So sue me! Obama on the warpath
President Barak Obama is coming under fire from Congress for launching a military operation in Libya without approval from the lawmakers. They claim the president is thus violating the US constitution.
US lawmakers are saying that President Obama has to either stop waging war in Libya or else ask for congressional approval. They claim that the military action will violate the 1973 war powers resolution if it does not end immediately – 90 days after the intervention began. Under the US constitution the president needs to get authorization from Congress to wage a long-term war. Analysts say the Obama administration will certainly find a way to get around the requirement by referring to his right as commander-in-chief. Up to this day the administration has refused to say “war” when it comes to their action in Libya. Civilians however are continually being bombed, and a group of international observers now in Tripoli have said they heard and counted 89 blasts in just one day in civilian neighborhoods. There is a lot of concern that the voices of those trapped in Tripoli go unnoticed in the international community. But it seems in the US the voices of the majority of Americans – those who oppose the US military involvement in Libya – also go unnoticed by the White House. The administration continues to stress the good cause that they pursue in Libya, but some analysts say the administration also seems to be in denial when it comes to the will of their own people regarding the issue, as well as constitutional procedures. Legal experts say there is not much that congressmen can do to force the president to comply at least with the US constitution because there are ways to get around it, which the Obama administration seems to be using extensively. Most congressmen now criticize President Obama for “ignoring Congress”, but Capitol Hill observers say it’s mostly a political game that the lawmakers are playing. Come the day to vote, the majority of Congressmen will vote for more military spending as they always do. There is however a small bipartisan group of Congressmen who have gone further than verbal rebukes and sued President Obama on the grounds that he is violating the Constitution. But everybody in the US knows the lawsuit is certain to be dismissed on procedural grounds, because the US Supreme Court has determined that members of Congress do not have the standing to file such suits. And this is where it hits a dead end, making many wonder whether or not US lawmakers actually have the capacity to effectively represent the people.
US battles Beijing and Moscow in Libya and Syria
A former Reagan administration official Paul Craig Roberts believes the real goal of the US in Libya is not Gaddafi but China, which has invested massively in oil in eastern Libya.Washington is trying to protect the US from predictions that China would overtake America as the world’s biggest economy within five years, according to Roberts.“Now they are confronting China in Libya, and the reason for the trouble in Syria is the Americans want the Russians out of their naval base in Tartus. They do not want a Russian naval presence in the Mediterranean,” says Roberts. “The Americans now are hiding behind Arab protests to work against the interests of China and Russia.”
Washington-watcher and 'Voice of Russia' radio host Carmen Russell-Sluchansky doubts whether Congress members really want the US to pull out of Libya. He told RT those on Capitol Hill will not confront the military operation.“The reality is the majority of the Congressmen are still going to support the actions in Libya and Afghanistan, and so on. There are not a lot of peace hawks in Congress, minus these few congressmen who are doing this,” he says. “Congress is not going on mass to come and say that we shouldn’t be doing this and try to defy it. Besides, Obama’s currently using discretionary funds to get around it.”“We do live in a military industrial complex type of world where if they have the power strings, they have the power,” he added.
