Finally, McCain does something useful and mature.
In an effort aimed at countering a House Republican plan to defund American military operations in Libya, Senators John Kerry, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee and a Democrat, and John McCain, a Republican, announced the introduction of a joint resolution on Tuesday authorizing the limited use of United States Armed Forces in Libya.
Under the resolution, which could be voted on as early as this week, the president is “authorized to continue the limited use of the United States Armed Forces in Libya, in support of United States national security policy interests” for one year after passage of the resolution.
The bipartisan legislation, however, “does not support deploying, establishing or maintaining the presence of units and members of the United States Armed Forces on the ground in Libya unless the purpose of the presence is limited to the immediate personal defense of United States government officials.”
The easiest thing to do in this case is just go ahead and authorize the mission in Libya, while going on the record as to what is not authorized. Yet, I still believe Congress would be within its full rights to censure the president for his actions here. Withholding funding or disrupting the mission are poor options.
Maybe we can create some jobs by making a few bombs and selling them to NATO, since they seem to be running out them. The idea that there was some credible ready-to-go opposition to Gaddafi was not a good one. But, we’re committed so we might as well get the job done and stop fighting over what constitutes “hostilities.”
This should be interesting.
I’m really, really hoping to hear Republicans explain that a vote to defund is a vote in support of the troops!
but there are no troops. Remember?
If you believe that was what motivated the US to intervene, you did not watch the four weeks that went by until the UN Security Council decided to act. The success of the rebellion in the east caught most folks by surprise. It certainly caught the US flatfooted. Obama tooks weeks deciding what the public response should be, then began transitioning the rhetoric in support of UN Security Council Resolution 1970. The real push came when Tunisian refugees and then Libyan refugees began to overrun Lampedusa, and Italian island.
The legal status of the NATO operation with respect to the TNC troops is complicated. NATO needs to have clear threats to civilians (the sieges of Misrata and Zintan, the advance on Ajdabiya and Benghazi) in order to act. They do not have the authority to act as air support for all TNC operations. NATO legally was restrained from attacking a Gaddafi convoy bringing in supplies from Tunisia (unless there were clear evidence of import of weapons or ammunition) but it could attack a convoy supplying Gaddafi’s troops outside Misrata. In the first case, there was the possibility that the convoy carried exclusively civilian supplies and even food. And that attacking it would amount to NATO laying siege to civilians in Tripoli. The second case was more straightforward.
The Kongressional Kiddies Kabuki will end when the traditional plot comes to an end. A one-year authorization, a briefing, a censure vote–none of that will materially matter. Cutting off funds and forbidding the expenditure of funds, however, is different matter. But the Kiddies are having too much fun to actually do something.
… over what constitutes “hostilities”. There’s a fight over admitting that the US is engaged in hostilities in Libya.
It reminds me of the supposed fight over what constitutes “torture”. Most of that “fight” was about whether or not to continue to use that word to describe torture when the US did it.
Whatever we may feel about getting into Libya, we are now at a point of no return. We must remove Gaddafi from power or kill him so he doesn’t haunt us for the next 20 years, claiming victory with each terrorist attack on us or our allies around the world. He would do it and they would be simple but devastating attacks like Pan AM 103 was. So he MUST be taken out somehow.
Have we all heard of his hate for the CEO of Goldman Sachs for ripping him off to the tune of Billions lately? Some suggest Lloyd Blankenfein (of Goldman) called in a favor to have Gaddafi assassinated. And then also his kicking out of certain US & EU oil company interests form the country? Maybe those were factors in our initial participation, also France and the UK. We may never know. But we are where we are and if he is allowed to continue in power, we will really regret it.
So I am glad that McCain and Kerry are putting together this resolution.
Again, whether you supported us starting in on this mess or not, we are where we are now. This seems like the right course to finish it.
And maybe they should write a sternly worded passage to the President in this resolution. He deserves at least a slap on the wrist for not asking the congress for approval. They would have given it, I am sure. But he didn’t even ask and that’s not cool.
What are “hostilities” again?
What is “is”?
Up is down and black is white, all in the name of supporting Obama’s megalomania.