Torpedos Over Tripoli

Shouldn't this be TOMAHAWKS over Tripoli?

 

Contingency funds.

 

I think he has a maximum of 7 days to do whatever he wants to do without Congressional approval. But I may be wrong.

Obama is in a no-win situation. Stay out of this, and he is a liberal coward who won't stand up for American principles. Get involved, and he angers the non-neoconservative crowd that thinks we're doing enough militarily in the world already and doesn't want more money spent and more troops put in harms way.

 

Back then we were peon upstarts on the world map. France is a has-been who wilted in WWII, leaving Britain and the USA to save their country.

 

He's only supposed to act without Congressional authorization if we face an imminent threat, which wasn't the case.

As a candidate, Obama made this very point very clearly.

I'm with Carlton. I think he should have done it and he should have done it sooner. But, he was so reluctant to do it, so determined to appear deliberative, and so hesitant to take leadership, that he never made the case to the American public for our actions.

That's not the way to do it and Bush would have been hammered for it. This isn't one missile or a one day action. This is a no fly zone. It's days or weeks worth of warfare. It's 11 ships. It's over 100 missiles. It's already cost over $100M in missiles alone. The B2 run from Missouri had to be pretty expensive and a no fly zone is expensive.

He should have made the case.

Instead, he let the President of France announce the decision. And then he went on vacation.

It's really unbelievable and unprecedented.

If I wasn't for this, I'd really be pissed.

 

YF, I am thankful he did it and am not really going to hammer him for the way he did it. He was wrong, but it is going to save a lot of lives. What angers me is going to the UN for approval and not worrying about Congress. The UN does not dictate American policy, and I trust that organization about as far as I can throw it.

The thing is, if this was done three weeks ago it wouldn't have cost nearly as much and the objective (no-fly zone, I think, but no real objective has been identified, and to protect the rebel strongholds) would have been a lot easier. The rebels controlled a great deal of the country until Quadaffi rallied his people and took a lot of area back. But at least now rebels aren't getting killed by the hundreds.

 

If you're going that route, blame the Arab League, because the UN resolution wouldn't have come up except for the Arab League vote.

Of course, someone will twist that into Obama-is-a-closet-Muslim-and-bows-to-Muslim-pressure BS, whatever.

 

Every president since Kennedy has operated under variations of this theme. You're indignant now?

 

Yeah. Obama should have told everyone that Libya was shopping for yellow cake and Al Qaeda was setting up shop in Tripoli to get that Congressional approval.

Silly liberal.

 

Seventy million dollars without the approval of Congress? Let's keep this in perspective. It isn't as if Obama agreed on his own to fund NPR for another year. Sheesh.

 

approves

 

Up to 90 days. This has been in effect for the last 38 years.

http://www.nytimes.com/1984/03/29/world/how-war-powers-act-works.html

The second post on this thread made this abundantly clear.