Wednesday, March 23, 2011

John Bolton: Obama's Four Libya Mistakes

First, do not wait until it’s almost too late.

Second, do not embrace confused and imprecise mission objectives.

Third, do not diffuse political authority, and therefore ultimate responsibility.

Fourth, do not bet on partners who may not have the military capability to achieve the objectives.

Details at Fox News

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

2 comments:

Tom said...

And Fifth; do not launch a war of choice in violation of the War Powers Act, or ingnore article one, section eight of the Constitution.

I consider that one the most important.

Douglas V. Gibbs said...

War Powers Act is unconstitutional, by legislatively taking away an executive authority, rather than following the proper process of an amendment, which is a way of asking the States if such an elimination of authority should be done.

Checks and Balances. The Executive Branch, to check the legislative branch, can fail to execute unconstitutional legislation (as Obama chose to do with DOMA). The executive may, against the legislative branch should the executive believe the legislative action is unconstitutional, also execute as necessary and constitutionally allowed.

The legislative branch can defund a president's actions should they assume that the executive's actions are unconstitutional.

If a question of constitutionality regarding the actions of those two branches reaches the judicial branch, the courts can issue an opinion regarding the constitutionality of the action or law - of which the other two branches can take under advisement. If the legislative branch and the executive branch fail to follow the court's recommendations regarding the constitutionality of a law or action, a final check may be applied by the states through nullification.

Prior to the 17th Amendment another check was in place because the House was the voice of the people and the Senate was the voice of the states. In that way, the two houses of Congress checked each other (people checked the states, and the states checked the people) and together with their ability to override a veto they checked the executive branch - and with the power of impeachment they check both executive and judicial branches.

So, since it is Constitutional for the president to wage war without a declaration of war (declaration is a formal advisement to the world that we are in a state of war, but not necessary for military actions), despite the poor decision I believe it to be, Obama as Commander in Chief is under his constitutional authorities to do what he is doing in Libya. As with Bush in Iraq, which also was perfectly legal, if the Congress doesn't like it, they can defund it. But, this Congress, as with the Congress during Iraq, would rather complain than to actually act within their constitutionally given powers. That's because as much as the politicians disagree with each other, they are all elitists and will never actually go against each other in any show larger than what looks good on camera.

This is where the Tea Party freshmen are so valuable. They have not yet succumbed to the corrupt soup that shoots through the veins of the elitists in Washington.