Congress Must Debate the Libya War

The U.S. is now at war in a third Muslim country, according to the "official tally" (that is, counting Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya but not Pakistan or Yemen, for example.) But Congress has never authorized or debated the U.S. military intervention in Libya. (A sharply disputed claim holds that the Pakistan and Yemen actions are covered by the 2001 authorization of military force, but no-one has dared to argue that the 2001 AUMF covers Libya.)

Some will no doubt claim that the President is acting in Libya within his authority as Commander-in-Chief. But this is an extremely dangerous claim.

To put it crudely: as a matter of logic, if President Obama can bomb Libya without Congressional authorization, then President Palin can bomb Iran without Congressional authorization. If, God forbid, we ever get to that fork in the road, you can bet your bottom dollar that the advocates of bombing Iran will invoke Congressional silence now as justification for their claims of unilateral Presidential authority to bomb anywhere, anytime.

Some Members of Congress have strongly objected to President Obama's bombing of Libya without Congressional approval.

On the Democratic side, John Larson, chair of the Democratic Caucus in the House, called for President Obama to seek congressional approval. Reps. Jerrold Nadler, Donna Edwards, Mike Capuano, Dennis Kucinich, Maxine Waters, Rob Andrews, Sheila Jackson Lee, Barbara Lee and Eleanor Holmes Norton "all strongly raised objections to the constitutionality of the president's actions" during a Saturday call organized by Larson, the Politico reports.

"They consulted the Arab League. They consulted the United Nations. They did not consult the United States Congress," one Democrat[ic] lawmaker said of the White House. "They're creating wreckage, and they can't obviate that by saying there are no boots on the ground. ... There aren't boots on the ground; there are Tomahawks in the air."

"Almost everybody who spoke was opposed to any unilateral actions or decisions being made by the president, and most of us expressed our constitutional concerns. There should be a resolution and there should be a debate so members of Congress can decide whether or not we enter in whatever this action is being called," added another House Democrat opposed to the Libyan operation.

"Whose side are we on? This appears to be more of a civil war than some kind of a revolution. Who are protecting? Are we with the people that are supposedly opposed to [Qadhafi]? You think they have a lot of people with him? If he is deposed, who will we be dealing with? There are a lot of questions here from members."

On the Republican side, Senator Richard Lugar, ranking Member on Senate Foreign Relations, told CBS' Face the Nation yesterday that if we're going to war with Libya, we ought to have a declaration of war by the Congress.

A memo distributed to Republican aides in the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committee made the case that Congressional authorization is necessary and used Barack Obama's own words to make the case, ABCreported.

The memo quotes Obama when he was in the Senate and there were concerns that then-President George W. Bush would take strike Iran.

"The president does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation," the memo quotes then-Senator Obama saying on Dec. 20, 2007.

In times like this, you can be sure some journalist will marvel at the "strange bedfellows" coalition of Democrats and Republicans standing up to the President. But there's nothing strange about this bed. Everyone who wants to live in a constitutional republic belongs in this bed. Everyone who wants to hold the Administration to its promise of a "limited intervention" aimed at "protecting civilians," rather than overthrowing the Libyan government, and to avoid "mission creep" from the former to the latter, belongs in this bed.

Congressional debate is a key means of compelling the Administration to clearly state its case and its objectives, to be honest and transparent about the potential cost of its proposed policies, and to limit its actions to its stated objectives; and to force Members of Congress to go on the record, in opposition or in support, and to state clearly, if they support, what it is that they support. On cost, for example: each Tomahawk missile is reported to cost on the order of a million dollars. So, firing 110 of them over the weekend cost about $100 million, far more than House Republicans cut from National Public Radio with great fanfare. Shouldn't Congress consider this expenditure?

Two days into the military intervention, there was already sharp dispute over whether the military intervention that has unfolded has already gone beyond what the UN Security Council authorized and what the Arab League endorsed.

Yesterday, the New York Timesreported:

A day after a summit meeting in Paris set the military operation in motion, some Arab participants in the agreement expressed unhappiness with the way the strikes were unfolding. The former chairman of the Arab League, Amr Moussa, told Egyptian state media that he was calling for an emergency Arab League meeting to discuss the situation in the Arab world and particularly Libya.

"What is happening in Libya differs from the aim of imposing a no-fly zone, and what we want is the protection of civilians and not the bombardment of more civilians," he said, referring to Libyan government claims that allied bombardment had killed dozens of civilians in and near Tripoli.

Today, Moussa appeared to walk back these remarks.

But with Benghazi apparently no longer under Libyan government threat, and with Western bombs falling in Tripoli, this dispute over the scope of Western bombing is virtually certain to intensify.

You can debate the constitutional issue of war powers until the cows come home; but as a practical matter, if Congress doesn't formally address the issue, such debate isn't very relevant. If a majority of the House and the Senate support the present US military intervention in Libya, let them say so on the record, at least, by voting for a resolution to authorize military force. If the majority of the House or Senate are opposed, let them say so on the record. A minimum standard for transparency in government is that the House and the Senate go on the record for or against a new war.