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[Osmosis Jones]

I'm using the dictionary definition YOU posted!

Sigh. You realise Gaddafi was defeated by the rebels right? Not by U.S. forces? You understand therefore that any conquest performed was acheived by rebels, and thus not the United States. U.S. action, which, I might remind you, was only a part of a multi-nation coalition, was primarily limited to enforcing a no-fly zone and limited drone attacks.

[Urist_McDrowner]

I'm using the dictionary definition YOU posted! 

Are you really? Are you REALLY going to make me define the word "or" for you? We employed military force to overcome Qadaffi through force of arms (conquer), therefore, it was an invasion, and even if it wasn't, the WPR doesn't call for congressional authorization for invasion. It's for ALL presidential deployment of military forces abroad.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I don't think it's accurate to say NATO defeated Gaddafi. NATO's role denied Gaddafi air supremacy over the rebels, but it was the rebels themselves who went about with the city-capturing and the despot-executing.

[Urist_McDrowner]

Dude, the Republicans were blasting Obama for not acting fast enough., yet THEY controlled Authorization. Obama naturally sought authorization, yet the same political forces criticizing his slowness in attacking chose to withhold that authorization.

And when he finally took the initiative THEY demanded, they slammed him for not getting their own stamp of approval.

This is going to surprise you. This is going to shock and amaze you. There are actually TWO houses to congress! Shocking, amirite? Yeah, so apparently according to this st00ped piece of paper written like, 2 gazillion years ago, Congress, not just the House, must approve. And the Democrats hold a majority in the senate. I also want a source saying Obama sought authorization.

[Urist_McDrowner]

I don't think it's accurate to say NATO defeated Gaddafi. NATO's role denied Gaddafi air supremacy over the rebels, but it was the rebels themselves who went about with the city-capturing and the despot-executing.

We also gave air support and launched cruise missiles. You're grasping at the thinnest of straws now. Again, it's irrelevant. ALL deployment by the President abroad HAS to be approved by Congress within 60 days. It was not, therefore, Barack Obama is in violation of the law and a criminal.

[Reelya]

http://articles.cnn.com/2011-05-20/politics/war.powers_1_libya-resolution-president-barack-obama?_s=PM:POLITICS

On deadline day, President Barack Obama on Friday asked Congress to pass a bipartisan resolution in support of military operations in Libya.

At issue: The 1973 War Powers Act, which says if the president does not get congressional authorization 60 days after military action, the mission must stop within 30 days.

The president formally notified Congress about the mission in Libya with a letter on March 21, which made Friday the 60-day deadline.

Obama sent another letter Friday to House Speaker John Boehner and three other congressional leaders in which he expressed support for the bipartisan resolution that he said is being drafted by senators John Kerry, John McCain, Carl Levin, Dianne Feinstein, Lindsey Graham and Joseph Lieberman.

The resolution would confirm congressional support for the U.S. mission in Libya, Obama said.

You can't refuse to look for evidence, then assert there is no evidence.

So which is correct, all the republicans screaming for Obama to intervene faster in Libya? Or those same Republicans who did a 180 turn as soon as American troops were committed? Hell, they were calling for the military action, and as we can see, if Obama had waited for authorization, nothing would EVER have got done, then you'd be now blaming Obama for not invading.

http://www.npr.org/2011/06/18/137265761/who-has-war-powers-washington-debates

In the Senate, it gets more complicated. Perhaps Obama's staunchest defender there on Libya is the Republican he beat two and a half years ago, Arizona's John McCain. This week on the Senate floor, McCain took House Republicans to task for prompting a letter of thanks from Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi after they passed a resolution this month chiding Obama on Libya.

"Republicans need to ask themselves whether they want to be part of a group who are earning the grateful thanks of a murderous tyrant for trying to limit an American president's ability to force that tyrant to leave power," McCain said.

Petulant children those repub's. "no we don't want to" sign a piece of paper which would have been stamped on day one, had it been a Republican president in the exact same situation.

Heaven forbid a Democrat ever got a letter of praise from a tyrant for back-stabbing a Republican President's attempt to overthrow him. Can I call Republicans terrorists yet? This is much more concrete than any of the crap they throw at Democrats.

[Urist_McDrowner]

http://articles.cnn.com/2011-05-20/politics/war.powers_1_libya-resolution-president-barack-obama?_s=PM:POLITICS

On deadline day, President Barack Obama on Friday asked Congress to pass a bipartisan resolution in support of military operations in Libya.

At issue: The 1973 War Powers Act, which says if the president does not get congressional authorization 60 days after military action, the mission must stop within 30 days.

The president formally notified Congress about the mission in Libya with a letter on March 21, which made Friday the 60-day deadline.

Obama sent another letter Friday to House Speaker John Boehner and three other congressional leaders in which he expressed support for the bipartisan resolution that he said is being drafted by senators John Kerry, John McCain, Carl Levin, Dianne Feinstein, Lindsey Graham and Joseph Lieberman.

The resolution would confirm congressional support for the U.S. mission in Libya, Obama said.

You can't refuse to look for evidence, then assert there is no evidence.

He is supposed to notify congress within 48 hours, and get approval before 60 days. Read the actual text of the WPR.

He was also supposed to get approval before 60 days, not on the sixtieth day. The resolution was also being drafted, it wasn't through committee yet. Congress could not have given approval if it wanted to.

[Leafsnail]

Wait, so you're trying to bash Obama for a minor military intervention that had bipartisan support, had huge support from the international community and undoubtably saved many civilian lives because you think he might've slightly gone against a 1973 law (although he probably didn't - the law basically gives you 90 days because you have 30 days to withdraw after that 60 day deadline) that every president since has said is unconstitutional?

Maybe you should stop obsessing over the constitution so much and look at whether things actually have a positive impact.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

We also gave air support and launched cruise missiles.

I don't see you complaining about routine drone strike operations, the Korean DMZ deployment, or any of the other actions taken by the military on a regular basis. The way the military and the modern world functions clearly provides that the WPR cannot be employed until a certain level of action is taken. The WPR was initially put into law because of how long US forces fought in Vietnam without officially declaring a war. That's invasion-level intervention. We can grasp from this that the intended spirit of the WPR is to prevent the President from launching invasions and not letting Congress vote on it. An invasion isn't what happened here.

You're grasping at the thinnest of straws now.

I wasn't even involved with this until that post.

Again, it's irrelevant. ALL deployment by the President abroad HAS to be approved by Congress within 60 days.

There's a problem there which probably has more to do with the vagueness of the WPR than the legitimacy of Obama's actions: Control of this operation was turned over to NATO command before the 60-day mark even happened. The President's deployment ended and NATO's deployment began even though the actual physical deployment did not change. The WPR does not address or provide for this kind of situation. It is a question for the Supreme Court to answer if they deem it necessary to do so, and so far they have not.

It was not, therefore, Barack Obama is in violation of the law and a criminal.

It might mean that Obama acted unlawfully, but the WPR and the disputed violation thereof do not concern criminal law in the first place. The WPR concerns the balance of power between the President and Congress concerning warfare. (Reagan and Clinton both also took actions which are way stronger cases for a violation of the WPR, but I've never seen anyone call them criminals for it.)

Maybe you should stop obsessing over the constitution so much and look at whether things actually have a positive impact.

The dispute here doesn't really concern constitutionality. The WPR is a power struggle between the President and Congress because of the latter's reluctance to vote on war declarations.

[scriver]

And, most importantly, you/we were invited by the Libyan people. They begged NATO to intervene. It's the exact same situation as your American Revolution. If France had refused to help America then the way you wanted the US/NATO to not help the Libyans now, you would never had broken free from Great Britain.

[Sirus]

"Never" might be pushing it a little, but I agree. Without France's aid, things would have gone much worse.

[GreatJustice]

-Voted YES on TARP (2008) <- A republican initiative
-Voted YES on Economic Stimulus HR 5140 (2008) <- A republican initiative (This was a short term tax cut proposed by Bush, not the Obama stimulus package)
-Voted YES on $15B bailout for GM and Chrysler. (Dec 2008)
-Voted YES on $192B additional anti-recession stimulus spending. (Jul 2009)
-Voted YES on limited prescription drug benefit for Medicare recipients. (Nov 2003) <- A republican initiative
-Voted YES on providing $70 million for Section 8 Housing vouchers. (Jun 2006)
-Voted YES on extending unemployment benefits from 39 weeks to 59 weeks. (Oct 2008) <- Bipartisan at the time, Passed by a republican president
-Voted YES on Head Start Act (2007)
-Voted YES on No Child Left Behind Act (2001) <- A republican initiative

So the list with those things removed:
Voted for the auto bailout
70 whole million dollars for housing aid
Voted for a smaller stimulus bill
Voted for Head Start

Pretty thin.

"Supported by Republicans" =/= "CONSERVATIVE"

Check out how the votes went on TARP, etc and you would quickly find that such things were mostly opposed by conservative Republicans. Hell, just watch some of the older 2012 debates and you'd find candidates attacking each other for ever supporting TARP, Republican backed or no.

Wait, so you're trying to bash Obama for a minor military intervention that had bipartisan support, had huge support from the international community and undoubtably saved many civilian lives because you think he might've slightly gone against a 1973 law (although he probably didn't - the law basically gives you 90 days because you have 30 days to withdraw after that 60 day deadline) that every president since has said is unconstitutional?

Maybe you should stop obsessing over the constitution so much and look at whether things actually have a positive impact.

Uh, the constitution exists for a reason, flawed though it may be. When the US goes around declaring wars on everyone and overthrowing regimes (regardless of whether a Democrat or Republican is doing it, which seems to be the primary distinction between "good" and "evil" for some people), it creates unintended consequences, brand new enemies, and destabilization.

But so far as the positive impact? Well, Gaddafi is overthrown, but internationally speaking he was a harmless and cowardly dictator who didn't even remotely pose a threat to other countries. He was pretty brutal to his own people when they rebelled, but then so are the leaders of Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, yet the US sure didn't care when those people asked for help. In fact, the pattern here is that the US is cherry picking the brutal dictatorships and only overthrowing the ones that aren't friendly client states (hence they threaten Syria and, again, ignore Bahrain where the only supporters of the rebels are the Iranians). In Libya itself, the best thing you can say has happened is the elections, in which the westerners were given disproportionate power compared to the people in Cyrenica, who basically boycotted the elections. War crimes were committed, blacks tossed in zoos, there are still Gaddafi supporters running around the desert causing mischief, the country looks ready to split into at least two if not a dozen new ones and the US spent a pile of money that could have gone towards actually helping people rather than blowing them up from afar.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Well, Gaddafi is overthrown, but internationally speaking he was a harmless and cowardly dictator who didn't even remotely pose a threat to other countries.

Dude, Gaddafi openly, not even covertly, but openly supported practically every terrorist group from the last 40 years. He once even stated he was building training camps for suicide attacks. He gave funding and resources to the RAF, the IRA, and the Red Brigade. He tried to prop up as many foreign radical political parties as he could. He funded Islamist and Communist rebels in the Philippines.

He tried to have foreign journalists criticizing him assassinated, he had a West Berlin nightclub bombed, and when his people finally started to rise up against him his solution was tanks and machine guns! He was going to burn his own country to the ground rather than ever consider surrendering! The guy was completely fucking nuts!

He was pretty brutal to his own people when they rebelled, but then so are the leaders of Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, yet the US sure didn't care when those people asked for help. In fact, the pattern here is that the US is cherry picking the brutal dictatorships and only overthrowing the ones that aren't friendly client states (hence they threaten Syria and, again, ignore Bahrain where the only supporters of the rebels are the Iranians).

Saudi Arabia never had a serious rebellion going on during the Arab Spring, Syria is still in a civil war right now. The US is supporting things that actually have a chance of success.

[Aqizzar]

Okay, this is getting a little heated, but I suppose that's to be expected.  Just stay on notice guys.


It has now become officially necessary for me to update the first post with news.  I feel like I should archive my primary crap first, but who really cares.  I'll get on that sooner or later.

[Il Palazzo]

He was pretty brutal to his own people when they rebelled, but then so are the leaders of Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, yet the US sure didn't care when those people asked for help. In fact, the pattern here is that the US is cherry picking the brutal dictatorships and only overthrowing the ones that aren't friendly client states (hence they threaten Syria and, again, ignore Bahrain where the only supporters of the rebels are the Iranians).

Saudi Arabia never had a serious rebellion going on during the Arab Spring, Syria is still in a civil war right now. The US is supporting things that actually have a chance of success.

And if that includes supporting opressive governments that do a good job of suppressing the populace then so be it.

Well, Gaddafi is overthrown, but internationally speaking he was a harmless and cowardly dictator who didn't even remotely pose a threat to other countries.

Dude, Gaddafi openly, not even covertly, but openly supported practically every terrorist group from the last 40 years. He once even stated he was building training camps for suicide attacks. He gave funding and resources to the RAF, the IRA, and the Red Brigade. He tried to prop up as many foreign radical political parties as he could. He funded Islamist and Communist rebels in the Philippines.

He tried to have foreign journalists criticizing him assassinated, he had a West Berlin nightclub bombed, and when his people finally started to rise up against him his solution was tanks and machine guns! He was going to burn his own country to the ground rather than ever consider surrendering! The guy was completely fucking nuts!

Which was all over 20 years ago. Since then Gaddafi had become a good buddy of the West, providing anti-terrorism information and a convenient shipping destination for USA's prisoners that needed "proper interrogation".
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/closeread/2011/09/eighty-nine-questions-what-did-libya-do-for-the-cia.html

I don't understand the need some people have to brand the leader of any country that is or was anti-West as insane. Gaddafi? Nuts. Saddam? Completely bonkers. Hitler? Certainly not sane. The Great Leader of Best Korea? Don't even get me started. Assad? A crazed monster. Ahmadinejad? Can't let a nutjob have them nukes.
There appears to exist a deeply-rooted belief that USA wages war based on psychiatric evaluation.

edit: missing article