Obama wrong on War Powers Act
Congress should not accept President Barack Obama's claim that U.S. efforts against Libya don't fall under the War Powers Act. Credit: Bloomberg News File
President Barack Obama tried hard Wednesday to make the case that he doesn't need congressional approval to continue the air war in Libya because it's not the kind of hostilities covered by the War Powers Act. He tried and failed.
However he parses the definition of hostilities, the intent of Congress reflected in the act is clear. A president can commit the U.S. military to a fight, but after 60 days he needs the permission of Congress to continue. It's a pragmatic arrangement that gives a president the latitude to respond to fast-moving events while honoring the Constitution, which gives Congress alone the power to declare war. If Obama is allowed to blow a hole in the law for Libya, there will be almost no limit to a president's power to wage war.
Congress has been uncharacteristically aggressive and bipartisan in insisting that Obama follow the letter of the law in Libya. That restiveness is a reflection of the public's growing war fatigue.
A decade after 9/11, there are serious questions about the wisdom of war on so many fronts around the globe. Terrorism is still a threat, and the nation must remain vigilant. But Osama bin Laden is dead and al-Qaida -- which has taken lately to announcing executive successions on its website and producing an online magazine -- isn't the fearsome force it once was.
With U.S. troops being withdrawn from Iraq, and Obama expected to announce in the next few weeks how many of the 100,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan he will withdraw in July, the time is right for a national dialogue on the future of the nation's wars -- including the conflict in Libya.
NATO recently extended until Sept. 27 the air war and no-fly zone it initiated in March to protect Libyan civilians. So a mission that was supposed to be quick and limited shows signs of morphing into something more, a protracted civil war with NATO holding out for the ouster of Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi.
Looking to continue the fight without congressional approval, Obama insisted in a 32-page report to Congress that the Libya campaign is not the sort of hostilities envisioned by the War Powers Act. He argues that there are no U.S. ground troops in Libya, U.S. forces are not in harm's way and have not been directly involved in hostilities since NATO took over in April. That's when the U.S. moved into a support role that involves no active exchanges of fire with hostile troops. But the U.S. is hitting targets in Libya with missiles from unmanned drone aircraft.
The War Powers Act doesn't define hostilities. And the Supreme Court has never ruled on the issue. Ten members of Congress sued Wednesday, asking a judge to order Obama to pull the United States out of the operation. But the courts have historically declined to decide "political questions," leaving issues such as war to the other branches.
There is no ambiguity here. There is a shooting war going on in Libya. NATO, including the United States, is firing missiles into that nation, destroying government facilities and killing people to protect and assist one side in the conflict. That's a war, and Obama needs the approval of Congress to keep fighting it.
