Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi is reprehensible in the eyes of the United States and of many of his own people, who are in revolt against him.
But without there having been a “hot” attack by Gadhafi’s forces on Americans, President Barack Obama had U.S. military forces attack Libya, ignoring the U.S. Constitution’s provision that only Congress has the power to declare war.
Obama tried in a national broadcast Monday to defend his decision, largely on grounds of protecting Libyan civilians. But he failed to provide convincing justification for his military action – action for which he had received only U.N. “approval.”
Pointedly dodging the word “war” – although that is what he has sent Americans into – he said, “To brush aside America’s responsibility as a leader and – more profoundly – our responsibilities to our fellow human beings under such circumstances would have been a betrayal of who we are.”
Those are noble-sounding words, but in terms of the Constitution, they are almost meaningless.
There is no question that Gadhafi is a tyrant. His country has been involved in terrorism against the United States, and he has victimized the Libyan people. But absent an imminent threat to the United States, sending our forces to attack Gadhafi’s regime without a declaration of war by Congress cannot be justified.
There are numerous foreign leaders, in addition to Gadhafi, who brutalize their own people. But it is not a proper enterprise for U.S. forces to take military action to oust Gadhafi – or the others – without a threat to our own security.
Republican Texas Sen. John Cornyn, a member of the Armed Services Committee, correctly said, “President Obama failed to explain why he unilaterally took our nation to war without bothering to make the case to the U.S. Congress.”
Short of an immediate threat to the United States or to American citizens, our country should not go to war without a declaration by Congress, as the Constitution provides.