Another triumph for the aggressive secularist state: Catholic dioceses in IL drop lawsuit, will no longer provide foster care. http://cvote.to/8O

Catholics have a duty to fight against pornography and its devastating spiritual and societal consequences, says family activist Patrick Trueman. http://cvote.to/8P

Obama has turned his back on Catholics, Michael Gerson writes in the Washington Post. http://cvote.to/8Q

Video of Herman Cain’s stumble on Libya gets 156,000 views in 18 hours. Watch. http://cvote.to/8U

Rick Perry calls for a part-time Congress an end to lifetime appointments to the Supreme Court in favor of 18-year terms. http://cvote.to/8R

Cain, Gingrich, Romney and Paul are in a four-way tie in Iowa. http://cvote.to/8S

Read the letter 27 senators sent to the Obama admin challenging its denial of a grant based on abortion. PDF. http://cvote.to/8T

Full text of Bishop Lori’s “stemwinder” speech on religious liberty yesterday. http://cvote.to/8V

Matthew Warner, with the Quote of the Day: “If you really were the 99%, the only thing you’d need to ‘occupy’ is the voting booth.”

Obama, not surprisingly, defended his unconstitutional actions with a plea to a higher standard of morality.

To brush aside America’s responsibility as a leader and — more profoundly — our responsibilities to our fellow human beings under such circumstances would have been a betrayal of who we are,” the president said tonight.  ”Some nations may be able to turn a blind eye to atrocities in other countries. The United States of America is different. And as president, I refused to wait for the images of slaughter and mass graves before taking action.

The best response to President Obama’s actions came from Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky.  To see his five minute speech, click here.

As Senator Paul correctly states, Obama, when senator, opposed unilateral executive decisions to go to war.  Only Congress, the then Illinois senator correctly argued, had the power to declare war.  Or, perhaps to be fair, let’s let then-Senator Obama speak for himself:

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. In instances of self-defense, the President would be within his constitutional authority to act before advising Congress or seeking its consent. History has shown us time and again, however, that military action is most successful when it is authorized and supported by the Legislative branch. It is always preferable to have the informed consent of Congress prior to any military action. (Source: Boston Globe questionnaire, December 2007)

Tonight, though, the president offered a very different vision of his own authority and power.

As Commander-in-Chief, I have no greater responsibility than keeping this country safe. And no decision weighs on me more than when to deploy our men and women in uniform. I have made it clear that I will never hesitate to use our military swiftly, decisively, and unilaterally when necessary to defend our people, our homeland, our allies, and our core interests. That is why we are going after al Qaeda wherever they seek a foothold.

Last weekend, while traveling in Brazil, the chief executive called the attack/no-fly zone orders in.

For Obama’s full speech tonight, click here.

I appeal to international bodies and whose who hold military and political responsibility for an immediate start of a dialogue that suspends the use of arms.

To read the report from Reuters, please click here.

Additionally, the two highest officials in the Obama Administration, the Secretary of War (sorry, Defense–the problem of being a historian of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries) and Secretary of State, admitted yesterday that the United States might be in this conflict for some time to come.

As to how long the military campaign with the involvement of the United States would continue in Libya, Mr. Gates and Mrs. Clinton were reluctant to predict.  “We have prevented the large-scale slaughter that was beginning to take place and was taking place,” Mr. Gates said on ABC. But would the intervention by the United States and others be over by the end of the year?–New York Times, March 27, 2011.

Less than a week ago, the president had claimed this would be merely a short mission.

As to why intervene in North Africa, Secretary Gates admitted the Libyan Civil War did not threaten U.S. security.

Mr. Gates acknowledged on the same show that what was unfolding in Libya was not a threat to the United States and was “not a vital national interest to the United States,” but that the intervention was justified because of “the engagement of the Arabs, the engagement of the Europeans, the general humanitarian question that was at stake.”–New York Times, March 27, 2011.

As CNN reported today:

“We are not engaged in militarily-driven regime change,” White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters. Instead, the administration is engaged in “time-limited, scope-limited” action with other countries to protect civilians from forces loyal to strongman Moammar Gadhafi. (CNN, March 24, 2011)

Is the Executive of the United States granted the constitutional power of a “time-limited, scope-limited” action?  As I read the constitution (and I read it rather literally), it states that ONLY Congress has the power to declare war in Article I.  Article II states that the president is commander in chief when the armed forces have been called into service.

So, is it war or not in Libya?  Simply because Obama has no clear objective in fighting this “time-limited, scope-limited” action, should we simply give him a pass and let him use the military—manned by our children and neighbors, our precious national assets—for his ego, his will to power?  From what I can tell, especially when Obama called in the orders to attack while traveling in Brazil, he gave no real reasons or justification for adding yet another war (or whatever you want to call it) to the two in which we’re already engaged, not to mention our defending countries throughout the world at this point with our post-WWII and Cold War bases.

Here’s the damage so far (as of Thursday afternoon, March 24, 2011):

For one thing, the fight is intensifying, not dropping off. On Sunday, the U.S.-led coalition flew 60 sorties over Libya; Monday it flew nearly 80; on Wednesday it flew 175. At this moment, American pilots are bombing and shooting at Gadhafi’s armor and artillery units on the outskirts of Libyan cities. Off the shores of Libya, a bevy of Navy ships and subs have launched over 160 Tomahawk missiles. (Daniel Larison, Obama Administration Lies at Dan McCarthy’s site, amconmag.com)

Yesterday, in a move that can only be applauded from a constitutional standpoint, the Speaker of the House sent a reasonable and diplomatic (far more diplomatic than I am capable of; there’s a reason why I’m not in politics—well, ok, probably several reasons) letter to president.

Frankly, from any constitutional perspective, the Speaker of the House has far more right to be discussing war and military action than does the executive of the United States.

Since that haberdasher from Missouri sat in the White House, Congress has almost completely handed over its authority to make war to the President.

This must stop.  And, it must stop as soon as possible.

As the Founding Fathers very well understood, no single man or woman (or a cabinet) can be trusted with such power.  The decision to make war must be decided by a people as a whole, and this can only be done through a sovereign legislature.

If the members of the House show some backbone and attack the president for his actions in Libya, will they be called and denounced as mere partisans?  Of course.  Does it matter?  The truth is the truth.  I’d rather the Republicans go down for the right reasons than subsist by half-truths and lies and mediocrity and compromise and. . . and . . . .  The Roman Republic fell because men refused to act as men.  Is our republic any different, any better?  Has our human nature changed, advanced, progressed since 43bc?

Of course not.  Fallen men will behave in fallen ways.  Recognizing this is one of the first and most important steps to the restraint of pride.

It is possible to oppose the war against Libya while remaining politically non-partisan and still loving America?

As to the former question, if partisan politics serves to protect the Constitution, Amen.

As to the latter question, I’m not sure it’s possible to love America and still support the actions in Libya—at least as they’re currently being decided upon and executed.  If war is necessary, then let the American people decide through their elected representatives and senators as set forth in our Constitution.

God bless the troops who have made the decision to defend our republic by joining the military, and may His hand guide them safely through this current action.

Has Obama so overstepped his powers as to be worthy of being impeached?  Some will say no: he is commander-in-chief and can do what he thinks best (this may be heard from some of the president’s supporters, who will no doubt be uncomfortable making it).  Others will say yes: only Congress has the authority to declare war.  I think the truth is somewhere in between.  The Constitution clearly intends to limit the war-making power of the government, but it does not do so in any clearly legalistic manner.  It does so instead by dividing responsibilities among institutions, the presidency and congress, that are empowered to check each other.

It is hard to say that the president simply acts in violation of the Constitution when he orders military action without congressional approval, or even when he does so in the face of no imminent attack on the nation.  It would be hard to have a blanket prohibition here because it would not be hard to think up circumstances in which military action is needed sooner than congressional approval can be sought and in which important American interests are at stake, even if not the immediate security of the nation.  On the other hand, when the president unilaterally orders military action in a case where no American interests are at stake (and where, by the way, he has not even attempted to articulate the American intersts at stake), then it would certainly be understandable if members of Congress were to conclude that he has stepped over an important line.

So must Obama be impeached?  I don’t know.  But it would certainly be reasonable for members of congress to seek his impeachment.  There is no metaphysical/constitutional correct answer to the question whether the president has so abused the commander-in-chief power as to merit impeachment.  It depends on the extent to which congress wishes to assert its own role.  Just because Congress has acquiesced in presidential war-making in the past is no reason that it must continue to do so.

Obama's Kosovo? Or Somalia?

I’m with Brad on Obama and Libya. Except when I’m not.

I would love to see Obama’s wings clipped. The czars, the health care takeover, the use of TARP funds to buy auto companies, the energy policy aimed to drag us back to the heady days of the 1970s (if not the 1570s), the “beer summit,” the bowing, the fecklessness, the arrogance (the two combined usually equal narcissism), the list goes on.

I would love to see the Presidency scaled back and the Congress actually take back its role as lawmaker rather than giving it all away to regulatory agencies. And I would love to see the federal government shrink to the point that those things would make perfect sense. But that’s not the reality in which we find ourselves.

I think Brad makes a very strong case in his two posts (here and here) that Obama’s actions in Libya are foolish, contra-Constitutional, and therefore merit impeachment. And hey, Dennis Kucinich agrees, so what’s not to like?!

The thing is, even though this is a bad argument from a strict constructionist point of view, what Obama did was not that far removed from what has become the accepted precedent since Truman sent the troops into Korea. It’s different, and I’ll get into that in a moment, but it’s not that different.

A “declaration of war” is called for by the Constitution, but Congress has allowed that to change to an “authorization” of some sort. They settle for the president coming to them for some sort of a blessing, permission, and an enumeration of what they are authorizing with regard to a war, police action, blockade, quarantine, etc. Though it is not set out this way in the Constitution, Congress has been largely okay with this arrangement, or at least not been upset enough to actually defund a war and impeach a sitting president over it.

I suspect this is in part because when the Constitution was ratified the Framers could not have envisioned the United States becoming the world’s sole super power, and especially not with the disparity we have today between us and the world’s number 2 military. At that time the Monroe Doctrine hadn’t even been asserted. War could be a more defined thing, reserved for rare extreme circumstances, in the few places that our small population and Navy reached.

But since that time the federal government has grown and changed into something the Framers simply would not recognize. Congress, whether or not it is abdicating its Constitutional duty to an unhealthy degree or not, has legislated away a whole lot of its powers to executive branch agencies. Again, I’m not saying I’m happy with this, just recognizing the reality.

Since the executive is more nimble than the legislature, it makes perfect sense for the legislature to give wider latitude to the president in many things, including waging war. Careful: “wider latitude” does not equal “carte blanche.” But when you give a president an inch, he will take a mile. Hence the War Powers Resolution and the entirely justified noisemaking by the Congress when the president is delinquent in keeping them aware of what is going on and ignores their opinions with regard to waging war.

But they’ve never actually defunded a war or impeached a president over one, so unless you’re a careful or respectful man you can safely put up with Congressional squawking and assume they’ll come along. Thus, the perfectly natural assumption on the part of a man with an inflated sense of his own awesomeness, a disdain for the normal way of governing in our republic, and a naivete that doesn’t quit, that he can just do what he wants on this whole Libya thing. After all, at least he isn’t ChimpyMcBushHitlerHalliburton.

But even with all of that as background, this case is different. And the difference is characteristic of Obama’s chutzpah, political naivete, regard for the U.N. and global opinion over the US Congress and American people, and the treatment Congress is used to, even from presidents like Bush whom they didn’t care for.

As I noted previously, if Obama thought it a good idea to protect civilians from Qaddafi’s artillery and air force, or if Obama thought it a good idea to assist the rebels to unseat Gadaffi, the appropriate time to do it would have been “as soon as humanly/politically possible from the time the bloodletting began.” I.e., roughly three weeks ago. At that point, I was willing to support such an action, if approached and presented and promulgated properly, according to the “new reality” I described above.

And at that point, as Bush did with the invasion and liberation of Iraq (please, refrain from commenting about the legality of that one–I will delete them because that is not at issue here), Obama’s job would have been to make the case for intervention first to the American people, and secondly to the Congress. Or, do both simultaneously.

Instead, he was silent. The only action he took was to project an intention to avoid intervention and allow/direct his secretary of Defense to block the no-fly zone others in NATO had proposed.

And then, after the UN Security Council passed a resolution approving military intervention, and after the French and Italians amped up to follow through on it, and after Hillary Clinton, Susan Rice, and Samantha Powers started questioning his manhood (Okay, maybe they didn’t actually *question* it, but c’mon: three women pressuring a guy to start dropping bombs? It’s implicit.) he just up and orders “fire!” via a telegram from Brazil.

No talk with Congress. No speech broadcast from the Oval Office. No proposed resolution. No Rose Garden presser. No real clear explanation of why (or at least why now?). No statement of goals. No statement of what victory will look like. Just, “fire!”

Now, understandably, Congress is ticked. The American people are confused. Heck, the *military* is confused, if the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff goes on the Sunday talk shows and basically says, “yeah, we’re not sure what our goal is or what we’re supposed to accomplish, we were just told to blow up some installations, knock down some planes, and then maybe hand it all off to the French, or Italians, or someone else, at some point in the near or not-so-near future.”

Usually “SNAFU” is a comment offered well after the orders were given and bullets start flying; it’s not supposed to be included in the order handed down before any bullets fly.

This could have been an actual presidential leadership moment for Obama. He could have made the case against Qhadhaffi with resolve and urgency. He could have convinced a goodly portion of Americans who were willing to be convinced that assisting those yearning to escape from under the boot of that tyrant was a good and noble thing to do. He could have gotten resolutions passed in Congress, thus adding the voices of representatives and senators of both parties to the chorus in support of the cause. But he didn’t. He dithered and muttered, then hopped a flight to Brazil and said “fire,” failing utterly at being presidential.

And thus it is another disaster at this administration’s incompetent hands. This guy would fail as the senior patrol leader of a Boy Scout troop.

So while I can’t really argue with Brad’s legal assessment of the Constitutionality of this action and the technical merit of articles of impeachment, and while I would love to see the Congress actually do something to clip Obama’s wings, I don’t see impeachment actually happening.

So then, what to do?

Well, since it is an undefined military action with no established goals, no established rationale, no established public support (and even less than it had before among the chattering class), and no leadership from the commander-in-chief, I think we should pull the plug on it. If we don’t, we may soon commit ground troops “to protect civilians,” and then will likely fail to give them the armor that they request lest it project too much strength or kill too many civilians, and then we’ll send a bunch on a mission into a hostile city ill-equipped so as not to scare anyone, and end up with a bunch of our boys getting dragged naked through the streets.

Too bad, really. With a proper leader, this could possibly have gone well.

Long before our time, the customs of our ancestors molded admirable men, and in turn these eminent men upheld the ways and institutions of their forbearers.  Our age, however, inherited the Republic like some beautiful painting of bygone days, its colors already fading through great age; and not only has our time neglected to freshen the colors of the picture, but we have failed to preserve its forms and outlines.–Cicero

Catholic Vote Readers, thank you very much for the several responses to my piece yesterday regarding the possible impeachment (and I still highly encourage it) of the sitting president (though, of course, he’s calling in his war order from Brazil).  Please forgive yet another post on this–I’m on the road, and it’s much easier to post as a blog than as separate responses to the various comments.  We’re on the fourth day of spring break, two hours from our final destination (Cedar Creek, Texas) as I type this.  Additionally, my oldest child, Nathaniel has turned 12 today.  A great day for this young man who wants, at least at this point, to be a Marine and a priest.  Please pray for him.

But, again, please know how much I appreciate the responses, whether they agree or disagree, gently or not, with my own position.  Such spiritedness moves me greatly.

Several points.

First, and I’m not sure how this could be argued in any other way: the president is guilty of violating the constitution in the most grievous way.  A blockade of any kind–air or water–has been regarded as an act of war by the Law of Nations and by International Law for centuries.  Whether the sitting president has the support of allies or not, matters not in the least.  President Obama, as the chief executive of the United States, has brought us into conflict with a foreign people, itself torn by its own civil war.  Congress did not authorize this, nor has the president sought its recognition.  A president has absolutely no constitutional authority or right to bring us into war with a foreign people without a declaration of war from the U.S. Congress.

Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution states quite explicitly that the power to declare war is reserved to the Congress and the Congress alone.  This was not a decision made on whim by the Founders.  Only a sovereign legislature represents the people, and only the people have the right to declare war.  They should never do so for light reasons, but only for the greatest of causes.  Our president has been elected not by the people but by the electoral college.  He does not–nor can he without the consent of Congress–speak for the people as a whole.  Is our sitting president the first to violate the Constitution on this matter?  Of course not.  He’s no more or less guilty than the others.  But, he’s just as guilty.  The difference at this moment in time is this: the American people have elected a Congress with the specific intent of having it reign in the powers of the federal government.  The right to declare war, again, is reserved exclusively to the Congress.

If Congress is to be worthy of the American people, it should impeach the sitting president for violating the Constitution.  It matters not in the least whether a president is right, left, conservative, squishy, Republican, or Democrat.  All that matters is that he (or, someday, I assume, she) upholds his oath to defend the U.S. Constitution.  The current president has betrayed his oath and violated the founding document of this republic.

Second, the comments labeled me, variously, a shill for the Republican party, an ally of the left, an ally of whackos, and heated.  While I might very well be all of these things, I stand by my position.  And, if quoting the Constitution takes away from our arguments against abortion. . . . (no, wait, I have no reply to this comment, as I’m at a complete loss as to what the connection is.)

As an additional comment, when I was asked to contribute to CatholicVote, I was never told to conform to anything; that is, conform to nothing beyond giving my views on whatever subject as a Roman Catholic.  While I would never claim to be an expert on foreign policy, I can say with some confidence that I’m not only a straight-down-the-line JPII/B16 Catholic, I’m also a historian with an expertise of the American Founding and the first 100 years of the American republic.  I hope this doesn’t come across as arrogant–but it is factual, and I’ve been teaching courses on the western and American traditions for nearly two decades.

Should Josh Mercer, the editor, restrain me and my opinions, I will certainly acquiesce.  But, that I both praise Tom Crowe for his views and disagree with some of his specifics should not be seen as inconsistent.  I respect Tom immensely; if I didn’t, I wouldn’t have commented on him at all; I would have simply ignored him.

There is no litmus test–beyond being Catholic and being humane–for blogging at Catholic Vote.  I would think readers would appreciate that the several contributors are not always in agreement and that we’re not presenting some conformist, ideological viewpoint.  Should conformity ever happen, we’ll probably each go our separate ways.

Third, it should be remembered that impeachment is nothing more (as well as nothing less) than the House of Representatives giving a vote of “no confidence” on the sitting president.  It has no legal implications.  Up to this point in American history, Congress has acted in a very restrained manner when it comes to employing this right.  Presidents Johnson and Clinton were impeached for crimes much, much less serious than unilaterally declaring war against a foreign power.

Fourth, I agree–Gaddafi is a murderer, and I’ve despised him since I was in my first year in high school in 1983.  My comments in the previous blog or this blog have nothing to do with the rightness of war (or not) against Gaddafi.  It should be remembered that the U.S. allied itself with the second greatest mass murderer of all time during World War II.  We’ve butchered Mexicans as well as Indians.  We annihilated the one pro-western, Catholic city in Japan in 1945.  It would be nice if we always fought for the humane and the just.  We clearly have not.  My point is that war–which will involve the killing of American citizens and other persons, each made in the image of God–should not be decided by one person or one person and his cabinet.  It MUST be decided by a people as a body, and this can only be done by a sovereign legislature.

So, as an American, a republican (yes, that’s a small “r” republican), and a Roman Catholic, I willingly call our current president unconstitutional, arrogant, and corrupt.  He does not–nor can he by the powers of the U.S. Constitution–speak for the American people on matters of war without the consent of the U.S. Congress.

If the members of the House have any backbone, they will begin impeachment proceedings as quickly as possible.  While President Obama is not the first to abuse his role as chief executive. . .  it would be good to stop his power before it does becomes a permanent tradition.  The republic is greater than one man or one generation or many generations.  What we do here and now might very well affect thousands of years of republican virtue, liberty, and order.

[image above from: http://www.richgibson.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/obama_war.jpg

In the first place, Kristol suggests that the Libya intervention should be understood as America’s fifth altruistic war of “Muslim liberation” in the last two decades and also as part of a proud and unbroken tradition of freedom-promoting Republican foreign policy – a tradition that proceeds from Reagan to Bush I, to Dole, to Bush II, and finally to McCain.  It is not clear, however, that the tradition is as consistent as he says.  No doubt the Republican Party has long favored some kind of promotion of freedom through American foreign policy.  But Ronald Reagan did not commit the American military to any wars of “Muslim liberation.”  For that matter, with the small exception of Grenada aside, Reagan did not commit the American military to any wars of liberation at all.  Rather, he chose to build American military strength and project American resolve and clarity of moral vision, while putting various forms of pressure short of war on America’s unfree adversaries.  And while the first President Bush did lead the effort to roll back Iraq’s conquest of Kuwait, he pointedly refused to involve America in any attempt to liberate Iraq itself from the rule of Saddam Hussein – a decision for which he has been criticized by some promoters of the freedom agenda in foreign policy.  Those critics held that Bush I had failed to “finish the job” in Iraq.  That criticism, however, looked more powerful before America had discovered how much it would cost and how long it would take to finish that job.  In any case, it is not at all obvious that the Libya mission is part of a consistent modern Republican foreign policy.

Second, Kristol sets the terms of the debate in a way that is artificially favorable to such interventions.  He invites “the worriers and the withdrawers” to make a case against America’s wars of Muslim liberation in the Middle East, while also admonishing them not to rely demagogically on the public’s frustration and weariness with difficult and long wars.  But is it the opponents of such action that are especially obliged to make the case against it?  Kristol writes as if the good of intervening in order to promote freedom is so obvious as to be the default position, while the opponents of such things are to be invited to make a case, if they can, against it.  Just as a defendant is held to be innocent until proven guilty, so, apparently, an American military intervention is to be held beneficial until proven otherwise.  But one could just as reasonably demand the opposite presuppositions: for example, that intervening in another country’s civil war is generally a bad idea unless someone can come up with powerful reasons to do it.

Finally, the waging of wars of “Muslim liberation” is surely far more problematic than Kristol supposes.  With the exception of America’s Kosovo bombing campaign in 1999, wars of “Muslim liberation” seem usually to involve liberating some Muslims from other Muslims.  Which is to say that wars of “Muslim liberation” involve, as in Libya, the killing of Muslims.  Can we be certain that Muslims will uniformly regard this as a favor?

And, let me be blunt, the Obama administration has been a near total disaster from its opening moments–from its desire to nationalize the health care system to its absurd “cash for clunkers” to its numerous foreign policy blunders (let’s not forget the WikiLeak revelation that Hilary Clinton was having American ambassadors search through the wallets and credit cards of foreign diplomats) and to its intensifying of the power and invasiveness of the Transportation Security Admnistration.

In nearly every way, Americans are less secure and less free than they were before January, 2009.  And, this, of course, on top of the incredible erosion of rights and freedoms during President Bush’s two terms.

Now, I will be even more blunt–after yesterday’s invasion, we can call the sitting president either a liar or a fraud.  Take your pick and proclaim it loudly.  President Obama, which is it, are you a liar or merely a fraud?

Even if we decide to give him the benefit of the doubt and claim him merely a fraud, President Obama should be remembered as our generation’s Nixon, power hungry and abusive.

Correctly and constitutionally, Senator Obama had chided President Bush for his use of military power, claiming the executive branch did not to have the right to intervene and declare war without the consent of Congress.  In this, and perhaps only in this, Obama proved to have some backbone and a brain.

Yesterday’s decision shows he has neither.

In every way, after yesterday’s unilateral decision to attack Libya in league an “entangling alliance” of foreign powers, President Obama has abused his position as the chief executive officer of these United States of America.  The Constitution states quite clearly that Congress and Congress alone has the power to declare war.

Needless to write, how Congress responds to this gross abuse of power will prove fascinating.  The American people can be represented only in the House of Representatives and the Senate, according to our Constitution.  As citizens, we have absolutely NO direct say as to who will govern us in the White House or from the Supreme Court.

For this reason, and this reason alone, the Founding Fathers gave the sovereign legislature the power to declare war in Article I, Section 8.

The president of the United States is “commander in chief” of armed forces, but not without restrictions.  As the Constitution states in Article II: “The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States.”

Again, how Congress responds to President Obama’s arrogance will be nothing short of fascinating.  This past November, the American people clearly and loudly elected a new Congress, presuming it would reclaim power that had been handed over to the other branches of government as well as restrain the seemingly endless growth of the powers and reach of the federal government as a whole.

If those elected last fall possess even an ounce of honor, they will begin to investigate and possibly (that is, the members of the House) impeach the sitting president.  He has grossly abused his power, and Congress must respond in kind, and it must do so immediately and without mercy.  Should Congress continue to abdicate its constitutional duties, it will have proven itself impotent and unworthy of representing the American people.

None of this blog is to suggest that somehow war in and against parts of Libya is right or ill.  It could be either, frankly, from a Catholic policy of just war.  But, the policy of war is always and everywhere fraught with many, many dangers.  We will be making alliances from expediency, not right.  We will be sending Americans out to deal with the ever-nastiness of a civil war and asking our men and women to shed blood.  And, of course, we will be directly responsible for killing civilians in North Africa, what military strategists euphemistically call “collateral damage.”

The Founding Fathers did not give power to declare war to Congress lightly.  War affects all, and the decision must be made after serious deliberations and only with the consent of the people through a sovereign legislature.

That the president would presume such a power–especially after this current president’s previous statements against Bush and his general pacific tone–is nothing short of offensive.

It’s worth repeating that President Obama is either a liar or a fraud.  Either way, Congress has the republican duty to reclaim its rightful authority and restrain the idiocy and arrogance ruling illegally and unconstitutionally from the White House.

____

Tom Crowe has offered a fine assessment of the situation in Libya on this blogsite with his post yesterday.  http://www.catholicvote.org/discuss/index.php?p=15257 The best neutral analysis of the situation is George Friedman’s blog yesterday at Stratfor.  http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20110319-libyan-war-2011.  Dan McCarthy, editor of the American Conservative has kept the updates coming as well.  Each of these men is to be commended for their fine work.

The French air force has already begun sorties to knock Libyan aircraft out of the sky. The French are being more righteously aggressive than we are on this one. The French.

President Barack Obama has ordered military action “to protect civilians” from the forces of Gaddafi. Civilians have been dying at the hands of Qadhafi and his regime for over two weeks.

This is the same Qhadhafii who essentially threw up his hands and promised to be a good boy while W. Bush was President. My, how “Change” in U.S. leadership changes the attitude of terrorism-exporting potentates.

What has changed in the weeks since the people began to rise up in Libya until today? Only one thing has changed: a U.N. Security Council resolution supporting a no fly zone. NATO was on the verge of doing that same thing a week or so ago, only to be blocked by the U.S.—an action that Secretary Gates would not have taken without the agreement of the President. But apparently a number of people who saw Rwanda part II about to happen prevailed upon Obama to get off the fence and support a UNSC resolution. So, with U.N. approval, the course of action Obama blocked at NATO is okay against Qhadafee.

The other thing that has changed, of course, is the number of anti-Gaddafi Libyans who are dead.

The action is presented as “protecting the civilians;” but if that were truly the aim, not only would we have started sooner, but we would truly refuse to take sides and send in ground troops to neutralize all aggressors. But we are not sending in ground troops, only cruise missiles to take out regime anti-aircraft emplacements.

In fact, the only air craft carrier in the region, the USS Enterprise, which two weeks ago was in position in the Red Sea to participate in a no fly zone, was moved out of range into the Arabian Sea. Now near Libya in the Mediterranean we have the USS Kearsarge, an amphibious assault vessel which can launch assault Marines or act as a floating hospital (or both), guided missile launchers, and command & control vessels. The French and other allies are left to actually patrol the skies over Libya while we just launch a few missiles.

One of a number of maddening things is that a no fly zone was an obvious step more than two weeks ago, back when today’s justification, “to protect the civilians,” was already a cri de couer. A no fly zone imposed today, weeks after the uprising and bloodletting began, is a late effort to protect civilians, a calculated motto to avoid appearing like an aggressor, and an impotent attempt to help the rebels bring about regime change.

But another cry arises at this point (admittedly a different topic entirely at this late point in a blog post): why do the civilians of Libya (finally) get this amount and manner of support when the long-suffering civilians in southern Sudan do not? Why do the Christians being murdered by Muslims in Sudan get ignored?