For whatever the motivation for ignoring the war powers act and by bypassing the US Congress, the United States autocracy has overthrown a smaller autocrat in Muammar Ghadafi, a man who died as cruelly as people who live like him are meant to.
But this conflict was not about him or his demise. It was about the erosion of the US Constitutional government and the rise of a US imperial dictatorship.
During the Korean and Vietnam conflicts, the American people grew weary of years of intense warfare without the declaration of war. The US Congress, fearing an erosion of power, passed the War Powers Act in 1973 that compelled the Presidency to notify Congress within 24 hours of ordering troops to repel attacks against the United States and limiting their activation to 60 days with an additional 30 days for withdrawal. The War Powers Act went into law over President Richard Nixon’s veto.
And nowhere in this law can I see the term “boots on the ground” that President Obama has invoked when choosing to ignore Congress when it called on the Obama regime to comply with the law. Never mind that the United States was in no imminent danger which is outlined in the law but that’s what the cover of NATO is for. NATO is the mask the United States wears when it goes out into the world to strike a foreign foe or for a foreign friend.
But such flouting of the War Powers Act is not without precedent. President Clinton also ignored the deadline when he chose to distract from his troubles here at home by intervention in the Kosovo conflict, bringing victory to the Muslim insurgency there. Kosovo is still destabilized decades later.
And here we have Libya. With their revolt complete, they can now ease into a life of peace and tranquility. Nobody believes this will happen. The Libyan people will now usher in a new Cuban Heal to be ground under. Yes, another moderate Muslim country dethroned to welcome in a new hard line caliphate. Way to go!
But the world is put on notice. The United States will pick and choose who shall stay and who shall go. Our Presidents can now assassinate a head of state of a sovereign nation at their choosing. President Bush did it, Obama has followed suite and who will stop us? Not the US Congress and certainly not the European Union because they’re in on it too. Germany, France and England are best positioned to take advantage of restoring the Libyan oil industry, bless their charitable hearts.
The irony of the Nobel Peace prize winning president ordering and then openly celebrating the deaths of Osama Bin Laden and Muammar Ghadafi while overseeing two sustained wars while starting two more should be enough to make those thousands of Bush era anti-war Demonstrators march on Washington, right?
The silence is deafening. Where is Cindy Sheehan now? How about Jesse Jackson? Sean Penn? Maxine Waters? Jane Fonda? Tim Robbins? Susan Sarandon? How about blue-collar millionaire Bruce Springsteen? They were all prominent anti-war protesters marching on Washington just 4 short years ago. “Bring them home!” they chanted and held Cindy Sheehan, a woman who’s son was killed in Iraq, up as an example of a mother’s sorrow. But GW was a Republican war monger. Now we have a Democrat war monger, big difference. A bigger bunch of hypocrites has never existed. How can these people of “principle” even look themselves in the mirror.
Three years after the election, the wars rage on and have even expanded. And all we can do as US citizens is PAY for it. We pay with our labor and we pay with our children. We have no voice in our government and the rule of law in this country has broken down to invite certain chaos. Or a takeover.
Dictatorship: A ruler who is unconstrained by law. A ruler with Imperious or overbearing power.
So for all those people who are celebrating the death of another dictator, for the United States, the shoe now fits and if you think those guys were bad…
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