, representing the "no blood for oil" party, made the decision to attack Libya
sometime during the week ending March 19, 2011, and two days later notified Congress that
we were at war. That's not the way it works, and you would think that a former
constitutional lecturer -- some say "scholar" -- would know better. The President can
ask the Congress for a declaration of war, but he does not have the authority to start
another war on his own. That's in Article I, Section 8, if you'd like to
look it up.
Note: The newest material is at the bottom of this subsection.
One World Government Obama.
Where did Mr. Obama get the authority to commit United States forces to war in Libya? There was no
declaration of war. There was no authorizing resolution by Congress allowing money to be spent on a
war against Col. Gaddafi. As far as I know, there was no meeting of Mr. Obama and top leaders of
Congress to discuss the subject in even rough form, let alone detail. ... [And] I wonder if there has ever
before in history been a national leader who sent his country to war — and the same day went off
on vacation. Has that ever happened before?
The First Casualty of War.
Shortly after the first U.S. cruise missiles hit their targets Saturday [3/19/2011], the collateral damage
became apparent — not in Libya, but on the home front, where liberal credibility was shattered
by President Obama's sudden resort to military action against Moammar Gaddafi's regime. Those who had
hailed Obama's ascent as the dawn of a new age of peace, an end to the alleged "cowboy" belligerence of the
Bush years, exploded with a mixture of outrage, confusion and chagrin as their hero flung the country into
war in North Africa.
Two Days Later, President Obama Alerts Congress the US Joined a War.
Amidst claims by members of Congress that they were insufficiently consulted, and ensuing White House pushback,
President Obama Monday [3/21/2011] officially notified congressional leaders that at "approximately 3:00 p.m.
Eastern Daylight Time, on March 19, 2011, at my direction, U.S. military forces commenced operations to
assist an international effort authorized by the United Nations (U.N.) Security Council and undertaken with
the support of European allies and Arab partners, to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe and address the threat
posed to international peace and security by the crisis in Libya."
The Editor says...
Nobody believes that the Libyan civil war threatens "international peace and security" in any
way other than its effect on the price of oil.
Libyan
bombing 'unconstitutional', Republicans warn Obama. Under the US constitution, Congressional approval is required for declarations of war. Congressman
Roscoe Bartlett, a Republican on the House armed services committee, was among members who argued that
military action in Libya was unconstitutional. He told the Hill magazine: "The United States
does not have a King's army. President Obama's unilateral choice to use US military force in Libya
is an affront to our constitution."
Did Obama lose Congress on Libya?
President Barack Obama is facing growing anger from lawmakers who believe he overstepped his authority by launching
missile strikes into Libya without first seeking the consent of Congress. The criticism is from all
directions: from moderates, like Sens. Jim Webb (D-Va.) and Dick Lugar (R-Ind.); from those on the far
left and right, like Reps. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) and Ron Paul (R-Texas), who believe the president acted
outside the Constitution; and from the establishment on both sides, including House Democratic Caucus
Chairman John Larson of Connecticut and Republican Rep. Candice Miller of Michigan, a self-described
"hawk."
Republican
says action in Libya is an 'affront' to the US Constitution. A senior Republican on the House
Armed Services Committee escalated his party's attacks on the Obama's administration's military action in
Libya, calling the move unconstitutional. "The United States does not have a King's army," Rep.
Roscoe Bartlett (R-Md.) said in a statement released Monday evening. "President Obama's unilateral
choice to use U.S. military force in Libya is an affront to our Constitution."
Russian
Duma Leader Wants Obama Stripped of Nobel Peace Prize. The controversial leader of the Russian
Liberal Party, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, said in a statement on Monday [3/21/2011] that he will ask the Nobel
Committee to strip President Barack Obama of the Nobel Peace Prize. Zhirinovsky said in the letter
that the prize, awarded in 2009 for Obama's historic presidential victory and his work on nuclear non
proliferation, was now hypocritical in light of recent missile strikes in Libya.
President Obama,
mission creep. President Obama is being denounced by most of the developing world as an
aggressor; protesters are demonstrating outside the White House charging America with committing torture;
pictures have been released of American troops engaged in barbaric acts; and liberal Democrats have
discovered the word impeachment. It seems like it is 2005 again, but this time Barack is playing the
role of commander in chief instead of Senate floor heckler.
On-the-job
training for Obama. "Never attribute to conspiracy," a wise man once said, "what can be explained
by incompetence." Maybe we should cut Barack Obama a little slack. ... Watching a folk dance in Brazil was
certainly less stressful than spending time in the War Room, taking only bad news.
Kucinich:
Obama's Participation In Libyan Missile Attacks May Be 'Impeachable'. Democratic Congressman
Dennis Kucinich is not keeping mum about his feelings on the U.S.'s use of military force in Libya, going
so far as to wonder whether President Barack Obama's participation in air strikes over the tumultuous
country constitute an "impeachable offense" because he did not first confer with Congress.
Go to
Congress First. On Thursday evening, the U.N. Security Council voted 10-0 (with five
abstentions, including China, Russia, and Germany) to authorize the use of military force (i.e., "all
necessary measures") against Libya. Ostensibly, the resolution is designed to protect the Libyan
people. But not to mince words, it is a license for war against the regime of Moammar Qaddafi. ... As a
practical matter, American armed forces must do the heavy lifting if the strategy is to have a prayer, and
indications are that President Obama intends to oblige. There is a catch: The Security Council is
powerless to "authorize" the U.S. military to do [anything]. The validity of American combat operations
is a matter of American law, and that means Congress must authorize them.
A Foolish and Unconstitutional War.
"The president does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a
situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation." So said constitutional
scholar and Senator Barack Obama in December 2007 — the same man who, this weekend, ordered U.S. air
and missile strikes on Libya without any authorization from Congress.
What
Is U.S. National Interest In Libya? Campaigning in Iowa in 2007, Vice President Joe Biden
said that based on a treatise he had five leading constitutional scholars draft, if President Bush
"takes this nation to war in Iran without congressional approval, I will make it my business to impeach
him." Islamofascist Iran, with its nuclear weapon ambitions, is a real threat to the U.S.
The dangers of Gadhafi, whose nuke program was neutralized by the Bush administration, pale in
comparison. If the left's "responsibility to protect" ideology is to become official U.S.
foreign policy, it should be debated openly first.
Led into war by a president who can't be trusted.
Americans will have a hard time supporting President Obama's war in Libya — because the United
States is already fighting two wars, because the president never publicly made the case for involvement,
because Congress never authorized the war, and because there are no identifiable American interests.
But just as important, for those Americans paying close attention, is the growing realization that the
president can't be trusted. His assurances that America's military role in Libya will be limited in
scope and duration carry little weight after the lies and evasions of his top aides.
If Republicans Acted Exactly Like Democrats.
Imagine George W. Bush, after vacillating for month, deciding to put American troops in harm's way, even as he
remained on vacation while the conflict began. Imagine he did it without the Constitutional necessity of
consulting Congress, and subordinated American interests to the whims of the United Nations. ... Imagine if
George W. Bush had committed the American military to a conflict where we're on nobody's side. Now
imagine everything above either being virtually ignored by the mainstream media, or deliberately mischaracterized
by it.
Libya: Obama's Got
Some 'Splainin' to Do. Can anyone please "splain" our Libya policy? There have been
so many positions taken by so many different folks in the administration from State to Defense to Executive
over the past 2-3 weeks that I am a tad confused. Even the latest version announced with classic
stern face, upturned jaw and bellicose language was preposterous if you listened closely to the words.
First of all, what exactly is the Libyan "conflict"?
Obama
is a liberal being mugged by reality in Libya. How would state Sen. Barack Obama have
reacted to President Obama's decision to authorize a no-fly zone over Libya, taken with no debate and
no authorization from Congress, a commitment that could in real life become open-ended and involve this
country in a prolonged civil conflict? In his own words, not that well. On Oct. 2,
2002, at the height of the Iraq war debate, he declared himself opposed to "a dumb war. A rash
war. A war based not on reason but passion' against a 'bad guy' who butchered his people, but
posed no direct threat to this country, that could lead to an open-ended, unbounded involvement of
unknown duration and cost.
Is
Obama's Use of Military in Libya Constitutional? Leave aside for a moment whether it
was wise for President Obama to order our military to intervene in Libya's civil war, siding with
rebels we know little about against a dictator who has sponsored terrorism against us. A more
fundamental question comes first: Did Obama have constitutional authority to do it?
President Washington's actions counsel otherwise.
Ron
Paul believes Libya intervention an 'impeachable' offense. Texas Republican Rep. Ron Paul will
be co-sponsoring an amendment announced Tuesday by Ohio Democratic Rep. Dennis Kucinich that would defund the
American military intervention in Libya. Kucinich suggested during a Saturday conference call with
anti-war Democrats that he thought impeachment could also be considered for Obama's "unconstitutional"
actions in Libya.
America's
Descent Into Strategic Dementia. What the US foreign policy fights regarding Egypt and
Libya indicate is that currently, a discussion about how events impact core US regional interests is
completely absent from the discussion. The US's new war against Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi
is the latest sign of its steady regional decline. In media interviews over the weekend, US military
chief Adm. Michael Mullen was hard-pressed to explain either the goal of the military strikes in Libya or
their strategic rationale.
Is Obama's Libya offensive
constitutional? Members of Congress have been expressing increasing frustration over
President Obama's decision to launch missile strikes against Libya without congressional approval.
Liberal Democratic Rep. Dennis Kucinich suggested the action was impeachable; Sen. Jim Webb, another
Democrat, complained on MSNBC that Congress has "been sort of on autopilot for almost 10 years
now, in terms of presidential authority, in conducting these types of military operations absent the
meaningful participation of the Congress."
Bringing
a Tomahawk to a gunfight. From the beginning, [Obama's] handling of the air war against the
Libyan dictator's forces was strange, raising more questions than the White House had answers. While
he was sending U.S. ship and air forces into harm's way, he was off on a pleasant tour of Latin America
with his family, a series of photo-ops and one banquet after another. The U.S. commander of chief
had left his country while the war raged.
Calls
for return of Obama's Nobel. "Barack Obama has now fired more cruise missiles than all other
Nobel Peace prize winners combined." Exactly who said that first is unclear, but at some point over
the weekend, the line began circulating around Twitter. Since President Obama announced Friday that
he had ordered an attack on Muammar Qadhafi's forces in Libya, he has attracted plenty of new critics,
including lawmakers in his party.
Constitutional
firestorm over Libya war and Biden's past impeachment words greet returning Obama. It's one
thing to have a Republican Speaker of the House and some Democrats as well wondering out loud how come Congress
was not consulted before Obama committed American military forces to combat operations to do something in the
vicinity of Libya when there was no threat to Americans. John Boehner raised that issue Wednesday [3/23/2011]
in a formal letter to the president. But it's something else when President Obama's own vice president,
Joe "I Don't Use Words Lightly" Biden suggests that a president who commits U.S. troops with no imminent
threat to the country or its citizens and no congressional approval should be impeached.
The Second Time as Farce. For
years American liberals accused George W. Bush of being dumb and unserious — only to elect a man who
actually is dumb and unserious. Who announces a war in between his NCAA picks and a trip to Rio.
Who has spent more time playing golf, than directing the war effort. Who spends more time in front of
the mirror and the camera, than on policy. They accused Bush of running an imperial presidency — and
that is exactly what they got the second time around.
Few
Americans see Obama as strong military leader. Only 17 percent of Americans see President
Barack Obama as a strong and decisive military leader, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll taken after
the United States and its allies began bombing Libya. Nearly half of those polled view Obama as a
cautious and consultative commander-in-chief and more than a third see him as indecisive in military matters.
Obama's
Incoherent Case for War. As American forces join the war against Moammar Qaddafi, the nation
is entitled to an explanation. How is the case for war against Qaddafi smarter (remember, Obama is
only against "dumb" wars) or less "ideological" or more prudent than that for war against Saddam Hussein?
Certainly with an army of only 50,000, Qaddafi represents far less of a threat to his neighbors or to us
than did Saddam, who commanded an army estimated at 350,000. As for humanitarian concerns, what
Qaddafi is doing to the rebels in Libya is exactly what Saddam did to his domestic enemies, but on a
reduced scale. As Obama himself said, Saddam was "a ruthless man ... who butchers his own people
to secure his power." Yet that didn't justify a war, state senator Obama told us.
Obama's Big Blunder
in Libya: Sun Tzu wrote that deception was one of the most important factors in warfare. ... Not
a day has gone by in the current campaign against Gaddafi but somebody prominent in the administration or
military hasn't gotten up to explain what "we're not going to do". This began with Obama's speech
announcing U.S. participation, in which he promised that the boots of American troops "would never touch
Libyan soil." Circumstances being what they are and Obama being what he is, it's doubtful that anybody
required any such assurance. But they got it anyway, and it set the pattern for further comments
of like nature.
Obama Wags the
Dog. What is this really about? As the price of oil skyrockets, as our debt levels
rise to new highs and our housing market drops to new lows, President Obama decides that it is a
fantastic time to start dropping bombs on Libya. Nobody, including Obama, seems to know what
our objective is in Libya. First, it was deposing terroristic thug Muammar Qaddafi; then it
was standing up for the United Nations; then it was protecting civilians; now it is some combination
of all of them.
Anti-Iraq
War Bush-Haters Squirm to Justify Libya. Like many anti-Iraq War/Bush-is-a-warmonger
critics, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., supports the Libyan action. Bush-hater Rachel
Maddow of MSNBC rationalized that unlike the bloodthirsty President George W. Bush, you see, Obama
ordered the military into action under a different "narrative" — that is, reluctantly and
without zeal. Understand? The non-unilateralist Nobel Peace Prize laureate Obama, unlike Bush,
sought no congressional war resolution. Obama, therefore, ordered military action against Libya
"unilaterally" — without the congressional approval that he once argued the Constitution
demanded.
Kucinich:
No intent to seek impeachment of Obama over Libya. Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) is
denying any plans to seek the impeachment of President Obama over the U.S. involvement in Libya.
Kucinich recently raised the question of whether Obama could be impeached for leading the U.S. into a
conflict — to enforce a United Nations-backed no-fly zone — without going to
Congress first.
I
Am Not the Only One Confused. Am I the only one who's utterly confused about the
rationale, goals, tactics and strategy of the U.S.-led military intervention in Libya? Thought
not. I call it a U.S.-led operation because, people, let's be real. Without U.S. diplomatic
leadership, there would have been no U.N. Security Council resolution. Without U.S. military
leadership, there would have been no coordinated shock-and-awe attack to put dictator Moammar Gaddafi's
rampaging forces back on their heels.
Obama's War on "War".
What if they gave a war and nobody was allowed to say it? The debate over military action in
Libya has lately taken an absurd twist, driven by the Obama administration's bizarre unwillingness to
call a war a war.
Obama's
impeachable war. President Obama has lost his legitimacy to remain in office. The
Libyan war has exposed the administration's lawlessness and rampant criminality. If Republicans
and conservatives are serious about restoring constitutional government, they will demand that Mr. Obama
be impeached. The war is going badly. The coalition is cracking; the strategic aims of the
military intervention are not clear...
Obama
and Libya: The professor's war. President Obama is proud of how he put together the Libyan
operation. A model of international cooperation. All the necessary paperwork. Arab League
backing. A Security Council resolution. (Everything but a resolution from the Congress of the
United States, a minor inconvenience for a citizen of the world.) It's war as designed by an Ivy
League professor.
Is
President Obama the weakest Commander-in-Chief in US history? A new Reuters/Ipsos poll
released today [3/25/2011] reveals a striking lack of public confidence in President Obama's ability as Commander-in-Chief,
with just 17 percent of Americans describing his leadership as "strong and decisive", compared to
36 percent who believe it is "indecisive and dithering".
Obama's
impeachable war. President Obama has lost his legitimacy to remain in office. The
Libyan war has exposed the administration's lawlessness and rampant criminality. If Republicans and
conservatives are serious about restoring constitutional government, they will demand that Mr. Obama be
impeached. ... Unless American territory has been invaded or U.S. citizens have been directly attacked,
the president must first ask for congressional approval before ordering any kind of military action.
To do otherwise is to behave like a despot. That is why the Founding Fathers insisted that going to
war could be sanctioned only by the people's representatives.
Obama's Illegal War.
The whole notion that the President can unilaterally enter into unprovoked hostilities without first consulting
Congress and receiving at a minimum legislative authorization is arguably false. The National War Powers
Act of 1973, oft cited as granting the President such powers, offers no such relief. As stipulated by the
Act, at least one of three conditions must be met prior to the President sending armed forces into ongoing
hostilities or into situations where hostilities are likely to occur.
The Wimp Goes to War.
There are lots of reasons to criticize Obama for the Libya thing, but the most important is never
mentioned: it's the wrong battlefield. The battlefields that will determine the outcome
of the big war are Tehran and Damascus, and there are ongoing battles on both. We could make a
decisive difference, without bombing anything, without risking any American lives, just by giving political
and perhaps some financial and technological support to the Iranian and Syrian rebellions.
The Speech
Obama Hasn't Given: I cannot for the life of me see how an American president can launch
a serious military action without a full and formal national address in which he explains to the American
people why he is doing what he is doing, why it is right, and why it is very much in the national interest.
He referred to his aims in parts of speeches and appearances when he was in South America, but now he's
home. More is needed, more is warranted, and more is deserved. He has to sit at that big desk
and explain his thinking, put forward the facts as he sees them, and try to garner public support.
The Art of
Inconclusive War. It is tempting and certainly very easy to point out that Obama's war
(or Obama's "kinetic military action," or "time-limited, scope-limited military action," or whatever
the latest ever more preposterous evasion is) is at odds with everything candidate Obama said about
U.S. military action before his election.
Candidate Obama in 2007: Americans 'Have a
Right to Know' Before Government Takes Military Action. A new video shows President Barack Obama,
as a presidential candidate in 2007, saying that the American people have a right to know about and participate
in the debate over U.S. foreign policy decisions and whether the nation uses military force. "But the fact
of the matter is that when we don't talk to the American people — we're debating the most important
foreign policy issues that we face, and the American people have a right to know," Obama said at the AFL-CIO
debate on Aug. 7, 2007.
Obama's
Presidency Still Hangs By a Thread, But for a Different Reason. The Obama presidency is
again hanging by a thread, but this time the thread is not the result of inaction. It is, rather,
the result of taking action so incomprehensible and incoherent that even Obama's own people are finding
it impossible to defend or explain.
Mayan ruins.
Somebody in the White House had the presence of mind to tell the president that perhaps taking the kids to
visit the Mayan ruins wouldn't be the best thing to do when he has just ordered our Air Force to start bombing
Libya. The truly fascinating question is, What took him so long to make that decision?
Barack
Obama's call sheet: Nicolas Sarkozy first, David Cameron second. Reading the White House briefing
on Barack Obama's Libyan diplomacy I'm struck by this, from Ben Rhodes, deputy NSA: ["]Then he had two
additional calls. He called President Sarkozy of France and Prime Minister Cameron of the United Kingdom.["]
The Editor says...
That's because Sarkozy is a fellow socialist, and Obama hates England as much as he hates America.
Obama Doctrine Is All Bark, No
Bite. A White House suddenly enthralled with cruise missile diplomacy and, without a Libyan exit
strategy, issues a verbal warning to another murderous dictatorship. Our policy is full of sound and
fury, signifying nothing.
Obama and the
Ghost of '68: The liberal magazine The Nation decried the intervention in Libya as "flagrant
hypocrisy." John Larson, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, upbraided Obama for not consulting Congress.
Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, called the war "another disaster." If our involvement lasts weeks or months
instead of days, Obama could lose many Democratic members. He has already lost a lot of them on Afghanistan.
Collapse of
the Obama Worldview. Calling the matter "a limited military action in Libya" that would "protect
Libyan civilians" was an earnest attempt at a positive spin. But this fact remains: after spending
the first two years of his presidency insisting that the values of America and the Muslim world are consistent
with one-another, now President Barack Obama was ordering bombs to be dropped on a predominantly Muslim country.
Might this fact suggest that some of President Obama's philosophical assumptions about the world have been,
perhaps, a bit inaccurate?
The
Leader Who Would Rather Not. A British soccer mob has more unity and moral purpose. Yet
Obama deemed it a diplomatic success that the [Arab] League deigned to permit others to fight and die to
save fellow Arabs for whom 19 of 21 Arab states have yet to lift a finger. And what about
that brilliant U.N. resolution? Russia's Vladimir Putin is already calling the Libya operation a
medieval crusade.
Ladies Who Launch.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, with a little help from her friends, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations
Susan Rice and National Security Advisor Samantha Power, is being hailed as a decisive leader for persuading
an indecisive President Obama to use military force against Libya in order to prevent "a potential humanitarian
crisis" by Muammar Gaddafi against his own people. Who knew that feminists would go to war against anyone
but white male Republicans and Clarence Thomas?
Who's
wearing the pantsuit at the White House? In the end, the call didn't come at 3 a.m.
But the Decider in Chief who answered the phone made sure that everyone in the White House knew who wore the
pantsuit around there. And just as in the (first) Clinton presidency, the leaks began to pour out.
It was Hillary — not the former junior senator from Illinois — who forced the decision
to intervene in Libya, "according to senior administration officials speaking only on condition of anonymity"
to the New York Times.
The left
goes to war. I wonder how many liberals would've voted for Barack Obama if he had stumped the
nation with this campaign vow: "We're fighting two wars, but as president I pledge to change that policy
by ordering up a third. And I will do so by exercising the prerogatives of the imperial presidency.
George W. Bush felt it was necessary to get congressional authorization for the war in Iraq, but I will
do him one better. When I launch our third intervention, I pledge to inform the members of Congress only
when it's too late for them to do anything about it. Thank you very much!"
Obama's
Libyan Operations are Unconstitutional. The Constitution prescribes the rules about how the United
States is to enter a war, and the Obama administration has violated those rules. The administration argues
that the hostilities, because limited, do not rise to the level of "war," as the Constitution uses that word.
But that position is almost surely wrong: Founding-Era dictionaries and other sources, both legal and lay,
tell us that when the Constitution was approved, "war" consisted of any hostilities initiated by a sovereign
over opposition.
Charlie Foxtrot Over Libya.
It is impossible to understand Obama's case to enter this war, but when you hear his cabinet members and
senior congressional Democrats explain it, the impossible turns into the bizarre.
Barack
Obama, International Community Organizer. Although some are rightly concerned about the specific
constitutionality of the president's failure to seek authorization from Congress to initiate the joint attacks
on Libya, it is hard to imagine this young president, who has demonstrated little experience in governing,
would venture into military action without the benefit of the valuable insights of some of the members of
Congress who likely could have provided counsel about the very issues which are now problematic. Not to
mention the obvious fact that the Congress represents the American people, who are entitled to a debate
before such a monumental decision.
It's
no time for a 'party'. As for President Obama, what's his explanation for bombing Libya?
How can he possibly jibe his administration's use of war powers today with his own statement in 2007 that,
"The president does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a
situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation"? Answer:
He can't.
Being a leader is about
more than reading off a teleprompter. Unbeknownst to the novice commander in chief, Mr. Obama
faces a mass of contradictions that makes this conflict a hard sell.
[#1] Mr. Obama has started a war that is not a war.
[#2] Mr. Obama is using military force, but his secretary of defense says there is no vital American interest involved.
[#3] Mr. Obama sold the country and the United Nations on a no-fly zone, but coalition forces are targeting Libyan ground troops.
[#4] Mr. Obama's mandate was to protect civilian lives, but he is actively siding with the rebellion.
Obama's war on 'war':
What if they gave a war and nobody was allowed to say it? The debate over military action in Libya has
lately taken an absurd twist, driven by the Obama administration's bizarre unwillingness to call a war a war.
Everyone knows what is going on in Libya is a war, but the administration has placed a moratorium on plain English.
Obama's
missed break in Libya. Obama, who campaigned on ending Middle Eastern wars, not starting them,
wanted a war completely on his own terms. He got what he wished for.
The hypocrisy of the American left:
President Barack Obama bowed to his generals' demands by tripling troops in an unending war. CODEPINK did
nothing. Obama backed down on Guantanamo Bay. Anti-war protesters stayed at home. America
invaded its third Muslim country in a decade. The American left meekly went along. Without the
slightest hint of irony, liberals defended the president's indefensible position by returning again to a
pose of moral certainty. Democrats streamed to the floors of the House and Senate to praise the
president for invading Libya.
Barack
Obama's muddled speech leaves Libya war aims unclear. President Barack Obama delivered an
elegant speech in a setting — the National Defence University -- in which he appeared much more at
ease then he does in the Oval Office. ... The bad news is that he left Americans no clearer about how this war
ends and while speaking about American leadership tried to pretend that it was the European allies and Nato
that were going to take the weight from this point on (the reality is that the US wil continue to do the
heavy lifting).
Obama on Libya:
Look, Just Trust Me On This. On paper, I agree with a lot of what Obama is saying. But
he's stringing together a lot of pretty-sounding phrases without really getting at the questions most
skeptical Americans have: why intervene here and not in other places?
There
Is a Method to Obama's Libya Madness. [Scroll down] Obama's secretary of defense,
Robert Gates, admitted on national television Sunday [3/27/2011] that Libya poses no actual or imminent
threat to the United States and that it is not a vital national security interest. This was no gaffe.
Surely, Obama's team is not so incompetent and undisciplined that it didn't anticipate this question and
carefully prepare the answer. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton damaged the administration's credibility
even more by opining that as long as international bodies approved of America's kinetic military action, the
president didn't even need to pick up the phone to call Congress.
Obama's
Libya: Completing His Remaking of America. Obama will remain as clueless, impervious and intransigent
about the ineffectiveness of his foreign policy as he is to the proven failures of his domestic ones, and he'll
learn no lesson from any of this. In his eyes, he is remaking America for the better — and
that's the only way he's capable of seeing it.
Obama's War. In
ordering air and naval strikes on a country that neither threatened nor attacked the United States, did
President Obama commit an impeachable act? So it would seem. For the framers of the Constitution
were precise. The power to declare war is entrusted solely to Congress. From King William's War
to Queen Anne's War to King George's War to the Seven Years' War, the colonists had had their fill of royal
wars. To no principle were they more committed than that the power to declare war must be separate
from the power to wage it. And Obama usurped that power.
Lawmakers
worry about Libya's costs as $550M tab revealed. Lawmakers on Tuesday [3/29/2011] voiced concern about
paying for the Libyan military campaign as the Pentagon revealed the intervention has cost more than $550 million
to date. As U.S. forces led the way in taking out Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's air defense and communications
systems, then pounded his army units, the military "incurred added costs of about $550 million through [Monday]," a
Pentagon official told The Hill in an email.
Replacing
Principles with Coalitions. It may be that Qaddafi is removed from power by non-military means.
But if not, it is hard to see how Operation Odyssey Dawn can be judged a success. Qaddafi, having remained in power
after the president of the United States declared he "must go," would likely emerge more dangerous and predatory
than before. America's reputation will certainly be damaged.
Obama's Libyan War.
Think of all the militant anti-war types who were thrilled at the removal of the Bush "war machine" in 2008,
only to see President Obama's strained endorsement of military action in Libya. Oh, how the political
wave of the hard left has crashed ashore. It seems like only yesterday when they were celebrating Cindy
Sheehan as she flagrantly called President Bush "the biggest terrorist in the world." ... Over the last two
years, these chagrined radicals have watched in stunned disbelief while their hero Obama continued the Iraq
War wrap-up on the generals' timeline and then added more troops in Afghanistan. They listened in shock
as Team Obama announced it was reversing itself on indefinite detentions at Guantanamo. And now he's
started his very own kinetic military action.
Rangel: Obama Did
Not Have Constitutional Authority to Act Unilaterally in Libya. Following a closed briefing
for members of the House on the U.S. military operation in Libya, Democrat Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.) told
CNSNews.com that President Obama did not have the constitutional authority to use military force in Libya
without Congressional approval. Rangel added that he would "like to believe" members of Congress are
looking into whether or not the President's action is an impeachable offense.
What
is a presidential 'finding'? Barack Obama signed a secret order called a presidential 'finding',
authorising covert US government support for rebel forces seeking to oust Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, according
to reports.
Obama's Imperial
Presidency. When George W. Bush took US forces into Iraq, he received congressional
approval. But Barack Obama? He's engaged in military operations against Libya and has not
even consulted with congress. As Bruce Ackerman points out, its not like he didn't have the
time. The Libyan crisis unfolded over the course of weeks. There was not an immediate
threat to the United States.
Team Obama, world
police. President Obama's Monday night speech on the "kinetic military activity" in Libya
revealed that he has fully accepted the faddish "responsibility to protect" (R2P) rationale for military
intervention abroad. Unfortunately, this action is not just a direct attack on Libya's state
sovereignty, but also on America's.
Obama Self
Destructing Over Libya. Barack Obama barely had time to enjoy his Egypt moment before mad
dog Muammar Gaddafi threatened to kill innocent protesters in his own country. Clearly, the Libyan
debacle hit the fan before Obama had time to test which way the wind was blowing. Politico is reporting
that a new poll shows the President's approval rating dropped by 4 points since the beginning of March.
If there's no mission,
when's it accomplished? If I recall correctly, we went into Libya — or, at
any rate, over Libya — to stop the brutal Gadhafi dictatorship killing the Libyan people.
And, thanks to our efforts, a whole new mass movement of freedom-loving democrats now has the opportunity
to kill the Libyan people.
The
Attack on Libya Crossed a Very Bright Constitutional Line. The most fatal and consequential
decision a nation can make is to go to war, and the American Founders wanted that decision made by all the
representatives of the people after careful deliberation. Only when Congress has made that fateful
decision does it fall to the President as Commander in Chief to command our armed forces in that war.
The authors of the Constitution were explicit on this point.
Liberals
among fiercest Libya critics. As President Obama struggles to sell a contentious Libya
strategy to a skeptical Congress, Capitol Hill's most liberal voices have emerged as some of the fiercest
critics.
O-bomb-a. Obama, the anti-war
president who harped on America's trigger-happy ways while he was campaigning, has suddenly become
Rambo. There must be something about proximity to the Pentagon, inspecting honor guards and flying
on Marine One that changes presidents. They seem so reasonable and measured when they are running
for office.
'No
Blood for Oil' Is for Sale! "No blood for oil" was a popular slogan chanted by the left in
opposition to President George W. Bush's push to send U.S. forces into Iraq. Now that President
Obama authorized Operation Odyssey Dawn in Libya, I have been waiting to hear chants of "no blood for oil."
I am happy to report, I don't hear them. ... In fact, as NATO forces are lobbing missiles to enforce a no-fly
zone over the country with Africa's largest oil and gas reserves, the nobloodforoil.org domain name is
for sale.
Is He a Sociopathic Liar or a
Hypocrite? [Scroll down] People who pay attention to what he says note that there is not a
single promise he made as a candidate he hasn't broken. Indeed, even his oldest and staunchest allies are
complaining that he's turned his back on them. If anyone can find Code Pink and Mother Sheehan it would be
interesting to find out their views on Libya.
What a Difference a War
Can Make. Remember the arguments against President Bush's decision to invade Iraq and depose
Saddam Hussein? Those arguments aren't heard today, now that a Democrat administration has led us to
war in Libya. Oh, I know President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton don't consider the Libyan no-fly
zone a war, but it is a war. When bombs are dropping, missiles are launching, guns are firing, and people
are dying, that's a war. No question about it. Ask any Korea or Vietnam veteran to describe a
"police action."
Our Libyan 'Pickup Game'.
As we put CIA boots on the ground to find out who the rebels are and withdraw air support as they retreat, our
defense secretary describes how we're making up our policy as we go along.
Obama's
War on Libya versus the Constitution. By using the US Military to begin hostilities with a
foreign nation without a Congressional declaration of war, Barack Obama has committed a serious violation
of the Constitution. While he certainly is not the first to do so in regards to war powers, it's high
time that he becomes the last.
Air Force spending $4 million a
day for Libya war. The Air Force secretary says the service has been spending about $4 million
a day to keep 50 fighter jets and nearly 40 support aircraft in the Libya conflict, including the
cost of munitions.
The
Great Prevaricator. After committing U.S. forces to combat in Libya, the administration rehearsed
the message it would deliver to the American people 10 days later. When you tell the truth, you
don't have to practice anything.
Obama the comedian. It's
not every day, thank heavens, that Louis Farrakhan, Dennis Kucinich and I agree about anything, so imagine
my surprise when we all thought that Obama was a moron for deciding to abide by the U.N.'s wishes in Libya.
While it's true that Muammar Gaddafi is a brutal tyrant, that's par for the course in the Arab world.
In fact, the only thing I've noticed that sets him apart from the norm is that he appears to be a transvestite.
So, why the heck are we looking to depose him?
President
Obama's New Anti-American Secretary of State. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has made it clear
that she will not serve another term under President Obama. Who can blame her? She has become
the face of a fecklessly reckless administration, a pathetic press relations lackey for the worst foreign
affairs president in the history of the country.
Non-Breaking News.
What with all the budget talk, I was just wondering whether that third war — or kinetic scope-limited
whachamacallit — was still going. You remember, it was in all the papers for a couple of
days. So I guess things have gone quiet because it's all wrapped up now? Apparently not.
Was Obama Stampeded Into War?
On March 26, over a week after he ordered the strikes on Libya, hitting tanks, anti-aircraft, radar
sites, troops and Gadhafi's own compound in Tripoli, 600 miles away from Benghazi, Obama told the
nation he had acted to prevent a "bloodbath" in Benghazi.
Why Not
Go to War with Mexico Instead of Libya? I have no idea why U.S. Armed Forces are in Libya,
or why anyone would think that such a thing is a good idea. ... Did the Libyans attack us or directly
threaten our national security? Would the rebels fighting the Libyan government be an improvement
over the current government? Why are some people suggesting that we might send additional American
ground forces into Libya? Is it somehow better for U.S. Servicemen to die for Libyan "freedom" instead
of Libyans? Didn't our Founding Fathers warn us about becoming involved in foreign conflicts?
A War Gone Missing.
I'm hoping someone can help me. I left on vacation last week, and when I got back, an entire war was
missing. I've looked for it on all the major networks and cable outlets (excepting Fox News), as well
as all the major newspapers. Although I've found hints that it still exists somewhere, President Obama's
Libyan War is officially missing in action.
Nato
mission in disarray as criticisms mount. The international mission in Libya appeared to be running
out of momentum yesterday as Barack Obama admitted the situation on the ground had reached a military "stalemate"
and France conceded a new UN resolution might be necessary to oust Muammar Gaddafi from power.
Obama's
War in Libya is Illegal and Unconstitutional. What the media are missing is the fact that Obama's
war on Libya has no basis in law or the U.S. Constitution. He has decided to wage this war on his own with
the authorization of the United Nations, not the U.S. Congress. ... The President has no such "authorization"
from Congress and consultation with Congress is not sufficient under the Constitution. This announcement
followed a February 25 executive order declaring Libya "an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national
security and foreign policy of the United States," which is ludicrous on its face. Obama then declared "a
national emergency to deal with that threat." All of this happened without any critical comment from
the media.
The Libyan intervention
is not wholly legal. Is President Obama's war against the Libyan government legal? It is
arguably compliant with modern international law, because it has been authorized by the United Nations
Security Council. Nothing in international law, however, can change the United States Constitution's
procedures for when the United States can go to war — which require the consent of Congress.
Why the Libyan war is
unconstitutional. The question of the constitutionality of the Libyan effort depends on the
original public meaning of Article I, section 8 of the Constitution. Vice President (then
Senator) Joseph Biden recalled that meaning in a speech on the Senate floor on July 30, 1998. ... Biden
pointed out that only one framer, Pierce Butler of South Carolina, thought the president should have the power
to initiate war. Biden concluded that under the Constitution, the president could not use force without
prior authorization unless it was necessary to "repel a sudden attack." Presidential candidate Barack
Obama agreed in 2007.
Are We Allied to a Corpse? Of
our Libyan intervention, one thing may be safely said, and another safely predicted. When he launched
his strikes on the Libyan army and regime, Barack Obama did not think it through. And this nation is
now likely to be drawn even deeper into that war. For Moammar Gadhafi's forces not only survived the
U.S. air and missile strikes, after which we turned the air war over to NATO, his forces have since shown
themselves superior to the rebels. Without NATO, the rebels would have been routed a month ago.
During the Viet Nam war, this was called Escalation: Obama OKs use of
armed drones in Libya. President Obama has approved the use of armed drones in Libya, authorizing
U.S. airstrikes on ground forces for the first time since America turned over control of the operation to NATO
on April 4. It also is the first time that drones will be used for airstrikes since the conflict began
on March 19, although they have routinely been flying surveillance missions, Defense Secretary Robert Gates
told reporters at a Pentagon briefing Thursday [4/21/2011].
Obama's
quagmire. Opponents of the Vietnam War — that seemingly endless, inconclusive,
increasingly unpopular and ever-more-deadly and costly conflict — called it a "quagmire."
They said it was unwinnable and should never have been fought — and that America must avoid
similar future wars. Today, our real risk of "quagmire" is Libya.
U.S. Intervention In Libya Aids the Jihad.
Barack Obama has committed American lives to building an Islamic state in Libya. In making their case
for U.S. intervention in Libya, conservatives who support the action generally acknowledge that the biggest
problem with it is what may come after Gaddafi. However, they then dismiss this concern by minimizing
the presence of jihadists and Islamic supremacists among the Libyan rebels, and pointing to a U.S. intelligence
study that purportedly shows that there is no significant presence of jihadists among the rebels.
Unfortunately, that's not really true.
Obama
authorizes Predator drone strikes in Libya. Libyan rebels welcomed President Obama's deployment
of armed Predator drones and received praise from their most prominent U.S. visitor Friday [4/22/2011], as
they expressed hope that increased American support would help turn the tide in a conflict that the top
U.S. military officer acknowledged is becoming deadlocked.
Are
We Losing In Libya? When the U.S. goes to war, it must always be with crystal-clear objectives,
plus an ironclad commitment to winning. In Libya, our objectives are muddled while our resolution is
in doubt.
Unwelcome
Surprises in Libya. Is it too early to declare our intervention in Libya a failure?
More than a month after we started bombing, the insurgency has suffered a string of defeats. The
government in Tripoli suddenly looks as permanent as the Sahara. The U.S., after handing off the
combat responsibilities to other countries, got pulled back in last week to launch drone attacks.
Britain and France are sending military advisers to try to turn the rebels into a semblance of a real
army.
The Embarrassed
Superpower. When Barack Obama said he'd conduct our affairs with more humility, little did we
know he meant he'd humiliate us. He is allowing a vicious little tin-pot dictator to fight us to a
standstill in Libya without bestirring himself to do much of anything about it. His latest initiative
is to fly two unmanned drones over Libya to send a signal to Moammar Qaddafi about our seriousness. He
must have thought sending three unmanned drones — strong letter to follow — would have
been unduly harsh.
Obama orders $25
million in aid to Libyan rebels. US President Barack Obama on Tuesday formally ordered a
drawdown of $25 million in urgent, non-lethal American aid to Libyan rebels fighting Moamer Kadhafi.
President
Obama's Use of our Military Forces in Libya is Unconstitutional. The declaring of war is exclusively
given to Congress under Article I, Section 8 of our Constitution. Declaration of war is a
requirement and a duty of Congress, and it cannot change our Constitution by delegating this duty, or any
part of it, to the President. It is Congress who must consider and weigh the circumstances, and make a
decision on whether or not to engage in a war. On the other hand, I do not see where it makes any
constitutional difference whether the military action is called a war, or a police action or something else
as in the cases of the Korean, Afghan, and Iraq wars; as long as Congress gives its approval.
Bombing Libya
Without Congressional Approval. If a recent report by The New York Times is accurate, the
Obama administration is attempting to figure out a way to continue bombing Libya without the Congressional
approval required by the War Powers Resolution of 1973.
A Breathtaking Work of
Staggering Amateurishness. For weeks the administration has attempted to answer why they have involved
the United States in Libya but not Syria. And it has yet to offer a coherent explanation. What we're seeing are
the (severe) limitations of an administration that prides itself on defying traditional categories and ideologies.
Is
President Obama About to Break the Law? From the beginning of the U.S. military intervention in
Libya, the Obama administration has cited the 1973 War Powers Act as the legal basis of its ability to conduct
military activities for 60 days without first seeking a declaration of war from Congress. The military
intervention started on March 19; Congress was notified on March 21. Those 60 days expire
tomorrow [5/20/2011].
A Libyan Quagmire? The botched and
confused handling of the conflict in Libya has been a stunning example of President Obama's leadership style, and
of the media's continued determination to ignore or gloss over anything that makes him look weak, incompetent or
indecisive. What started out as a humanitarian mission to protect the civilian population of Benghazi,
Libya, soon evolved into a stalemate.
Obama's next war.
Mr. Obama is in the process of losing the two wars he inherited and making a hash of the one he initiated in
Libya. Worse, Mr. Obama is actively encouraging trends that threaten to unleash the next horrific regional
war in the Middle East — a war that may well embroil nations far beyond, including ours.
Now he tells us.
The hypocrisy is astounding. The good little liberals in Congress who challenged every deployment of
American troops since the Libyan bombing under Reagan has suddenly discovered that the War Powers Act doesn't
apply?
Has
Obama Breached His Constitutional Power in Libya? The 1973 War Powers Resolution compels
presidents to secure congressional approval within 60 days of U.S. military forces' "imminent
involvement" or "introduction" into "hostilities." U.S. operations in Libya violated that deadline on
Friday [5/20/2011]. Congressional leaders barely shrugged. The chattering class is quiet.
President Obama, a former constitutional law professor, wrote a letter late Friday denying the War Powers Act
applies to the current situation.
Excited by power, Obama ignores legal restraints.
President Obama launched a U.S. war in Libya two months ago with no congressional approval. Under the
Constitution and under the War Powers Act, which allows the president to wage defensive wars for up to
60 days without prior approval, Obama probably broke the law. Now that 60 days have passed
since the United States joined the hostilities, Obama's war is more clearly illegal. But nobody should
expect this to matter to a president with a long record of disregarding legal and constitutional limits on
presidential and federal power.
Illegal
War? Congress Doesn't Care. Remember when President Obama assured us his Libyan adventure would
be over in "days, not weeks"? To employ a Clinton-era euphemism, "That statement is no longer operative."
(Translation: I lied.) On Friday the 60-day clock ran out, leaving Obama in clear violation of
the War Powers Resolution, passed in 1973 to "fulfill the intent of the framers of the Constitution ... [and]
insure that the collective judgment of both the Congress and the President will apply to the introduction of
United States Armed Forces into hostilities."
George
Will wonders why liberals aren't 'clamoring' for Obama's impeachment. It's been 66 days
since President Barack Obama authorized military action against Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi. However,
last Friday marked an important date, signaling Congress most authorize the military action or U.S. forces will
be required to withdraw in accordance with the War Powers Resolution. But that date passed with little
fanfare, especially from a Democratic Party in Congress that was very vocal about former President George W.
Bush's incursion into Iraq.
Quagmire! Quagmire! Obama Warns of a
Long Slog in Libya. U.S. President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron warned
that military operations in Libya will be a long slog that continues until Col. Moammar Gadhafi leaves power,
a shift from the president's initial stance that the military intervention in Libya would be limited
in nature.
House
to vote next week on ending U.S. involvement in Libya. The already-contentious congressional debate
over the U.S. intervention in Libya is about to get even more heated. The House will vote next week on a
measure calling on President Obama to end U.S. military involvement in Libya, House Majority Leader Eric
Cantor's (R-Va.) office announced Friday evening [5/27/2011].
Libya: A War Fit for a
King. Remember back in your high school civics class, when you were taught about the
constitutional division of authority in matters of war? When you learned that the president has all the
powers of an emperor, and Congress has all the powers of a potted plant? Neither do I. But
the people occupying high office in Washington went to a different school. They have done their best
to prove that when it comes to using military force, neither the law nor the Constitution means a thing.
Congress
Has War Powers, Too. Which is worse: bad leadership or no leadership? That's a
question for a Congress that remains AWOL while young Americans continue to be placed in harm's way in
military missions increasingly divorced from American national interests. Like developments in
Afghanistan and Iraq that cry out for a public examination of what U.S. forces are doing overseas,
President Obama's incoherent war in Libya brings increasing urgency to the question.
Speaker
Boehner Throws Down the War Powers Act Gauntlet On Libya. House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio,
is throwing what one Republican calls "a legal and political hot potato at the President." In a
resolution to be voted on in the House tomorrow [6/3/2011], Boehner is giving the president two
weeks — until the Pentagon Appropriations bill comes up — to either: a) Ask
for authorization for the military intervention in Libya, or b) Figure out how to disengage the US from
the NATO operation in Libya.
Obama's nonwar in Libya.
The White House has finally forged a bipartisan consensus in Congress. Unfortunately for President Obama,
lawmakers are uniting in opposition to his approach to the ongoing U.S. involvement in the Libyan civil war.
Some see the operation as an ill-advised and useless military venture; others argue that Mr. Obama is
breaking the law.
House scolds Obama on Libya; dozens of
Dems join. The House harshly scolded President Barack Obama on Friday [6/3/2011] for launching
U.S. military forces against Libya without congressional approval, fiercely disputing constitutional powers
and flashing bipartisan frustration over a nearly three-month-old conflict with no end in sight.
Showdown Over
Libya. In a toughly worded resolution which the House will vote on Friday, Speaker John Boehner
(R-OH) is demanding that President Obama either seek congressional authorization to continue US involvement
in the NATO-led Libyan operation or determine the best way to withdraw from the conflict.
House
rebukes Obama on Libya mission, but does not demand withdrawal. The House on Friday [6/3/2011]
rebuked President Obama for failing "to provide Congress with a compelling rationale" for the military
campaign in Libya but stopped short of demanding he withdraw U.S. forces from the fight. By a vote of
268 to 145, the House approved a resolution that criticized Obama for not seeking congressional authorization
for the 76-day-old campaign against Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi.
Dithering and Caving. Many
knowledgeable people are now saying that Obama-Soetoro's refusal to comply with the War Powers Act is an
impeachable offense. Not among this group is the Republican "leadership" who are far too busy
deciding whether to dither or cave on the issue.
Congress must place a check on
executive war-making. The United States of America is in a constitutional crisis. Will
Congress regain the sole authority to initiate war as specified by the Constitution, or will the executive
branch continue to assume that right for itself? At issue is the war in Libya. The 1973 War
Powers Resolution (WPR) gave President Obama 60 days in which to obtain a congressional authorization
for his action in Libya. The deadline was May 20.
War-powers crisis.
Last Friday's House of Representatives vote on President Obama's Libya policy was characterized widely as
reflecting bipartisan dissatisfaction with Mr. Obama's failure to consult with Congress. There was
indeed ample Capitol Hill disagreement with his handling of Libya — for a variety of
reasons — but the real story is even more troubling.
Getting
Serious About War Powers. Whether you back military action against Libya's Moammar Gadhafi
or not, it's troubling that President Obama refuses to seek Congress' support for the conflict there.
It shows an unhealthy contempt for the law.
Obama's
Undeclared War on America. Republican US House Speaker John Boehner, and US Senate Foreign
Relations Committee ranking minority member Richard Lugar, are both obsessed with bringing President Obama
to account under the War Powers Act for his intervention in Libya. Libya is typical of Obama's
foreign policy: timid, tardy, aloof, and counterproductive. Accordingly, the outcome from
Obama's Libyan humanitarian adventure has been predictable, needlessly adding over $1 billion to the
US federal deficit while emboldening a stalemate benefitting Gaddafi, who continues to inflict civilian
casualties with impunity.
Boehner
says House could move to cut off funding for Libya. Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) on Thursday
[6/16/2011] said the Obama administration failed to answer all his questions about the U.S. mission in Libya
and raised the possibility that the House would move to cut off funding for the operation. In
response to demands from the House, the administration released a 32-page report arguing that the Libya
mission does not need congressional authorization because the U.S. military engagement there doesn't amount
to "hostilities." Boehner said that explanation doesn't fly with him.
Obama's
unauthorized war on Libya costs $9,421,000 a day. The Obama administration is spending almost
$9.5 million every single day to blow things up in Libya because the president has determined that is
in the country's national interest, this country's national interest, not Libya's. You may not
have noticed the $392,542 flowing out of the national treasury every hour, day and night, since those first
$1.5 million Tomahawks flashed from the launch tubes back on March 19. But Libya's dictator
Moammar Kadafi has.
Obama's
unconstitutional Libyan war. President Obama's decision to involve U.S. military forces in an
unconstitutional, unexplained mission in Libya has left many Americans seeking answers and action from
Congress. Why has Mr. Obama ignored the public and congressional questions regarding his actions?
Why did he thrust our American soldiers into this battle without the consent of Congress?
Obama
administration: Libya action does not require congressional approval. The Obama administration
argued Wednesday [6/15/2011] that its nearly three-month-old military involvement in Libya does not require
congressional approval because of the supporting role most U.S. forces are playing there, a position that
puts it at odds with some Republican leaders and the antiwar wing of its own party.
'Nothing More Impeachable'
Than War Without Authorization, Says Constitutional Scholar. Louis Fisher, a scholar in
residence at the Constitution Project who served for 40 years as a constitutional law expert at the
Library of Congress, says Americans and members of Congress should understand that President Barack Obama
committed a "very grave offense" against the Constitution in taking military action in Libya without
congressional authorization.
Lawmakers sue President Obama over Libya.
A bipartisan group of House members announced on Wednesday [6/15/2011] that it is filing a lawsuit charging that
President Obama made an illegal end-run around Congress when he approved U.S military action against Libya.
Why I'm
suing the Obama administration over Libya. Our Founders understood that waging war is not
something that should be taken lightly, which is why Article 1, Section 8 of the United States
Constitution gives Congress — not the president — the authority to declare war. This
was meant to be an important check on presidential power. The last thing the Founders wanted was an
out-of-control executive branch engaging in unnecessary and unpopular wars without so much as a Congressional
debate. Unfortunately, that's exactly the situation we have today in Libya.
Pelosi: Obama Doesn't
Need Congressional Authorization for Libya Action. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.)
said she is "very protective of congressional prerogative" regarding military action but believes that
President Barack Obama did not need Congress' authorization to take action against Libya and does not need
it today to continue with the operation.
Obama, the new Caesar.
President Obama has crossed the Rubicon. He now believes -- and acts -- as if he is
above the law; the Constitution no longer applies to him. This is the real meaning behind the U.S.
military intervention in Libya. Mr. Obama is abrogating the linchpin of our democracy: the rule
of law.
If there's no war, why do
troops get combat pay? The White House sent a 38-page report to Congress on Wednesday [6/15/2011]
attempting to explain why the president had the authority to continue military operations against Libya without
congressional approval as mandated under the War Powers Resolution. The Obama administration's argument
is both legally suspect and politically unfathomable.
The Hypocrisy of
Politicians. If George W. Bush were still in office, you could imagine calls for his
impeachment for rejecting the advice of the Pentagon general counsel and the head of the Justice
Department's Office of Legal Counsel, both of whom told him our intervention in Libya met the
definition of "hostilities" under the War Powers Act.
Turner:
Obama's actions in Libya violate War Act Powers. Rep. Mike Turner said last week that he is
unsatisfied with President Barack Obama's report to Congress on Libya. Obama last week asserted that
he does not need congressional authorization for the military operation in Libya. Critics, including
Turner, have said that U.S. involvement in Libya violates the 1973 War Powers Resolution, which requires
presidents to obtain Congress' authorization when inserting U.S. forces into hostilities.
Time
for government attorneys to stand up to Obama. The Left must be caught somewhere between
astonished and repulsed. Their guy has gone full Nixon, and is doing a thing in a war that W wouldn't
have dreamed of doing, which is to simply ignore the legal opinions of the Department of Justice. And
on the cherished War Powers Act no less! Imagine the reaction if George W. Bush were told "no" by
the Department of Justice on an issue of the law of war but went ahead anyway on the advice of a friendly
lawyer he found elsewhere in the government.
Obama is
flouting the War Powers Resolution. Overruling two of his senior legal advisers —
the Pentagon's general counsel and the acting head of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel —
President Obama has decided that the U.S. is not engaged in "hostilities" in Libya. Obama has
effectively nullified the War Powers Resolution (WPR), which requires the president to end hostilities
within 60 days (with another 30 days to withdraw troops) unless he has received Congress's
authorization. In the Libyan war, the deadline for receiving Congressional approval or standing down
passed on Friday [6/17/2011]. President Obama has done nothing to win Congress's approval.
Obama's
foolish legal approach to Libya. If George W. Bush had ignored the views of his Justice
Department's Office of Legal Counsel to avoid complying with the War Powers Resolution, Democrats would be
going berserk. Barack Obama, I suspect, would be going berserk.
Don't
mention Obama's war that isn't a war. Having represented himself as a dove, Obama has embraced
the position that presidents have unilateral authority to engage in low-intensity conflicts that have no
bearing whatsoever on American interests. He ignored the constitutional requirement for congressional
approval of his war, and then he ignored this week's statutory deadline for either obtaining congressional
approval or withdrawing. His position, outlined in great detail, is far more hawkish than that of
President George W. Bush, who started two wars but only after extensive consultation and bipartisan
congressional votes.
Libya testing
limits of '73 law. American unmanned aerial vehicles are making surgical strikes on Libyan
targets, and U.S. forces have expended $400 million worth of munitions in defending the rebellion
against Col. Moammar Gadhafi's forces, but the administration says that doesn't mean the country is at
war — at least not for the purposes of the 1973 War Powers Resolution.
Libya
and America's Commitment Problem. If Muammar Gadhafi is left in power, he will pick up where he
left off and finish the slaughter we said we started this war to prevent, and he'll likely return to his
international terrorist ways. The spectacle of a U.S.-NATO humiliation will echo around the region
and the world.
When Is a War
Not a War? When President Obama Says So. The expected showdown between the president and Congress
over the War Powers Act took a strange and exotic turn on Wednesday [6/15/2011] when the administration claimed
that it was not engaged in a war in Libya, and had not been involved in hostilities since April 7.
The State Department's legal advisor, Harold Koh, claimed in an interview with the New York Times that "the
limited nature of this particular mission is not the kind of 'hostilities' envisioned by the War Powers
Resolution."
Obama's
aggravation with Congress over Libya on display. Both in remarks the president made during
his address on Afghanistan Wednesday night and in comments made by senior administration officials, the
White House is losing patience with Congress.
A
New Understanding Of War Powers. Is the Libya war legal? Under the 1973 War Powers Resolution,
it is not. President Obama has exceeded the 90-day period to receive retroactive authorization from
Congress. But things are not so simple.
Whose Side Are You On,
Hillary? Our secretary of state questions the patriotism of those criticizing the
administration's Libyan policy and disregard of the War Powers Act. Remember when dissent was the
highest form of patriotism?
House rejects measure backing Libya
mission. The Republican-controlled House of Representatives delivered a mixed message on America's
role in the NATO-led Libya campaign Friday, opposing a resolution expressing support for the war while also
voting down a bill restricting American involvement in the conflict.
Liberal
Columnist Admits, Obama Could Be Impeached Over Libya. Although a liberal himself, influential
columnist Glenn Greenwald of Salon.com has been consistent in saying Barack Obama is violating the Constitution
with his undeclared war in Libya. Greenwald is interviewed by Amy Goodman, the producer of the far-Left
radio and television "news" program "Democracy Now!"
President
Obama Rejects Justice Department's War Powers Interpretation. When the White House announced
last week that it would not comply with the requirements of the War Powers Resolution because the Libya
operation does not involve "hostilities," eyebrows arched in curiosity. Many observers questioned the
administration's conclusion that America's involvement in the Libya operation no longer fit within the
statute's term "hostilities."
Anti-war
left steps up against Obama. An important 2008 campaign coalition for the president is not
happy with his actions in Libya and it could very well cost him politically in 2012.
The Man Who Would Be King.
America is in a constitutional crisis. A sitting president consistently exercises power not granted to
him by the U.S. Constitution, and he does so capriciously, defying the attempts of other branches —
given the responsibility to check the executive branch — to restrain his excess. The banks,
the manufacturing sector, the health care sector, and now the energy sector are all under the de facto
control of this determined and brazen individual. But while U.S. government involvement in the private
sector is alarming ... abuse of war-making authority is another matter entirely. The man who makes
war without the approval of elected legislators is no longer a president, but a king.
Our Lawless President?
[Scroll down] Second, Obama has chosen to flout the War Powers Act with respect to the "kinetic activity" in
Libya. The War Powers Act may be constitutionally dubious (I think so), but it is nevertheless the law of
the land, and should be obeyed or directly challenged -- not ignored or rendered inoperable by fancy faculty
room semantics.
Libya
war may be justified, but that doesn't make it legal. No one is defending Muammar Gaddafi.
As I've written here previously, Gaddafi is a despicable tyrant who deserves the justice I hope he soon
receives. But a worthy goal doesn't mean President Obama can violate the War Powers Resolution and
not be held accountable.
Lawmakers
agree Obama botched Libya action. Nearly everyone in Congress says President Obama has mishandled
the war in Libya, but that's as far as the consensus goes — members of the Senate and, in particular,
the House have struggled to find unity on ways to rein in his actions. In the lower chamber, lawmakers have
voted on at least three options: endorse the war, limit it to a true supporting role for NATO or end it
outright. None has gained a majority.
Obama and NATO Turn Libya, and a $30B Check,
Over to Jihadists. How would Americans feel if they knew the Obama administration just agreed
to hand people affiliated with a designated terrorist group a $30 billion dollar check and recognize
them as the legitimate rulers of Libya?
Obama's Libya Missteps Imperil NATO's Future.
While the outcome of NATO's intervention in Libya is still uncertain, the ongoing drift toward a negotiated
solution is fraught with potentially debilitating problems for the Western alliance. Ousting Qaddafi
remains a possibility, and could have been achieved much earlier with swift and decisive action, but the
prospects for a clear NATO victory are now quite uncertain.
Can
victory make an illegal war legal? President Obama injected the U.S. military into Libya's civil
war without ever seeking congressional approval, or leading a public debate. To square this clearly
illegal action with the law and his previous statements about presidential war powers, his lawyers (who, like
Obama, had fiercely attacked Bush's overreaches on war) argued that our air strikes in Libya did not count as
"hostilities" as defined by the law.
"Non-Hostilities" in Libya
Now Includes Boots on Ground. Barack Obama's growing legacy of high crimes and
misdemeanors now includes American military troops on the ground in the fiasco that was supposed
to last "days, not weeks" and which is now in its sixth month.
Tears for the Constitution, not
Qaddafi. It remains worth noting that President Obama started his non-war war under false pretenses.
Qaddafi was a nasty guy. But there were no civilian massacres. The entire humanitarian claim was a fraud,
a PR gloss for a slow-motion attempt at regime change which actually lengthened the Libyan civil war and made it much
more deadly. That is, the administration's policy killed more Libyans.
Flying
proudly over the birthplace of Libya's revolution, the flag of Al Qaeda. The black flag of Al Qaeda
was hoisted in Libya yesterday as Nato formally ended its military campaign. The standard fluttered from the
roof of the courthouse in Benghazi, where the country's new rulers have imposed sharia law since seizing power.
Seen as the seat of the revolution, the judicial building was used by rebel forces to establish their provisional
government and media centre.
Libya:
Flying Al Qaeda Flag, Rumored To Be Imposing Shariah Law. The UK Daily Mail is reporting that the
flag of Al Qaeda has been spotted flying above the Libyan courthouse. ... Here is the problem that most
people don't seem to want to face: revolution in many countries, even when the language is right, can
bring about a regime just as dangerous as the one previously in charge (see Revolution: French). This
problem has been painfully obvious for months.
Remember Lockerbie.
It seems BP and the Libyan government had a big oil deal going a couple of years ago, and Mr. Megrahi's presence
was urgently requested in Tripoli. He was released without further ceremony and whisked home by chartered
jet. Connections count. As for the survivors of those killed in the crash of Pan Am 103,
their opinions didn't. That's where things stood when history, aka the Arab Spring, caught up with the old
established firm of M. Gadhafi and Sons.
Obama's
Top Boners of 2011. [#2] Libya: Nothing cried hypocrisy more than Obama's decision to
start a time-limited, scope-limited kinetic military activity — whatever that is — in
Libya over European oil. Up to that point, progressives supported him.
More "Flickers" of al-Qaeda Detected In Libya.
You don't hear much about Libya in the news these days. Our beloved President shredded the War Powers Act
in order to unilaterally launch a military operation there, which lasted far, far longer than any of his original
estimates. This came to a head with the violent execution of drape-rod dictator Moammar Qaddafi, who (in my
estimation) really had it coming, and was more dangerous in his dotage than some analysts believed.
The
Top 5 Reasons Obama Must Be Removed as Commander-in-Chief. [#4] Waging War Against Libya Without
Congressional Approval: Obama's handlers dreamed up a catchy new doctrine called Responsibility to Protect (R2P),
and they were itching to try it out. ... Flagrantly flouting the War Powers Resolution, Obama spent a billion
dollars to wage an unconstitutional war. The grand result is Al Qaeda's flag waving over Benghazi and
20,000 anti-aircraft missiles missing, which will probably wind up blasting towards us.
Why
Obama's National Security Record Is Weak and Dangerous: [Scroll down] Then there's Libya,
which maintains a fragile peace. Gaddafi's brutal assault against his own people lasted a lot longer than
necessary. Many lives were lost by the time Obama made up his mind and offered the rebels assistance.
Why did he take so long? Was it because he waited until he thought the situation was politically expedient
or because public opinion had turned against him in favor of the rebels? This is yet another example of
him leading from behind.
The growing case for impeachment of Obama: Illegally conducting war against
Libya. [Scroll down] "In the case of Libya, the president had no congressional authority whatsoever," Fein said. "The whole thing is
insane. And the executive doesn't care because all the time that conflict ensues, that just means more executive power. That's exactly what the
Founding Fathers feared. "President Obama just totally flouted the whole thing and basically said through his various memos, 'I don't need congressional
authority to go to war.' That was clearly an impeachable offense. It's clearly gross usurpation of the war power. Both the Republicans and
Democrats have acquiesced in that."
Sen.
Lindsey Graham: Doing Job On Libya the Media Won't. On his MSNBC show this morning [2/21/2013], NBC's senior White House
correspondent, Chuck Todd, reported that Republican senator Lindsey Graham had been successful in his quest to see White House emails
concerning Libya. As leverage, Graham threatened to hold up the nomination of John Brennan, who's slated to take over the C.I.A., if
the emails weren't released. According to Todd, there are also memos related to Libya the GOP would like to see. Thus far, the
White House hasn't budged on those.
Gang
of Eight immigration reform fails accountability test. If conservatives should have learned anything from President Obama's
first four years in office, it is that this chief executive has no qualms about ignoring the law whenever it becomes an obstacle to his
ideological agenda, unless Congress or the federal courts force him to do otherwise. Exhibit A here is the Libyan bombing,
which Obama's own White House lawyers concluded was a "military action" requiring congressional approval under the War Powers Act.
Obama bombed Libya anyway.
How not to run a foreign policy.
In March 2011, President Obama committed the United States to action in Libya that involved roughly 100 cruise missile firings, 12 U.S. Navy ships in
the Mediterranean, and 75 U.S. Air Force and Navy aircraft including B-2 bombers. And the Libyan case involved no use of chemical warfare by Muammar
Qadhafi. Still, the president saw no reason to seek a congressional vote. This context makes his claim that he must seek a vote now, in the
Syrian case, unintelligible. It cannot be a matter of principle, or the principle would have applied to intervention in Libya as well.
Nader:
Libya mission was 'impeachable offense'. Ralph Nader on Tuesday said President Obama has
committed impeachable offenses dating back to the United States' effort in 2011 to create a no-fly zone
in Libya. Nader, who has previously called for Obama's impeachment, said Congress would not take up
articles of impeachment at the time of the Libya mission because it has "abdicated" its responsibility
in matters of war.
Unsecured Libyan Weapons
Went to Boko Haram. Add another drop of tragedy to the story of America's reluctant, no-boots-on-the-ground operation
in Libya in 2011: Weapons that were never secured after Muammar Gaddafi's ouster made their way to Boko Haram, the Islamist terrorist
organization now holding hundreds of Nigerian girls. Last May, Boko Haram staged an attack in the town of Bama, killing
55 innocents and freeing 100 prisoners.
What
Obama botched in Libya. Republicans have a potentially strong case to make against the
Obama administration's handling of Libya, as the latest political developments there underline. On
Sunday, a disputed vote in parliament led to the swearing-in of a new prime minister —
the sixth since former dictator Moammar Gaddafi was overthrown in 2011 with the help of U.S. and
NATO air forces. The new leader, an Islamist from the city of Misurata, replaced pro-Western prime
minister Ali Zeidan, who was driven out of the country this year after his government proved unable
to stop a militia from filling a tanker with stolen oil.
As Libya crumbles, Marines ready boots on the ground in
Sicily — The real Benghazi scandal. Obama attempted a drive-by war — a
quick in-and-out regime change, letting other people pick up the pieces after us. This works if
your only goal is deposing a dictator. It doesn't work if your hope is promoting stability and
peace. Libya is in bad shape, and is a breeding ground for terrorists.
Hillary
Clinton and the Decision to Intervene in Libya. Hillary Clinton has been working full-time to
control the story of her time as Secretary of State. That was the point of her clunky, largely unread
book, and the point of her awkward, gaffe-laden book tour. Clinton argues (plausibly) that she wanted
a more activist approach to Syria than that served up by her boss. She argues (implausibly) that she
wasn't really sold on the "reset" with Russia.
Libya
crumbles as the United States looks the other way. Three years after U.S. and NATO
forces helped liberate Libya from the dictatorship of Moammar Gaddafi, the country is beginning to
look a lot like another nation where an abrupt U.S. disengagement following a civil war led to
chaos: Afghanistan in the 1990s. In Libya, heavily armed militias are battling for control of
Tripoli and Benghazi as well as the international airport. The United States, France and other Western
governments involved in the 2011 military intervention have evacuated their diplomats and abandoned their
embassies. A U.N. mission that was supposed to help broker political accords also left.
Yes,
Nixon was bad but Obama is worse. No man, Nixon's critics assured us, was above the
law. For his transgressions, Richard Nixon was forced from office, evading prosecution only because
of a presidential pardon. Yet by any reasonable measure, Nixon's sins seem venal compared to those
of President Barack Obama. [...] Nixon's impeachment included the charge that he evaded Congress'
sole authority to declare war by bombing Cambodia. Yet in Libya Obama said that only he had the
inherent authority to decide what is a "war" and that no congressional approval was necessary. He
proceeded to bomb Libya, destroy its military and spend more than a billion dollars in borrowed
money in support of one side, who was not aligned with the United States, in a civil war.
50
Things Barack Obama Has Done Wrong: [#40] Barack Obama engaged in an illegal war in Libya without the
permission of Congress that helped turn that country into an unstable basket case run by radical Islamists. How bad
is it? America, Libyans and the rest of the world were better off with Muammar Gaddafi in charge. That's how bad
it is.
Libya's
chaos is Obama's shame. President Obama attacked Libya in 2011 without congressional
authority, and then shirked any responsibility to help stabilize the country after deposing its
dictator. By 2013, Libya had become a chaotic hellhole mired in a permanent war. Today it is a
new beachhead and recruiting ground for the Islamic State. Obama's illegal, ill-considered, and
immoral drive-by war in Libya ought to be a permanent stain on his presidency. The recent video of
masked ISIS killers beheading 21 Egyptian Christians in Libya deserves to be the emblem of this
president's rash foreign policy.
Hillary's
Libyan Lies: Muslim Brotherhood, Terror and Dirty Money. Hillary Clinton has only one accomplishment; the Libyan War.
Bombing Libya in support of a Muslim Brotherhood takeover was Hillary's pet project. Obama unenthusiastically signed off on a
war that he had told members of Congress "is all Secretary Clinton's matter." The Pentagon fought Hillary's illegal war every step
of the way. Both the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs opposed Hillary's plan to bomb Libya.
Hillary's
Libyan Lies: Muslim Brotherhood, Terror and Dirty Money. Hillary Clinton has only one accomplishment; the
Libyan War. Bombing Libya in support of a Muslim Brotherhood takeover was Hillary's pet project. Obama unenthusiastically
signed off on a war that he had told members of Congress "is all Secretary Clinton's matter." The Pentagon fought
Hillary's illegal war every step of the way. Both the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs opposed
Hillary's plan to bomb Libya. One of the Chairman's top aides said that he did not trust the reports coming out of the State
Department and the CIA, then controlled by Clinton loyalist Leon Panetta. When it was clear that the Clintonites had gotten
their war on, an irritated Secretary of Defense Gates resigned after failing to stop Hillary's war and was replaced by Panetta.
The Strange Case of the Missing
"Moderate" Islamists. [Scroll down] Seven months and thousands of more unnecessary deaths later, in October 2011,
after an extended military campaign with sustained Western support, Islamist rebel forces conquered the country and shot Qaddafi dead.
Many will recall Hillary Clinton, on October 20, 2011, cackling to a TV news reporter over the death of Qaddafi: "We came,
we saw, he died." According to recently-released emails, Hillary, at that time, considered the violent 2011 "regime change"
in Libya such a triumph that her aides discussed labeling it the start of a "Clinton Doctrine" and a prelude to her Presidential campaign
in 2016. Since then, Libya has been in a constant state of chaos, with factional infighting, no uniting leader and providing a
haven for ISIS and other Islamic terrorists; culminating in the September 11, 2012 attack on the US Consulate in Benghazi and the
death of four Americans.
Hillary
Clinton Owns the War in Libya (And Its Horrible Aftermath). Libya is in chaos. It's a festering pit of
radicalism, anarchy and death, epitomizing everything that can go wrong when Western intervention has no clear long-term
purpose. And a woman who believes she should be president of the United States — ostensibly on the strength
of her decision-making abilities as secretary of state — believes that what's going on in Libya is a success.
We
cannot allow Hillary Clinton, 'midwife to chaos' and a public liar, to be our next president. The public record is fairly
well-known. In March 2011, President Barack Obama declared war on Libya. He did this at the urging of Clinton, who wanted to
overthrow Libyan strongman Col. Moammar Gadhafi so she could boast of having brought "democracy" to the region. [...] Obama did his best
to avoid constitutional norms. He deployed American intelligence agents on the ground, not troops, so he could plausibly deny he had
put "boots" on the ground. He did not seek an American national consensus for war because Libya presented no threat whatsoever to the
U.S. He did not obtain a congressional declaration of war as the Constitution requires because he couldn't get one. And he did not
seek United Nations permission, which is required to attack a fellow U.N. member. Every four years, we entrust awesome power to a
person who swears to protect the Constitution. How could we give that power to a consistent public liar?
A
Tough Call on Libya That Still Haunts. [Hillary] Clinton has pointed to the international military operation as a
signature moment in her four-year tenure as the top U.S. diplomat: [...] But Libya today has deteriorated into a virtual failed
state run by hundreds of private militias. Eighteen months after the initial airstrikes, U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher
Stevens and three other Americans were killed in attacks by militants on a U.S. diplomatic post and a nearby CIA site in Benghazi.
The North African nation has become a primary outpost for the Islamic State, which has exploited the chaos to take territory, train
soldiers and prove its strength outside Syria and Iraq.
When
Will Obama Stop Blaming Republicans for His Failures? In a cover story in the latest issue of The Atlantic magazine,
President Obama offers astonishing scapegoating for his own foreign-policy disasters. According to Obama, the deterioration of the
ISIS wasteland that is now Libya was not due to improvident administration bombing followed by a hasty departure, but was largely the fault
of others.
Obama
admits that failing to plan for what would happen in Libya post-Gaddafi is his 'worst mistake as President'. As
he winds down toward the end of his eight-year term as President, Obama has been keen to trumpet all of the things he believes his
administration got right during his time at the helm. But during an interview on Fox News on Sunday [4/10/2016], Obama
took a moment to reflect on his biggest mistake while Commander in Chief. Speaking to host Chris Wallace, Obama
said: 'Probably failing to plan for the day after what I think was the right thing to do in intervening in Libya.'
Obama's Svengali.
In an interview with FOX News aired on Sunday, April 10, President Barack Obama said that failing to prepare for the
aftermath of the ousting of Libyan leader Col. Muammar Qaddafi was the worst mistake of his presidency. He added
that intervening in Libya nevertheless had been "the right thing to do." The second part of Obama's statement is
incomprehensible. The intervention was a debacle. No less than Iraq, Libya would have been better off without the
U.S. doing "the right thing." The country has descended into Hobbesian mayhem. It is today a paradigmatic "failed
state" ruled by competing militias. Today's Libya is a safe haven for thousands of battle-hardened jihadists.
Hillary's Huge Libya
Disaster. Prior to the February 17, 2011, "Day of Rage," Libya had a national budget surplus of 8.7 percent
of GDP in 2010, with oil production at 1.8 million barrels per day, on track to reach its goal of 3 million barrels
per day. Currently, oil production has decreased by over 80 percent. Following the revolution, the Libyan economy
contracted by an estimated 41.8 percent, with a national deficit of 17.1 percent GDP in 2011. Before the revolution,
Libya was a secure, prospering, secular Islamic country and a critical ally providing intelligence on terrorist activity
post-September 11, 2001. Qaddafi was no longer a threat to the United States. Yet Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton strongly advocated and succeeded in convincing the administration to support the Libyan rebels with a no-fly zone,
intended to prevent a possible humanitarian disaster that turned quickly into all-out war.
Forget
Trump, Here Are Five Reasons Why Obama Should Have Been Impeached. [#3] The illegal war in Libya: Democrats
often tried to paint the War in Iraq as an illegal war, despite the fact that Congress approved of it, and used that as a basis
for calling for George W. Bush's impeachment. But, when Obama didn't even go to Congress to start a war in Libya, you
didn't hear any such calls. Even if you forget the disaster that became of Obama's war in Libya, what seems to be forgotten
is that we never should have been there in the first place. Obama knew Congress was not going to approve of military action
in Libya, so instead of going to them for an official declaration of war, he went to the United Nations to get authorization to
remove Muammar Gadhafi from power — bypassing Congress's authority, and as The Washington Times put it, "dilut[ed] the
sovereign power of the United States." Obama's illegal war in Libya proved to be a total disaster. The killing of
Gaddafi ultimately led to the destabilizing of the country, enabling ISIS to expand their territory there.
So, how'd a Libyan
rebel commander get US Anti-Tank missiles? You may recall back in 2011 as Barack Obama was heading out of the
White House one day to take his mother-in-law along on a South American tour, he dropped the news that oh, by the way, he'd
ordered U.S. air forces to help European allies oust Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi. He launched this multi-month
offensive without congressional approval. Gadhafi's crime (actually, it hadn't happened yet) was he threatened
to shoot civilians if some rebels did not stop fighting. Obama's proclaimed cover story was a civilized world could not
abide such potential threatened violence. Obama's professed concern for innocent civilians went poof! soon
after, as more than 400,000 Syrian civilians were actually killed by government and Russian bombs, guns and chemical
weapons ruthlessly putting down a civil war there. Remember Obama's red line over Syria's chemical weapons? He
threatened military action, but then declared he couldn't really do such a thing without the congressional approval he didn't
care about in 2011.
Liberals
Still Think Obama Was the 'Best President Ever,' Here Are 14 Reasons Why That's Ridiculous. [#7] He started an
illegal war in Libya. Democrats often tried to paint the War in Iraq as an illegal war, despite the fact that Congress
approved of it, and used that as a basis for calling for George W. Bush's impeachment. But, when Obama didn't even go
to Congress to start a war in Libya, you didn't hear any such calls. Even if you forget the disaster that became of
Obama's war in Libya, what seems to be forgotten is that we never should have been there in the first place. Obama knew
Congress was not going to approve of military action in Libya, so instead of going to them for an official declaration of
war, he went to the United Nations to get authorization to remove Muammar Gadhafi from power — bypassing
Congress's authority, and as The Washington Times put it, "dilut[ed] the sovereign power of the United States."
Ten
Reasons a Post-Presidency Impeachment of Barack Obama Should Happen. Democrats often tried to paint the War in
Iraq as an illegal war, despite the fact that Congress approved of it, and used that as a basis for calling for George W.
Bush's impeachment. But, when Obama didn't even go to Congress to start a war in Libya, you didn't hear any such
calls. Even if you forget the disaster that became of Obama's war in Libya, what seems to be forgotten is that we never
should have been there in the first place. Obama knew Congress was not going to approve of military action in Libya, so
instead of going to them for an official declaration of war, he went to the United Nations to get authorization to remove
Muammar Gadhafi from power — bypassing Congress's authority, and as The Washington Times put it, "dilut[ed] the
sovereign power of the United States." Obama's illegal war in Libya proved to be a total disaster. The killing of
Gaddafi ultimately led to the destabilizing of the country, enabling ISIS to expand its territory there.
America's
First Black President Left A Legacy Of Slavery. In 2011, egged on by Secretary of
State Hillary Clinton and a handful of other advisors, Obama ordered a months-long series of air
strikes that facilitated a NATO-backed regime change campaign that toppled Libyan leader Muammar
Gaddafi. Rather than ushering in liberal democracy and prosperity, the ouster of Gaddafi left
the country fractured, with two rival governments and various militias vying for power.
Obama's regime change marked the start of an ongoing era of chaos, with some of the greatest
resulting evils inflicted on black Africans. Those evils began during the war, as racism and
Gaddafi's use of sub-Saharan black mercenaries combined to spark widespread atrocities perpetrated
against blacks who were seen as fair game for various atrocities including beatings, rapes and lynchings.
The War in Yemen
After the attack on the USS Cole, I have to admit I'm not greatly concerned about bad things
happening to Yemen. Nevertheless, this is starting to look like another undeclared war.
Haven't we had enough of those already?
Our secret war in
Yemen. The extent of America's war in Yemen has been among the Obama administration's most
closely guarded secrets, as officials worried that news of unilateral American operations could undermine
Mr. Saleh's tenuous grip on power. Mr. Saleh authorized American missions in Yemen in 2009, but placed
limits on their scope and has said publicly that all military operations had been conducted by his own
troops.
America's Looming Quagmire in
Yemen. The Obama administration is risking a fourth war in the Muslim world, escalating covert
air attacks in Yemen. The danger of being trapped in an endless, costly, bloody quagmire should worry
every American. The political dynamics of Yemen are poorly understood, and the administration risks
being manipulated and exploited by forces it at best dimly comprehends.
Obama Fumbles Yemen. By thwarting
regime change in Yemen, the United States risks empowering al-Qaeda and alienating a nation.
Obama's
escalating war in Yemen. The Obama administration has in recent months intensified its bombing
campaign in the unstable Gulf nation of Yemen, where Islamic militants have been the target of U.S. airstrikes
for several years. Just this month, a U.S. drone strike against militants in southern Yemen reportedly
killed at least 50 people — many of them civilians.
"The President does
not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that
does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation."
— Senator Barack Obama, Dec. 20, 2007 in an interview interview with the Boston Globe
Sources:
[1]
[2]
Barack Obama's proposed mini-war in Syria
The proposed Syrian mini-war is a red herring to divert the attention of the press from Mr. Obama's numerous other scandals. Mr. Obama wants to
start another war so he can be immune from criticism — "while the nation is at war," who would dare to bicker with The Commander In Chief about
such trivial matters as Fast and Furious, Solyndra, Benghazi, unemployment, Obamacare exploding on the launch pad, impeachment, gun control,
or a Photoshopped birth certificate?
Reductio ad Obama. Obama loves to speak in
the first-person singular; he seems oblivious to the obnoxiousness of his habitual references (including one in today's press conference) to "my
military." But suddenly it's a matter of whether we mean what we say.
Lingering doubts over Syria gas attack evidence.
The U.S. government insists it has the intelligence to prove it, but the American public has yet to see a single piece of concrete evidence — no satellite imagery, no
transcripts of Syrian military communications — connecting the government of President Bashar Assad to the alleged chemical weapons attack last month that killed
hundreds of people.
The Most Embarrassing President of My Lifetime.
Obama is a symbol of much of today's generation, which accepts no responsibility for anything. Therefore, when something
goes wrong among his cockamamie plans, it must be someone else's fault. Usually, of course, it would be George Bush's fault,
but even Obama couldn't bring himself to tell that one again, not in this case. No, this time it's the whole world's fault.
And Congress. And America. It's American credibility that will suffer, he told the world, not his. Unbelievable.
If It Wasn't
Syria, It Would Have Been Something Else. It is very possible that the president will not obtain a join authorization to bomb Syria;
if he chooses to go ahead and attack anyway, Obama will incite a constitutional crisis — the first time in history that a president has decided
to go to war against the declared wishes of Congress. The public and the courts will adjudicate the legality of that act, and it would be
contentious. So the corner that Obama has painted himself into is now inescapable.
The "Assad v. al-Qaeda" narrative may not
be what it appears. There are very good arguments against intervention in Syria, even if I disagree with the conclusions reached from those
arguments. I haven't denigrated those who disagree, although I can't say the same is true in reverse. Unfortunately, regardless of how you
come out on the issue, many people are buying into a media narrative which seeks to minimize the brutality of the Assad regime and the threat it poses,
and to create a false choice of "Assad v. al-Qaeda."
Why can't the community organizer
organize a community? As you may recall, much of Senator Obama's message in 2008 was about international coalitions. He mocked
President Bush for "going at it alone." I guess that 40-something countries in Iraq was not a big enough coalition. Or, having UK,
Canadian and other NATO soldiers take bullets in Afghanistan was not enough either. Today, President Obama stands alone in the world.
He can't even get the UK in Syria. He has found some "moral support" but no one is offering airplanes or missiles.
Dear
Obama, It's Time to Return Your Nobel Peace Prize. Here's Why. The U.S. should not attack another country because the president
was careless with his words and now wants to protect his personal credibility. But we don't even need to look at Syria to conclude that
the decent thing would be for Obama to return the prize that he never deserved in the first place.
Obama's Grassroots Army 'Missing in
Action' on Syria. Organizing for Action, Obama's famed campaign apparatus turned independent advocacy group with millions of members,
has been conspicuously silent in the debate over Syria. The group's aggressive social media machine, which in the past has used info-graphics,
web videos and online petition drives to educate its supporters and rally the ranks, is nowhere to be found.
Gambling With the Presidency.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to a foreign policy fiasco. All along, it's been clear that President Obama has nothing but bad options in Syria's
civil war. Now, though, he's found a way to put Congress in a similarly unfortunate position.
Benghazi
haunting Obama effort to win support for Syria strike. The first anniversary of the Benghazi, Libya terror attack is making it more difficult for President
Obama to win support for a military strike against Syria. Tea Party lawmakers say the Obama administration lacks credibility on Syria because of the Benghazi attack.
Operation Cockamamie: The Damascus Follies.
The will and the competence of the administration are now major international question marks. U.N. Ambassador Samantha Power's naïvité is startling.
Apparently she believed that the Iranians and Russians would join with us, the former because they once were victims of gas attacks. Obviously no one in the
administration considered this public announcement of stupidity remarkable enough to distance the administration from it.
Barack
Obama's delusions of grandeur: compares Syria intervention to fighting World War Two. A key part of President Obama's press conference in St. Petersburg
last Friday went largely under the radar in the US media — his bizarre analogy between the crisis in Syria, and the London Blitz. Obama attempted to draw
a comparison between America's hesitancy to enter World War Two in 1940 and 1941, to widespread scepticism over a military intervention in Syria over 70 years later.
Obama returns from G20 for a round of Syria
strike phone pitches — and golf. Between phone calls urging lawmakers to authorize a military attack against Syria, President Obama went golfing Saturday.
Mr. Obama played a round of golf with three White House aides at Andrews Air Force Base in suburban Maryland. As his motorcade left the White House grounds near the South
Lawn en route to the golf course shortly before 1 p.m., anti-war protesters demonstrated outside the fence on the north side of the White House.
U.S. Amb. to U.N.: Time to Act Outside Legal Framework.
The NPR host asked, "Let me ask a central question for you, because you're representing the U.S. at the United Nations, which has not authorized a strike. Would an
American strike on Syria be legal?" "If we take military action in this context, it will be a legitimate, necessary, and proportionate response to this large scale
and indiscriminate use of chemical weapons by the regime," said Power.
The Editor says...
If you have the time and the inclination to pick through and parse Samantha Power's evasive answers, you are more patient than I.
W.H. Sends Out Rice, Who Misled on Benghazi, to Make Case
for Syria. Susan Rice famously blamed the Benghazi terror attack that took the lives of four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens, on an Internet video.
She further said the terror attack occurred after a spontaneous protest over that anti-Muslim film got out of hand, instead of blaming the al Qaeda backed terrorists responsible
for the murders. [...] But today, Rice will be called upon again to make a public case for the White House — this time, she'll be talking about Syria. Except
now Rice is the national security adviser, a promotion she received in the last year.
Obama using al-Qaeda YouTubes to go to war in Syria. The 13 graphic Syrian videos were shown
to the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday, according to the panel's website, which says they "explicitly claim to show victims of a chemical or poison gas attack." [...] A
cursory Canada Free Press (CFP) check indicates that Videos 2 and 7, presented under two different embedded logos, are identified as originating from two separate
locations, Eastern Ghouta and Kafir Batna. Both videos appear to show the same person, a bearded, thin man dressed in a white singlet and white track pants with a dark
blue/black stripe down the side.
The Editor says...
Wow — that was the unluckiest man in Syria! Or else the whole thing is a scam.
Susan Rice: Syria Violated Obama's 'Red Line' in March.
In August, 2012, President Barack Obama declared that the movement or use of chemical weapons in Syria represented a "red line" which would alter America's response
to that country's civil war. In June, 2013, the White House confirmed that the "red line" had been crossed, prompting the president to pledge American support
for the Syrian rebels. On Monday, in the wake of a massive chemical attack on civilians in Syria, National Security Advisor Susan Rice revealed that the White
House confirmed the Syrian regime used chemical weapon as early as March.
The Editor says...
Wait a minute — Obama says he didn't set a red line.
Now What? Everyone can agree that Obama's handling of the crisis has
been puerile, and that there now are only the proverbial bad and worse options — the result being not whether the U.S. loses credibility, but only how much and
for how long. So what comes next?
John Kerry under fire for 'unbelievably small' comment.
As President Barack Obama kicks off an all-out push for a strike on Syria, Secretary of State John Kerry came under fire on Monday for saying any attack would be "unbelievably
small" and suggesting the Syrian ruler still had a week to give up his chemical weapons to avoid a U.S. assault — a remark Kerry's spokeswoman later attempted to clarify.
Obama's Syria Blunder. With his solitary, last-minute decision to ask Congress
for authorization in advance for any military strikes on Syria — taken against the advice of his senior advisors — President Obama has set himself up for
the biggest failure of his presidency, one that could haunt the United States for years to come.
Critics see contradictions in Obama administration's Syria
claims. The planned military strikes on Syria would be "targeted, limited" and wouldn't seek to topple the government of President Bashar Assad or even force it to
peace talks. They would also be punishing and "consequential" and would so scare Assad that he would never use chemical weapons again. U.S. airstrikes would change the
momentum on the battlefield of the Syrian civil war. But the war will grind on, unchanged, perhaps for years.
The president thinks you're stupid. Americans, he said,
should get to speak about this burning issue, "And that's why I've made a second decision" he said, announcing he'd go to Congress for approval. He's "ready to act!" to
face down this immediate threat to America, he declared. Then, he and Joseph R. Biden headed to the links for a five-hour round of golf. That's right, they went
golfing. The buck, apparently, stops with Congress, freeing up America's top leaders for a little R&R.
Cornel West: It's "Grounds For Impeachment" If Obama Bombs Syria Without
Congressional Approval. One of President Obama's most prominent critics on the black left said Sunday [9/8/2013] that a strike on Syria in the face of congressional
disapproval would be "dictatorial" — and grounds for impeachment. "It doesn't make sense to commit more war crimes," Cornel West said Sunday on the syndicated
radio show Smiley and West, to an approving response from host Tavis Smiley, who has also been consistently critical of Obama.
Why Obama is Floundering. The sheer ineptitude of President Obama's
handling of his Syria red line has made jaws drop all across the political spectrum. [...] With Russian warships assembling off Syria, his apparently off-the-cuff
ultimatum is proving to be a historic blunder, not a matter of failing to be a superman. Barack Obama now finds that the items in his toolbox that got him to
the Oval Office no longer work. Take oratory, for example. Presidential speeches are, as Brit Hume observed on Fox News Sunday, a "depreciating asset" whose
effectiveness diminishes with use.
U.S. Spent $1,010,354,195 on Syrian
Humanitarian Aid 2012-2013. USAID, which was created by President John F. Kennedy, is the federal government's primary agency in charge of
distributing civilian foreign aid. Last month, President Barack Obama pledged $195 million in additional humanitarian support to Syrians affected by
the country's civil war, tipping U.S. taxpayer spending over the $1 billion threshold.
US: Proven link of Assad to gas attack lacking.
The White House asserted Sunday that a "common-sense test" dictates the Syrian government is responsible for a chemical weapons attack that President Barack Obama says demands a
U.S. military response.
Syria chemical weapons attack not ordered by Assad, says German press.
President Bashar al-Assad did not personally order last month's chemical weapons attack near Damascus that has triggered calls for US military intervention, and blocked numerous
requests from his military commanders to use chemical weapons against regime opponents in recent months, a German newspaper has reported, citing unidentified, high-level
national security sources.
Obama's New World Disorder. Americans have learned that the world is a more dangerous
place under the leadership of our Nobel Peace Prize winner, who never seemed to learn that peace is best achieved though strength.
Obama's Successful Foreign Failure. It is entirely understandable
that Barack Obama's way of dealing with Syria in recent weeks should have elicited responses ranging from puzzlement to disgust. Even members of his own party are
despairingly echoing in private the public denunciations of him as "incompetent," "bungling," "feckless," "amateurish" and "in over his head" coming from his political
opponents on the right.
Re-election trumps principle every time. Harman: Congress 'Wants This to Pass, They Just
Don't Want to Vote for It'. Former Democratic representative Jane Harman said she believes both Republicans' and Democrats' concerns about primary challengers are
persuading them to not support military intervention in Syria. "These folks think their reelection, in my view, matters more than perhaps taking a principled stand," said
Harman, who is currently president of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, on Meet the Press this morning. "They want this to pass, they just don't want
to vote for it."
Obama Got Played by Putin and Assad.
This, apparently, is how diplomacy happens these days: Someone makes an off-hand remark at a press conference and triggers an international chain
reaction that turns an already chaotic and complex situation completely on its head, and gives everyone a sense that, perhaps, this is the light at
the end of the indecision tunnel.
Russia call for Syria to give up chemical arms 'may be a
ruse'. David Cameron last night called for a "cautious" response to a surprise Russian plan for Syria's chemical weapons to be put under international control.
Kremlin chiefs yesterday [9/9/2013] put forward the initiative in a bid to avert a US attack on Syria.
Putin is the one who really deserves that
Nobel Peace Prize. In one of the most deft diplomatic maneuvers of all time, Russia's President Putin has saved the world from near-certain disaster.
He did so without the egoistical but incompetent American president, or his earnest but clueless Secretary of State, even realizing they had been offered a way out of the
mess they'd created.
Intelligence Insider Speaks on the Record About False Flags and Government Lies.
Despite a nearly unanimous consensus of the American people against military action in Syria, elements of our government are determined to override the will of
the people and push us headlong into war in Syria, which will lead to a much greater conflagration than most are willing to believe or imagine.
Limbaugh Compiles Round-Up of Media
Celebrating Obama's 'Genius' Embrace of Kerry's Gaffe. Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh tore into the media on Tuesday and accused them of malpractice
in their reporting of how the so-called Russian proposal to impose a diplomatic solution on Syria. Limbaugh played a montage of clips of members of the media celebrating
the "genius" of President Barack Obama for embracing a misstatement by Sec. John Kerry and making it the centerpiece of American policy towards that country's civil war.
"Turns out, this was the plan all along — at least what the media wants us to believe," Limbaugh said of the Russian solution. "This is journalistic malpractice."
Putin Didn't Save Obama, He Beat Him.
Maybe Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin really did discuss the idea of putting Syrian chemical weapons under international control last week on the sidelines
of the G20 conference. Putin sure doesn't care that Obama's taking credit for the proposal, or that the administration is posturing like a Mob enforcer.
"The only reason why we are seeing this proposal," said White House spokesman Jay Carney, "is because of the U.S. threat of military action."
Climbdown complete — Obama agrees to UN
debate on Putin plan. Just a day ago, Barack Obama planned to lay out his case for taking military action against Syria in a prime-time address this evening.
Instead, he'll have to explain why he's suddenly interested in the United Nations track, which his administration disparaged just last week as "hocus pocus" and "paralyzed."
Kerry now claims credit for Syria weapons
proposal. Secretary of State John Kerry's seemingly casual proposal for the Assad regime to turn over its chemical weapons has within 24 hours become the
de facto policy of the Obama administration, and is now being heralded by Kerry as the "ideal way" to defuse the stand-off between the United States and Syria.
But a look at the administration's statements shows that the plan has undergone an incredible evolution.
The United States of weakness. Red lines that may or may not be real,
retaliatory strikes that may or may not be hours from launch, congressional debates that may or may not be necessary for the president to do what he wants — whatever
that happens to be this hour. Barack Obama's unsteady handling of the Syria crisis has been an avert-your-gaze moment in the history of the modern presidency —
highlighting his unsettled views and unattractive options in a way that has caused his enemies to cackle and supporters to cringe.
Spin Cycle: Russia Deal Came About Because of
Obama's Extraordinary Threats. White House press secretary Jay Carney said President Obama will move forward with a Syria strike pitch to the American people
tonight despite a delayed Senate vote after Russia announced a plan to secure Bashar al-Assad's chemical weapons. Carney said the administration views the deal brokered
by Assad's main arms supplier as "potentially a positive development."
McConnell chides Obama as 'reluctant commander-in-chief' on
Syria. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) came out against using U.S. military force in Syria Tuesday, criticizing the way President Obama has handled
the situation. "No one should be faulted for being skeptical about this proposal, regardless of what party they're in, or for being dumfounded at the ham-handed manner
in which the White House announced it," McConnell said on the Senate floor.
This plan to rid Syria of chemical
weapons is a cardboard proposal. Is President Obama looking for a fig-leaf that would allow him to retreat from his threat of military action?
Or, on the contrary, is he trying to build the case for striking Syria's regime by demonstrating that he went the extra mile, ran down every avenue and exhausted
every proposal, however unlikely, to avoid war?
In Syria, Putin's the Player and Obama's the Playee.
President Barack Obama has become a comic figure on the world stage, a laughingstock unable to keep his story straight, while his principal rival seizes the initiative in
Syria. So desperate is Obama for a face-saving retreat from his ultimatum on Syrian chemical weapons that he will concede the really important issues to Russia, Syria
and Iran. And being Obama, he will portray his retreat as a great diplomatic victory, and his media claque will sell the story to the low information voting public.
Russia and Syria double-team Obama in nifty PR
peace move. Monday's [9/9/2013] flurry of international events about President Obama's threat to attack Syria showed a) how amateurishly ad hoc is
Obama's attempt to save face over his idle red line threat from a year ago and b) how cleverly adept and swift Russian President Vladimir Putin and Syria's Bashar Assad
are in manipulating news media in the guerrilla combat for world public opinion.
The Amateur's War. Syria would be Obama's fourth war, but it might as well be his first
war. The amateur has an impressive war machine that can level entire countries, but not the understanding of how to use it. Obama has reportedly flipped through
50 war plans for Syria, but he hasn't been able to provide one sensible reason why the attack should happen. His rationalizations and justifications never stop shifting.
If you don't like one excuse, wait a bit and another one will come along.
Susan
Rice returns to CIA talking points. The [Benghazi] backlash poisoned her relationship with Republicans in Congress and dashed her chances of becoming secretary of
state. President Obama instead named her national security adviser, which didn't require Senate confirmation. Now there is another crisis. Obama needs
congressional support for a military strike on Syria, because a "no" vote could cripple his presidency and damage American credibility. So what do the big brains in
the White House do? They put Susan Rice in front of TV cameras to read CIA talking points.
Russia's plan to disarm Syria is a massive red
herring. Having set his arbitrary red lines for military intervention in Syria's civil war — namely the use of banned weapons by the Assad regime —
the American president now finds himself in a desperate scramble to avoid following through on his commitment. As a result, no one at the White House is prepared to
give Moscow's offer the sober assessment it deserves and expose it as an utterly futile gesture.
Syria, chemical weapons, and the
worst day in Western diplomatic history. Monday 9 September, 2013, was the worst day for US and wider Western diplomacy since records began. [...] There is no precedent
for attempting anything like this in a country wracked by civil war. It just can't happen. No Syrian chemical weapons will be destroyed or "handed over" quickly.
Carney Does Not Think Kerry Misspoke
When He Called Potential Attack on Syria 'Unbelievably Small'. White House Press Secretary Jay Carney defended Secretary of State John Kerry's remarks in which he
characterized a potential U.S. attack on Syria as "unbelievably small" Monday in the White House press conference. Carney said Kerry's use of the "unbelievably small"
measurement was actually in comparison to America's military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Syria: Barack Obama hands the world to Vladimir Putin.
Thanks to an ironic aside from John Kerry (obviously uttered with little thought that it could be taken seriously) to the effect that in the wildly unlikely event that Assad
should hand over all his chemical weapons Syria could escape American attack, the US president has jumped gleefully off the hook. The congressional deliberations over
military action can now be put on an even more leisurely schedule than they would have been while we all wait and see if that great world statesman, Mr Putin, can bring
peace to the region.
Kerry: Turn Over Your Chemical
Weapons Now or Face ... "Unbelievably Small" Consequences. Secretary of State John Kerry's case for a U.S. strike in Syria seems to rest on two assumptions.
One, that it is a crucial test for U.S. national security and the values of the civilized world comparable to the rise of Nazi Germany. Two, that it's not really a big deal.
Going to War with the Blind General of Benghazi (An Apology).
Any administration that could have the temerity to send the nauseating serial Benghazi prevaricator Susan Rice, on the anniversary of that event yet, to explain to
Congress why our representatives should approve a strike on Syria not only should NOT get the aforesaid approval, they should be forbidden approval for anything more
significant than the choice of wallpaper in the White House rest rooms — and even that I'm not so sure.
Can't Anyone Here Play This Game? Having insisted for the past two weeks that
military strikes are the only appropriate response to the Syrian regime's use of chemical weapons against its own people, the Obama administration muddled its
message today by entertaining the possibility of a non-military solution to the crisis.
Obama's Farce. Obama, as senator and presidential candidate,
made the serial argument that U.S. military interventions, barring an "imminent threat" to our national security, are both illegal and immoral unless they have the triad
of U.S. congressional support, U.N. approval, and American public support. In the present circumstances, to make the argument for attacking Syria he must assume
that congressional authorization is an eleventh-hour afterthought and not necessarily binding, that the U.N. is mostly hocus-pocus and not worth the bother, and that
overwhelming public opposition does not matter.
Obama's war with no name. The passive is never the voice of a
leader. What plain folk asked to go to war crave is plain speech delivered with passion, a leader who says what he means, means what he says, and says on Tuesday what
he said on Monday. That's not the style in Washington. Terrorism becomes "overseas contingency operations," murder is "workplace violence" and "war" is
merely an "action."
Kerry's killer gaffes. Now that John Kerry is the secretary of state, his gaffes can
launch major diplomatic initiatives. A reporter in London asked what Syrian President Bashar al-Assad could do to avoid war. Kerry responded:
"He could turn over every single bit of his chemical weapons to the international community in the next week — turn it over, all of it without delay
and allow the full and total accounting. But he isn't about to do it, and it can't be done." The State Department quickly noted that the secretary
was merely making a rhetorical point. But the Russians immediately embraced the Kerry flourish as a serious proposal. It was "welcomed" by
Damascus and spoken of warmly by the UN secretary-general and the British and French governments.
Another Fine Mess. Putin looks to be inside the Administration's OODA loop.
Once he saw Obama commit his prestige to defending a self-inflicted Red Line, he painted a decoy target and then promptly erased it after first watching the President marshal
his entire stock of political capital to engage it. And now there's another target all glittering in the radar return: the offer to withdraw the chemical weapons.
The Bed Barack Obama and John Kerry Made. So much for John
Kerry's "global test," circa 2004. So much for Barack Obama slamming the Bush administration for dismissing "European reservations about the wisdom and necessity
of the Iraq war," circa 2007. So much for belittling foreign leaders who side with the administration as "poodles." So much for the U.N. stamp of legitimacy.
So much for the "lie/die" rhyme popular with Democrats when they were accusing George W. Bush of fiddling with the WMD intelligence.
Why I'll
vote no on Syria strike. The president insists on using a military option, which I oppose for three reasons: First, Assad's actions, however
deplorable, are not a direct threat to U.S. national security. Many bad actors on the world stage have, tragically, oppressed and killed their citizens, even
using chemical weapons to do so. Unilaterally avenging humanitarian disaster, however, is well outside the traditional scope of U.S. military action.
Second, just because Assad is a murderous thug does not mean that the rebels opposing him are necessarily better. [...] Third, the potential for escalation is immense.
Obama is a laughing stock.
Remember that dumb cowboy George W. Bush, who alienated all our allies and dragged us into wars of choice in the Mideast? And remember that goofball
Mitt Romney, whom Joe Biden a year ago accused of wanting to go to war in Syria? Both of them must be having a big laugh over the way things are
going for Obama now.
Syria Can Shoot Back, Mr. President.
As a Chinese warship joins Russian ships in the Mediterranean, we should remember a cruise missile attack on an Israeli warship. President Obama should understand that
Syria and Hezbollah have missiles, too.
Obama's Proposed Attack On Syria
Shrinks And Shrinks. Secretary of State John Kerry, the face President Obama obviously wants defending an increasingly indefensible non-strategy, vowed Monday,
"We're not going to war. We will not have people at risk in that way." We will have "a very limited, very targeted, very short-term effort," an "unbelievably
small, limited kind of effort." We're talking small here, folks. As in "don't lose any sleep over it, Bashar."
Obama's Syria Debacle Inflicts Historic Damage on
America. Max Boot does an excellent job explaining why the new Russian proposal on removing chemical weapons from Syria is almost certainly a mirage.
Not surprisingly, however, President Obama is eager to embrace it. After all, doing so will avoid Congress rejecting his request to use military strikes against
Syria — and the de facto collapse of his presidency. But this will come at quite a high cost. Russia is now establishing itself as the
preeminent power in the region, having displaced the United States.
Barack Obama's Sad Sausage-Making Foreign Policy.
Is this an Abbott and Costello comedy routine? A Peter Sellers movie about an inept political leader? Presidents are elected to make tough decisions,
particularly when it comes to matters of foreign policy. President Barack Obama seems to be looking for a way not to be "the Decider." If Syria's act
was as heinous as the president and the secretary of state said it was, then Obama should have acted one way. If it wasn't so heinous, he should have acted
another way (and not have drawn a red line initially). How about picking one and staying consistent?
President Obama Finds the Limits of His Powers of
Persuasion. In a debate that's brought strange bedfellows, this is hard to top: President Obama is now hoping that Vladimir Putin saves him from his own
Congress. The president tonight offered virtually no new arguments and little fresh urgency in his push to confront Syria over chemical weapons. The only
short-term option is the one supplied by the Russians, in a dizzying series of events that brought quick recalculations on the part of the White House.
There's Almost No Chance
Russia's Plan for Syria's Chemical Weapons Will Work. Russia's proposal for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to place his chemical weapons under international
supervision and then destroy them is quickly gaining steam. Assad's government accepted the plan this morning. A few hours later, President Obama, British Prime
Minister David Cameron and French President Francois Hollande announced that they'd seriously explore the proposal. It already has the backing of United Nations
Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and a growing number of influential lawmakers from both parties. There's just one problem: the plan would be nearly impossible
to actually carry out.
Obama Rescues Assad.
What could be worse for America's standing in the world than a Congress refusing to support a President's proposal for military
action against a rogue regime that used WMD? Here's one idea: A U.S. President letting that rogue be rescued from military
punishment by the country that has protected the rogue all along. That's where President Obama now finds himself on Syria [...]
Syria Tells You Everything You Need to Know
About Barack Obama. The good news is we're not at war. The bad news is ... almost everything else about President Obama's handling of Syria —
the fumbling and flip-flopping and marble-mouthing — undercut his credibility, and possibly with it his ability to lead the nation and world. As he addressed
a global audience Tuesday night, liberal elites blindly accepted White House fiction that Russian intervention this week was somehow part of Obama's master plan.
Obama's Diplomatic Acrobatics. The Obama
administration's diplomatic acrobatics over Syria of the past three weeks prove that the president and his team are in way over their heads, amateurs in the
deadly game of war and peace. (One wonders if Valerie Jarrett is making the key decisions in this instance, as in so many others.) Lurching from
self-imposed trap (the "red line" statement) to self-inflicted crisis (the need for congressional approval), the administration erodes the credibility of the
U.S. government and increases the dangers facing Americans.
Concerns as US waits for Russia to call next
move in Syria crisis. President Obama and members of Congress suddenly find themselves waiting on the gadfly of the world stage to call their next move in
America's foreign policy — Vladimir Putin, who until now was derided as the obstacle to an international solution on the Syria crisis. The head-spinning turn
of events has many lawmakers worried, openly voicing concern that the Russians are in control, and that they and the Assad regime are not the most trustworthy deal makers.
Israeli media: Obama's the loser.
The Arab media has been butchering President Barack Obama's image in the Middle East, portraying him as weak, lacking leadership, and scheming for
American domination. But he's not faring much better in the United States' closest ally in the region — Israel. A review of
Israeli media by POLITICO shows a few clear story lines: Vladimir Putin has outplayed the president; Iran is strengthened; and Obama is a weak
leader that Israel may no longer be able to count on to help stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons.
Obama calls for hold on his Syria attack that
Americans didn't want anyway. Obama tried to make the best of it in his speech, which was a good one as a start educating Americans. But it was at least
six months tardy to convince anyone now. And prime-time presidential addresses are supposed to be important. This one ended up being an announcement that
Obama was asking Congress to stop doing what he had just asked it to do, even though he maintains he didn't really need to, but he's still really serious because gas
attacks are awful.
Is the White House lying about
how the Russian Syria proposal originated? It is entirely possible that Kerry did talk about eliminating Assad's chemical weapons with Lavrov and the idea
was raised in Obama-Putin conversations. But it is painfully obvious from the initial reaction at the State Department and the White House that it was never —
never — considered a serious proposal. It's the kind of thing diplomats talk about in the abstract — like nuclear disarmament or world peace.
But Putin leapt upon Kerry's comment and put some meat on a throwaway proposal. The speed with which the Syrians got on board makes you think that Putin and Assad had
gamed this scenario out in advance and was hoping Kerry would step into the trap.
The Editor says...
That's impossible to believe! Barack H. Obama a/k/a Barry Soetoro, has never lied about anything, with the exception
of all this stuff.
French draft UN resolution
gives Syria a 15-day deadline. France has proposed a draft United Nations Resolution giving Syria's regime 15 days to submit a "complete and definitive"
declaration of its chemical arsenal. The draft then "demands" the unconditional destruction of these weapons "under international supervision".
U.S. can't prove Bashar Assad approved chemical
attacks in Syria. U.S. intelligence has yet to uncover evidence that Syrian President Bashar Assad directly ordered the chemical attacks last month on
civilians in a suburb of Damascus, though the consensus inside U.S. agencies and Congress is that members of Mr. Assad's inner circle likely gave the command, officials
tell The Washington Times.
McCain
says Obama is victim of Putin's 'game of rope-a-dope' on Syria. [Scroll down] Meanwhile, aides to members of Congress told MailOnline today that the
chief fear swirling around Capitol Hill is that in the hands of Putin, an apparent deal to separate Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad from his chemical weapons could be a
giant stalling tactic. A staffer to a senior member of that committee said Wednesday afternoon that by relegating U.S. military muscle to backup-plan status, the
president 'all but guaranteed that Putin will think he has a really long leash.'
Obama
Doctrine: He could even attack nations over climate change. The emerging Obama Doctrine justifies attacking nations that violate "international norms,"
as judged solely by the president. Based on statements by President Obama and key players, he could even launch attacks against those he blames for global climate
change. Polluters and deniers beware: You may have to face our Marines. In outlining his new doctrine, Obama created a policy so loose that it fits his
climate change pronouncements just as easily as it fits the Syria situation.
Is Putin, a Big Assad Supplier, Seriously
Going to Disarm Him? If a Russian proposal to pressure Bashar al-Assad into declaring and relinquishing his chemical weapons stockpile moves forward, the
United States will be in the strange position of relying on one of Syria's chief weapons suppliers to disarm a regime the president has accused of gassing its own people.
Dazed
and Confused. Give President Obama credit: He has done such a good job of acting unpredictably in the lead-up to his proposed military strikes on Syria
that no one knows what he will do next. He has successfully confused ally and enemy alike.
Obama's waffling on Syria handed
Russia the driver's seat. Sensing an opportunity with a weak and vacillating occupant in the White House, Putin jumped on the opening provided by Secretary
of State John Kerry's seemingly off-hand suggestion that Russia take custody of Syria's chemical weapons. Never mind that Syrian dictator Bashar Assad had never
previously admitted even having such weapons. And never mind that Putin had previously claimed to have no sway with Assad. International diplomacy never lets
a little thing like the record get in the way.
Syrial Losers. Americans unsure what to think about President Obama's plans for Syria
should remember that all military action undertaken by Democrats for the last half-century has led to utter disaster.
Obama's
missteps on Syria lead to retreat. Sometimes a president does not have a communications problem. Sometimes a president has a reality problem.
President Obama's speech to the nation on Syria was premised on the denial of reality.
U.S.
weapons reaching Syrian rebels. The CIA has begun delivering weapons to rebels in Syria, ending months of delay in lethal aid that had been promised by the
Obama administration, according to U.S. officials and Syrian figures. The shipments began streaming into the country over the past two weeks, along with separate
deliveries by the State Department of vehicles and other gear — a flow of material that marks a major escalation of the U.S. role in Syria's civil war.
The Laurel and Hardy Presidency. In the interplay
between Barack Obama and John Kerry, it's not obvious which one is Laurel and which one is Hardy. But diplomatic slapstick is not funny.
Time for Kerry To Resign. At this point the best thing that could happen in the
Syria crisis would be for Secretary of State Kerry to resign. He's one of the logical persons to take the fall for this fiasco, given that we don't live under a
parliamentary system and the constitutional concept in respect of the president, any president, is for the decision to be made by voters once in four years.
It was Mr. Kerry who made the blunder that has put the administration on track for a classic appeasement.
Is
the Russian plan to disarm Assad really about Syria or diplomatic face-saving? In an interview with Russian TV due to be shown
tonight [9/2/2013], President Bashar al-Assad will say: "Syria is transferring its chemical weapons to international control." This will
happen solely "because of Russia", he adds, and the "threats of the United States had no influence on the decision". What a difference three
days can make. It was barely 72 hours ago, remember, that Assad refused to tell Charlie Rose of CBS whether Syria possessed chemical
weapons at all.
Assad tells Obama to stop arming
rebels, or no deal. President Obama must promise not to arm rebel forces or Syrian dictator Bashar Assad will not hand over his
chemical weapons, the embattled leader told a Russian state media outlet today [9/2/2013] while demanding that Israel also surrender its nuclear
arsenal.
Putin Makes Obama Pay a High Price for
Syria Escape. [John] Kerry rose to power because of his leading role in the American antiwar movement of the 1970s. His testimony
accusing, sometimes wrongly, American soldiers of atrocities in Vietnam launched a political career that took him to the Senate, the Democratic
nomination for the presidency and, now, to the top post in President Obama's cabinet.
Thanks to
Obama's useless ineptitude, Putin has basically won. Vladimir Putin has taken to trolling the United States — and you have
to admire his guts. On 9-11, a sacred day in the US, the New York Times released an op ed written by the Russian leader in which he not only
told Americans than the Obama administration is wrong on Syria but that their country is not quite as exceptional as they think.
Military Action in Syria is Unjust.
One of the often forgotten precepts of the Christian Just War Theory is that "Before war is entered upon there must be a reasonable belief that such
an action will be successful." This is to guard against a futile waste of life and destruction — even if the cause for action may be
just. Some will maintain that President Obama's request for military strike on Syria does not constitute a war. Quite simply, however,
barring legal technicalities any attack on a sovereign nation is a de facto act of war.
Syria situation further strains Obama's relationship with the antiwar movement.
Antiwar activist Nathan Ryan looked to candidate Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential campaign to channel his opposition to the Iraq war.
But now, with Obama making a muscular case for military strikes on Syria, he is looking elsewhere.
Test Russia's Intentions.
Initially voiced as an off-the-cuff remark by Kerry — and immediately dismissed by him as unachievable — the proposal
has become the subject of world attention. The Obama administration, while cautiously describing the Geneva talks as exploratory, must
at some level share the widely held suspicion that the Putin initiative may be only a ruse or distraction intended to forestall a U.S. strike
and protect the Assad regime, Moscow's surest ally in the region.
Guess Where Those Chemical Weapons Came From, Mr. President.
[President Obama] doesn't even seem to know where those chemical weapons in Syria came from in the first place. Ironically, at least some of
them came from Saddam Hussein's Iraq. They were part of those weapons of mass destruction we never found.
Why Obama's PR campaign to attack
Syria won't work. If President Obama believes he can turn around public opinion on U.S. intervention in Syria with a single speech,
or even a few days of intensive public relations campaigning, he is badly mistaken. Without some huge, earth-shattering event that changes
things overnight — a Sept. 11 or a Pearl Harbor — changing public opinion is a slow process. To do it, a leader
must make a case over and over and over and over — something Obama has notably failed to do with Syria. So his speech Tuesday
night won't change much.
The
fruits of epic incompetence. Putin doesn't care one way or the other about chemical weapons. Nor about dead Syrian children.
Nor about international norms, parchment treaties and the other niceties of the liberal imagination. He cares about power and he cares about
keeping Bashar al-Assad in power. Assad is the key link in the anti-Western Shiite crescent stretching from Tehran through Damascus and Beirut
to the Mediterranean — on which sits Tartus, Russia's only military base outside the former Soviet Union.
Obama's Wing-It
Diplomacy Undermines U.S. Credibility. Here's how the Obama folks have been starting to spin Syria. The president made a
credible threat to use military force in Syria. At the same time, he worked behind the scenes to get Russia's Vladimir Putin to push Bashar
Assad to give up chemical weapons. These two seemingly discordant initiatives, brilliantly coordinated, combined to produce a process to
eliminate Assad's chemical weapons without even a shot being fired across the bow. Of course, every bit of this is false. Only the
most credulous Obama fans are fooled.
Obama Lets Putin
Humiliate America, In Word And Deed. A murderous enemy of democratic freedom such as Vladimir Putin gets a New York Times platform to
lecture Americans. Why not? He just proved he has more international clout than our own president. Even Obama admirer Joe Klein
admits in Time magazine that the president's Syria debacle "weakened the nation's standing in the world" in "one of the more stunning and
inexplicable displays of presidential incompetence that I've ever witnessed."
Hamlet should be on
stage, not in the Oval Office. President Obama can agonize and debate all likes — behind closed doors. We don't
need to and should not see a president think out loud and champion irresoluteness, as we saw this Tuesday night and over the last few
weeks. We don't elect presidents to be the "equivocator" or the "vacillator." The left passes indecision off as thoughtfulness,
trying to make a fatal flaw into a virtue.
Obama's Syria Debacle. [Scroll down] The White
House's inaction and continued indecisiveness has further emboldened Assad to test American resolve by using chemical weapons at least eight times
and blatantly crossing President Obama's so-called "red line" with impunity. Reliable sources suggest that the president's national security
team knew with certainty about the earlier use of chemical weapons but chose to continue to "investigate" to play for time, which led to more,
larger scale chemical attacks.
White House signals
concession on Syria U.N. resolution. Journalists emerging from a closed-door briefing at the White House Friday afternoon [9/13/2013]
were informed that President Barack Obama won't insist that a U.N. resolution governing Syria's surrender of chemical weapons include a threat of
military force if President Bashar Assad doesn't follow through.
Obama
concedes to Russia; will remove military trigger on Syria. President Obama is prepared to bow to Russian demands that he give up a
military trigger in the pending UN resolution on Syria, administration officials told reporters on Friday. Russian President Vladimir Putin
has said that the United States must take the threat of force off the table if Syria is to turn over its chemical weapons arsenal to the
international community.
Putin the Peacemaker vs.
Obama the Warmonger. President Obama has now sabotaged four decades of stability in the Middle East. [...] In the strangest twist of
history, it is Obama the radical leftist who is now acting as the destabilizing warmonger in the Middle East, while Vladimir Putin may be emerging
as a stabilizing peacemaker. Nobody can figure out whether Obama is the most hapless bumbler in history, or whether there is some sinister
purpose behind it all. It could be both.
Our Never Ending Obama Nightmare.
In Syria, the actions of the President and his team have bordered on total incompetence. Almost every wrong
step has been made. Today, we are left with a situation where the U.S. has limited influence, while the power of
our adversary Russia has increased tremendously. More and more Americans are realizing that this President is not
qualified to lead the nation. [...] It is a sad day in this country when the former leader of the KGB is more persuasive
than our own President.
US, Russia reach deal on Syria chemical
weapons. The Obama administration and Russia reached a deal Saturday [9/14/2013] to compel Syria to account for and eventually destroy
its chemical weapons arsenal, leaving open the possibility that the UN could authorize sanctions or military action for future violations.
Samantha, Syria and the use of
power. Did you ever wonder why we have been teetering on the brink of war with Syria when virtually no one in America wants
to go to war? The answer can be summed up in two words: Samantha Power. Power is the new American ambassador to the United
Nations and a longtime foreign-policy adviser to President Barack Obama. She is also a dangerously radical proponent of military
intervention in humanitarian crises around the globe.
"Imbeciles". The idea is that the Syrian will destroy his chemical
weapons, which the Kremlin helped him to acquire, and accede to the Chemical Weapons Convention. In return — according to the
Washington Post — the Obama administration may have agreed not only to lay off a military attack but to forbear from bringing Mr.
Al-Assad before the World Court. This is a time to review what happened in 1938 at Munich.
Syria:
nearly half rebel fighters are jihadists or hardline Islamists, says IHS Jane's report. Nearly half the rebel fighters in Syria are
now aligned to jihadist or hardline Islamist groups according to a new analysis of factions in the country's civil war. Opposition forces
battling Bashar al-Assad's regime in Syria now number around 100,000 fighters, but after more than two years of fighting they are fragmented
into as many as 1,000 bands.
The Impostor President Gets Caught.
When Putin shot Obama's balloon down over Syria no one should have been surprised. As America first learned at Benghazi, you can fake your
way through college, fake your way through the Senate, even fake your way through the presidency, but you can't fake your way through a civil war
in the Middle East.
The Elites Stumble on Syria. [Scroll down] I suppose
you have to have lived in Washington a long time for this fairy tale to make sense. And frankly, some elected officials have lived in Washington for far
too long. We must remember that in addition to Senator Graham, John McCain — who like Graham was elected to be the loyal opposition —
rushed to the Oval Office weeks ago in support of Obama's Syria policy. In fact, after meeting with President Obama, McCain and Graham emerged
confident — even cocky — that they had the entire Syria scenario figured out.
Into the Syrian Bazaar. Politicians on the right
and left are praising Saturday's U.S.-Russia "framework" to dismantle Syria's chemical weapons as a step away from American intervention. That is true
only in the looking-glass world in which politicians are desperate to avoid voting on a military strike. The reality is that the accord takes President
Obama and the U.S. ever deeper into the Syrian diplomatic bazaar, with the President hostage to Bashar Assad and Vladimir Putin as the friendly local tour guides.
Barack Obama, the 98-pound weakling.
The moral imperative is clear, he argued. We cannot let dictators get away with this. On the other hand, the United States can't be expected to
solve all the world's problems, either. Therefore, the way ahead is to outsource U.S. foreign policy on Syria to ... Vladimir Putin! So much
for the credibility of the world's only superpower. Mr. Obama's staff have been tweeting that this delaying tactic is an incredible display of smart
diplomacy. But to most of us, it just makes him look gullible.
The Charade Can Go On —
and On and On. So far in the Syrian charade, Bashar Assad has won de facto permission to be a legitimate ruler negotiating
with superpowers, while promising to kill thousands more by blowing them up, shelling them, and shooting them without "obscene" chemical weapons.
Vladimir Putin controls the tempo of the crisis.
Obama waives ban on arming
terrorists to allow aid to Syrian opposition. President Obama waived a provision of federal law designed to prevent the supply of arms to terrorist
groups to clear the way for the U.S. to provide military assistance to "vetted" opposition groups fighting Syrian dictator Bashar Assad.
WSJ Details
'Head-Spinning Reversal on Chemical Weapons' in Obama White House. In a 66-paragraph masterpiece, Journal reporters Adam Entous, Janet Hook,
and Carol Lee gave a behind-the-scenes look of how, "Through mixed messages, miscalculations, and an 11th-hour break, the U.S. stumbled into an international
crisis and then stumbled out of it." [...] It really is a great exploration of the Keystone Kops nature of the Obama team's bungling of Syrian foreign policy.
Obama's
'unbelievably small' presidency. We're conducting foreign policy by faux pas. This entire episode has been driven not by deliberate
strategy but by slips of the tongue. Obama's declaration of a "red line" on chemical weapons was a slip of the tongue. So was Secretary of State
John Kerry's offer to have Syria give up its chemical weapons. There is no plan, no coherence to anything this administration is doing on Syria.
More embarrassing still, Obama is actually claiming that the diplomatic "breakthrough" is the result of his administration's show of strength.
Obama's Box Canyon. The Syrian fiasco
arose from two mutually contradictory desires. Barack Obama sincerely wanted Bashar Assad to stop killing his own people. Barack Obama also
really was not willing to use force to ensure that Assad would stop killing his own people. At Harvard, those desires would not be antithetical.
Elsewhere they are.
Syria
expert admits she lied about her qualifications. A expert on Syria whose work was quoted by senior politicians as they debated military action
has finally admitted she that she lied over her degree and said sorry. A week after she was sacked from her job as an analyst with the Institute of
War, Elizabeth O'Bagy has said that not only did she not earn a doctorate from Georgetown University, but she never even attended the PhD program there.
Embattled Syria 'Expert' Elizabeth O'Bagy
Says She Made 'Many Mistakes'. Elizabeth O'Bagy, the Syria researcher at the center of a week-long controversy surrounding her academic credentials
and her work with the Syrian opposition, admitted for the first time to The Daily Beast she was never enrolled in a Ph.D. program despite representations she
made to the press and multiple organizations for whom she worked.
The Editor says...
Wow, that woman's career is toast! After she admitted that her credentials were fraudulent, where could she possibly
find a job as a consultant? Oh, wait... Here's the answer:
McCain Hires
Scandal-Plagued Syria Analyst, Former Rebel Lobbyist. Senator John McCain has hired Elizabeth O'Bagy, a former analyst at the Institute
for the Study of War who's been accused of fabricating qualifications and being in the employ of Syrian rebel advocates, as a legislative assistant,
Foreign Policy reports.
Watch these clueless students fail to
defend Obama's Nobel Peace Prize. Students at the University of Southern California believe President Obama still deserves his Nobel Peace Prize,
despite his stated preference for war with Syria. How did they defend this view? They couldn't. In a video interview with Katherine Timpf of
Campus Reform, USC students expressed confidence that Obama was still worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize he won just a few months after taking office in 2009.
Obama Was Against Syrian Rebels
Before He Was For Them. Despite reports that half the Syrian "rebels" are al-Qaida terrorists and other jihadists, the White House insists they're
mostly freedom fighters worthy of aid. That's not what the commander in chief said last year.
Pelosi: Let's face
it, Republicans hate Obama because he's eloquent and "nonpartisan". [Scroll down] And while normally I'd cut her slack on grounds that she's
duty bound as a party leader to spout flattering nonsense about a Democratic president, I can't believe she'd praise his strategic acumen after three
solid weeks of White House idiocy on Syria. He had no strategy in first announcing the "red line"; he had no strategy on what to do if it was
crossed; he had no strategy to win over reluctant members of Congress from both parties to support an attack; and he had no strategy to extricate himself
from the whole mess until Putin laid one on his plate.
