Because of oil humanitarian reasons Obama decided it would be a jolly good time to cruise some of our warships over to Libya and hurtle missiles into the country. After 90-days of this the War Powers Act states that the President must get Congressional approval to continue killing people on foreign countries. Obama not being one to follow United States law decided that rule doesn’t apply to him because bombing the shit out of Libya doesn’t qualify as hostilities:
“The president is of the view that the current U.S. military operations in Libya are consistent with the War Powers Resolution and do not under that law require further congressional authorization because U.S. military operations are distinct from the kind of “hostilities” contemplated by the resolution’s 60-day termination provision.,” the White House said.
Personally I’d find the act of somebody hurtling bombs onto my property to be pretty fucking hostile. Then again I also believe the whole humanitarian argument is bullshit because the Syrian government is killing demonstrators and we’re not even talking about it. How people can’t see that Obama is just as much a war monger as Bush is beyond me. Oh, and I love the definition of hostilities the White House uses:
“U.S. operations do not involve sustained fighting or active exchanges of fire with hostile forces, nor do they involve the presence of U.S. ground troops, U.S. casualties or a serious threat thereof, or any significant chance of escalation into a conflict characterized by those factors,” the report said.
So hostilities are only hostilities if any of our people may get hurt. Thus somebody hurtling bombs onto your property isn’t hostilities unless the guy bombing your place could get hurt. I’ll try to keep that in mind.
Personally I think impeachment hearings should begin immediately but instead all we get is a lawsuit:
The White House rebuttal came as a bipartisan group of US lawmakers sued Mr Obama in federal court for taking military action in Libya without authorisation from Congress.
The lawsuit alleges that the president had violated the US constitution in bypassing Congress.
The lawsuit, which also targets Defence Secretary Robert Gates, challenges the policy “that any president can take the US to war unilaterally”, Democratic Congressman Dennis Kucinich of Ohio said.
“We have asked the courts to move to protect the American people from the results of these illegal policies,” he added.
I think commencing the bombing of a foreign nation not only counts as hostilities but an act of war. Obama dragged us into Libya without Congressional approval which is required by United States law and thus he has broken the law. How that’s not grounds for impeachment I’ll never understand.