Ralph Nader: Waging Another Unconstitutional War – OpEd

The meticulous Harvard Law Review editors should be rolling over in their footnotes. The recidivist violations of constitutional and statutory requirements by their celebrated predecessor at that journal – Barack Obama has reached Orwellian dimensions in the war against Libya.

You see, the widespread daily bombing of Libya, the strict naval blockade of Muammar Gadhafi-controlled Libya, the destruction of Gadhafi’s family compound and tent encampment in the desert–killing his son and three grandchildren–and the deployment of special forces inside Libya is not a “War.” It is in the Obama White House’s evasive nomenclature just a “time-limited, scope-limited military action” Can you find that phrase in the Constitution?

If Obama used the word “War,” he would have a more difficult time explaining to Congress and the American people (three out of four oppose this war) why he did not (1) seek a declaration of war under Article I, section 8, clause 11 of the Constitution, or (2) seek Congressional authorization for appropriated funds to further the war with our NATO co-warriors, or (3) comply with the deadlines of the War Powers Resolution. He threw all three lawful restraints on his Presidential unilateralism overboard.

So, in the invidious tradition of George W. Bush and his indentured confessor, Justice Department lawyer, John Yoo, now comfortably ensconced on the law faculty of the University of California Berkeley, Mr. Obama is blithely claiming as authority for taking our country into another war “the inherent powers of the President under Article II of the Constitution.” This wouldn’t pass the laugh test by Jefferson, Madison, Franklin Mason or even Hamilton. James Madison believed placing the war-declaring power in the exclusive hands of Congress was the most significant achievement during the convention in Philadelphia that summer of 1787. No more King George substitutes for America’s future, they demanded.

Note that Libya did not attack the U.S. or its appendages, and did not attack a member of NATO. Obama admits these points. Libya’s trusting government sovereign fund even left $37 billion in the U.S. which Obama promptly froze. Lacking even the prevaricatory pretenses for Bush’s illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003, Obama and Hillary Clinton now say the U.S. is militarily involved “to protect our interests and advance our values” in the region and, of course, to protect the “universal rights” of the Libyan people. (Opportunities abound for this Obama doctrine around the world from the Congo to Syria, to Burma, to occupied Palestine and many other areas.)

Desperately seeking legitimacy, Mr. Obama cites the UN resolution, NATO, and the Arab League instead of seeking it from Congress. For all treaties with foreign countries, including the UN Charter, are trumped by the U.S. Constitution (Reid v. Covert, 354 U.S. 1 (1957)). As a former teacher of constitutional law, the President knows this basic principle but then, as Lord Acton declared: “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”...

Continued at:

http://www.eurasiareview.com/ralph-nader-waging-another-unconstitutional-war-ope...