Ron Paul & Dennis Kucinich: Libya Airstrikes Unconstitutional – Only Congress Can Declare War

Author: Jeanette Borges

Yesterday, the U.N. Security Council voted to approve a no-fly zone using all means necessary extending over all of Libya to try to halt Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's mounting attacks against rebel positions. Translation? The United States while at war in Iraq, Afghanistan and an undeclared war in Pakistan is going into a fourth war with Libya.

Republican Representative Ron Paul and Democrat Representative Dennis Kucinich have been allies against the wars for some time now.  (They would make the dream team in 2012 but only in my dreams.)

Today Kucinich said on MSNBC about Libya: “It's not up to the President, it's up to Congress”.  The constitution indeed states that only Congress can declare war so enforcing a no fly zone is an unauthorized, unconstitutional act of war because it involves the bombing of Libya’s air defenses. He stated that Congress should be called back to debate and vote on the issue. Then Kucinich went on to voice what anyone with a half a brain is saying: we can’t afford this! 

On the other side of the political spectrum, the true spokesperson for the Taxed Enough Already Party, (before it was hijacked by Fox News and Neocons), Ron Paul, also stated on the floor of the Unites States House of Representatives that Libya air strikes would be unconstitutional because only Congress can declare war. He too is right. This is what he said:

“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.

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”.

While it is indeed unconstitutional and the United Nations cannot declare war for the United States most upsetting is the question: Who is going to pay for this? Are they going to cut more school lunches, Social Security or education while giving taxes to the uber rich who profit from these wars, but do not want to pay for them?

One wonders where are all the voices of the opposition within the newly elected Tea Party politicians who are always talking about constitutional and limited government and fiscal responsibility. They mock us when they say they are conservative. War hawks are not conservatives because wars grow government and the debt. The newly elected, Tea Party backed, Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio blasted Obama for not pouncing on Libya. He is nothing but a Republican war hawk already serving the military industrial complex pimps and is the farthest thing from a conservative. Then there are the old, gray, white sack of bones like McCain, Lieberman and Kerry who supposedly are on opposite political sides, but they are united in serving those same pimps.

This is proof positive, if you still need proof,  that our elected leaders are not divided because they are corrupt beyond belief. They serve an oligarchy that is the military industrial complex and not the American people. They are paid by the highest bidder and we the people continue to be pillaged and continue to pay for their corruption.

They are united in their corruption, but we the people are divided. It is time we united against them and their corruption instead of letting them distract us with the Republican vs. Democrat arguments.

Pass it on. We the people are only as strong as our weakest link.  We are only as strong as you.

http://www.prisonplanet.com/ron-paul-libya-airstrikes-unconstitutional-only-congress-can-declare-war.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRQUnpKlZ8Q

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