Reality Check 101

The new label for our nation’s latest military moves in Libya, according to the White House, is “kinetic military action”. But no matter what terminology is used, be it limited conflict, humanitarian intervention, or civilian protection, war is still war.

This new war, the Libyan unwar, bears a lot of the same markings of other undeclared wars. There are oppressed people under a brutal dictatorship. There is a history of assaults against other nations by the villain nation. Finally, as with other presidentially initiated military actions, by both Republican and Democratic administrations since Vietnam, President Obama initiated this kinetic military action in defiance of what is known as the War Powers Act (actually a resolution).

The War Powers Resolution was passed by Congress over the veto of Richard Nixon. It was supposed to safeguard the balance of power between the legislative and executive branches of government in times of possible military threat. Ever since then, it has continued to be vetoed in practice by presidents of both parties any time they felt so inclined. To this point, Congress has never had either the backbone or the expertise to enforce its provisions.

The Act, basically, stipulates that the President may only introduce armed forces into hostilities after a declaration of war by Congress or in the event of an attack upon the United States herself. If military action is initiated without congressional approval, forces must be withdrawn within sixty days. In the interim, the President is required to provide Congress with regular reports on the situation.

The fact that the War Powers Act conflict has never been resolved is bad enough, but there is an even more fundamental problem evolving. With Libya, President Obama took us one mutation further away from national sovereignty and toward international dependence.

It has been striking that this administration seems to have consulted more with the “international community” than with his own people. President Obama’s declarations of righteous indignation toward Gaddafi were wholly dependent on “the writ of the United Nations Security Council” and the “writ of the international community”. In his address to the nation, he waxed eloquently about the United States being the “anchor of global security” and its role in meeting challenges to “the interests of humanity”.

It should be more than a little distressing to Americans that barely 230 years after our founders fought and sacrificed to break away from the exercise of monarchial power and establish a new sovereign nation, that that nation now finds itself ever less sovereign. There are dire consequences to this drift.

Frank Gaffney from the Center for Security Policy has written about the threat to Israel. It is well within reason to foresee the day when, by the “writ of the U.N. Security Council”, our President again ignores the war powers issue and commits troops to police trumped up “abuses” toward Palestinians by Israel; this in spite of the fact that Israel had served as one of our most reliable Middle Eastern allies.

It is just as plausible to see the day when a U.N. writ requires other nations to police America for her less than enthusiastic embrace of abortion, gun control, children’s rights and much more. It is almost sickening to realize that all this could happen because of neglect of Congress and presidential abuse of power over many years by presidents from both parties.

A future where America is subservient to foreign powers is not why patriots have died; it is not a future Americans need to accept.