May 18th, 2011
06:57 PM ET
Republican senators press president on War Powers deadline
By: CNN Senior Congressional Correspondent Dana Bash
Washington (CNN) – As the U.S. military campaign in Libya approaches the 60-day
mark this Friday, six Republican senators wrote President Obama asking if he
will comply with the War Powers Act, which says Congress must authorize action
that lasts more than 60 days.
"Friday is the final day of the statutory sixty-day period for you to terminate
the use of the United States Armed Forces in Libya under the War Powers
Resolution. Last week some in your Administration indicated use of the United
States Armed Forces will continue indefinitely, while others said you would act
in a manner consistent with the War Powers Resolution. Therefore, we are
writing to ask whether you intend to comply with the requirements of the War
Powers Resolution. We await your response," wrote the GOP senators Wednesday.
The letter was signed by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas,
Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Oklahoma, Sen. Jim DeMint, R-South Carolina, Sen. Ron
Johnson, R-Wisconsin, and Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah.
The GOP senators said they believe the president already violated part of the
War Powers Act – which says the president's constitutional powers allow him to
only deploy troops into "hostilities" with a declaration of war, specific
authorization from Congress or a national emergency caused by an attack on the
U.S.
But the president did follow the provision in the 1973 law requiring him to
provide information to Congress about committing U.S. forces. Now the question
is whether he will abide by the part of the War Powers Act which says he must
get Congressional permission within 60 days.
Sen. John Kerry, D-Massachusetts, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee, said on Tuesday that he is "talking to the administration" about
what exactly Congress and the White House might do to abide by that looming
60-day deadline Friday with regard to Libya.
"We want to make sure we're not stretching anything inappropriate. So we're
looking at some language," Kerry said as he entered a weekly policy lunch in
the Capitol with Democratic senators. "We're really looking at it very
seriously to keep everyone on the same page."
Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, a vocal advocate of U.S. military support for the
Libyan rebels, has been in talks for weeks with Democrats and Republicans about
a resolution backing the Libya mission – but perhaps something short of voting
on a War Powers resolution. He said Tuesday that congressional leadership has
not shown an "inclination" to vote on something.
McCain said he doesn't believe the War Powers Act is constitutional and
therefore he doesn't believe the president needs congressional authorization to
continue the mission.
"I've never recognized the constitutionality of the War Powers Act, nor has any
president, either Republican or Democrat," McCain said.
But Sen. Rand Paul told CNN congress should not let any president get away with
launching military action without congressional approval, and that he and his
colleagues may go to the Supreme Court and ask for a ruling on whether the
president is in violation of the law.
"There is a law. It's on the books, and in plain reading of the War Powers Act,
he appears to be in violation of the War Powers Act," said Paul.
Paul said they will also attempt to push "legislative remedies" on the Senate
floor, but acknowledges that may be hard to accomplish since Democrats control
the schedule.
"To me it's the most important debate we'll ever have up here. If we're going
to send someone, your son or my son to war, its important that it be done
properly, and its important that if there are constitutional restraints, we
obey them," said Paul.
CNN's Ted Barrett contributed to this report.
To remind the white house & the War Powers Act, which says Congress must
authorize action that lasts more than 60 days.
Ron Paul: Libya strikes unconstitutional – only Congress can declare war
Ron Paul
Prisonplanet.com
March 18, 2011
Mr. Speaker: I rise to introduce a resolution expressing the sense of the
Congress that the President is required to obtain in advance specific statutory
authorization for the use of United States Armed Forces in response to civil
unrest in Libya. As many in the administration, Congress, and elsewhere clamor
for the president to initiate military action to support those seeking to
overthrow the Libyan regime, Congress sits by, as usual, pretending that
Article I, Section 8 of the US Constitution does not exist. According to this
long-ignored section, ‘‘The Congress shall have Power To declare War, grant
Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and
Water.”
This is black letter law, not some aspirational statement by our Founders.
Their intent was indisputably clear: Congress alone, not the Executive Branch,
has the authority and the obligation to declare war if hostilities are to be
initiated against a foreign state that has not attacked the United States.
Let us be clear about one thing: for the US to take action to establish a “no
fly” zone over all or part of Libya would constitute an act of war against
Libya. For the US to establish any kind of military presence on the sovereign
territory, waters, or over the airspace of Libya is to engage in a hostile
action that requires Congressional authorization.
FLASHBACK: Ron Paul: Libya “No-Fly Zone is an Act of War” (March 10, 2011)
Whatever we may think about the Gaddafi regime, we must recognize that this is
a coup d’etat in a foreign country. What moral right do we have to initiate
military action against Libya? Libya has not attacked the United States.
Neither the coup leaders nor the regime pose an imminent threat to the United
States and therefore, as much as we abhor violence and loss of life, this is
simply none of our business.
I would remind my colleagues that we have been here before. In the 1990s we
established “no fly” zones and all manner of sanctions against Saddam Hussein’s
regime in Iraq in attempt to force him from power. When that did not work — at
a high cost in Iraqi lives — the US ultimately went to war to achieve these
ends. The costs of this war, I do not need to remind my colleagues, was much
higher even, in US military lives, in Iraqi civilian lives, in our diminished
moral standing in the world, in our economy. Yet none of us seem able to learn
from an enormous mistake made only a few years ago. Once again a bad man is
doing bad things thousands of miles away and once again irresponsible voices
are demanding that the US “do something” about it. Will we ever learn? We
continue to act as the policemen of the world at our own peril, and as we
continue we only accelerate our economic collapse.
Let the supporters of yet another war in the Middle East come forth to make
their case for a US attack against Libya. I will strongly oppose such a move,
but it should be very clear that if a war against Libya is to be initiated it
must be declared by the proper Constitutional authority: the US Congress.
Ron Paul: Libya Reaction (March 18, 2011 – Campaign for Liberty)
Ron Paul: Libya Is Not the American People’s Fight (March 17, 2011 – Phone
Message)
In the hit piece, “Ron Paul Is A Vicious Anti-Semite and Anti-American and
Conservatives Need To Wash Their Hands of Him,” the War Powers Act, which says
Congress must authorize action that lasts more than 60 days. uses outright lies
to label Paul and his “crazed” supporters as anti Jewish.
“For years the Texas crackpot, Ron Paul, has been attacking America and Israel
as imperialist powers — the Great Satan and the Little Satan, and calling for
America’s retreat from the battle against our totalitarian enemies. At the
recent CPAC conference Paul’s Jew-hating storm-troopers swarmed the Freedom
Center’s table to vent their spleen against Israel as a Nazi state,” wrote
Horowitz on the noted neocon website newsrealblog.
SATAN Kissinger, in His Own Words
"Military men are just dumb stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign
policy." - Henry Kissinger, quoted in "Kiss the Boys Goodbye: How the United
States Betrayed Its Own POW's in Vietnam"
TO ALL AMERICAN POLITICIANS PLEASE REFLECT ON THIS WARNING .
Heroic Benjamin H. Freedman
An American Warns His Countrymen
An American Warns His Countrymen
By Benjamin H. Freedman, 1961
"What are we going to do? The life you save may be your son's. Your boys may be
on their way to that war tonight; and you don't know it any more than you knew
that in 1916 in London the Zionists made a deal with the British War Cabinet to
send your sons to war in Europe."
President Johnson?
pro semitic ?
anti american people ?
to send your sons to war in Vietnam 1965
This one I just found is a rare picture of men from the 2d Brigade, 1st
Infantry Division landing at Vung Tau on 13 July 1965, at the beginning of the
massive US troop build-up in the Republic of Vietnam.
Here's probably one of my favorite pictures of Vietnam
NIXON & his satan zionist jew Henry Kissinger as advisor,had ordered the
SECRET BOMBARDEMENT OF CAMBODIA IN 1969-1975 AND INVASION OF
CAMBODIA ,A NEUTRAL & UN MEMBER COUNTRY WITH NO DECLARATION OF WAR AND BEHIND
THE BACK OF THE US CONGRESS ?
SATAN Kissinger, in His Own Words
"Military men are just dumb stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign
policy." - Henry Kissinger, quoted in "Kiss the Boys Goodbye: How the United
States Betrayed Its Own POW's in Vietnam"
Then ,foolowed by the US sellout of the KHMER PEOPLE IN CAMBODIA in 1975,
THROUGH SATAN HENRY KISSINGER to the communist.
Sideshow, Revised Edition: Kissinger, Nixon, and the Destruction of Cambodia.
IT WAS KISSINGER WHO RUNS THE SHOW
to send your sons to war in Cambodia 1970
without knowledge of US CONGRESS .
THE ANTI-KHMER RACE GROUP OF SATAN HENRY KISSINGER ARE CRIMINALS.
WHO ARE THESE ANTI-KHMER RACE GROUP OR CRIMINALS
1.THE FEDERAL RESERVE BANK OF NEW YORK
2. THE WALL STREET BANKERS IN NEW YORK
3. THE INTERNATIONAL BANKERS
4. THE COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
Cambodia needs Independence from Vietnam and the Vietnamese invaders.
Vietnam must cease her occupation of Cambodia at once.
Bury
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