WHO WILL WIN THE WAR POWERS SHOOT-OUT?

The House of Representatives passed a resolution June 3 chiding President Barack Hussein Obama for failing to comply with the requirements of the War Powers Act with regard to the U.S. military intervention in Libya.

If Congress doesn’t explicitly approve the military action within 90 days, the War Powers Act says the troops committed to it must be withdrawn.  The 90 days runs out this weekend.

The House resolution gave the president until Friday (6/17) to comply with the law.  He hasn’t yet.

Maybe Mr. Obama fears Congress might not approve the mission in Libya.  The resolution which passed was offered to head off one sponsored by Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-OH, which called for withdrawal of U.S. forces.  Even so, the Kucinich resolution received 148 votes, 87 of them from Republicans.

This prompted neoconservatives to accuse "Kucinich Republicans" of playing politics with national security.  "What is the explanation for the 87 Republicans…who transform themselves into isolationists when a Democrat takes over the White House?" asked the Wall Street Journal.

"Republicans play politics with the Libya intervention — and our country will pay a price," tweeted the military historian Max Boot.

A term originally coined to describe prominent left wing intellectuals who became conservatives, a "neocon" today is generally understood to be someone who supports the use of the U.S. military to spread democracy.

Neocons support a strong national defense.  But they tend to see no disconnect between that and their support for frittering away our military strength in conflicts at best peripheral to our security.

Libya is a good example. Col. Gadhafy is an evil mean nasty rotten guy.  But there are many such in the world.  One who is worse is Syrian dictator Bashar al Assad.

The U.S. has no security interest in Libya, said Defense Secretary Robert Gates. Syria is a dangerous enemy.  So why did we intervene in Libya but not in Syria?

The neocon answer, as given by Sen. Joseph Lieberman on Fox News Sunday March 27, is hey, maybe we should intervene in Syria, too.

Neocons love our military from afar.  Few have ever served.  If more had, they would understand what Frederick the Great (1712-1786) meant when he said "he who defends everything defends nothing."

Neocons act as if our military resources were infinite.  Mr. Boot is a good example.  He supports the intervention in Libya, the war in Afghanistan, and extending the commitment of U.S. troops to Iraq. 

In a speech last Friday (6/10), Secretary Gates said NATO faces "a dim, if not dismal future" if our European allies don’t start paying their fair share of NATO’s costs.

Mr. Boot wrote Monday (6/13) NATO should go on as it is.  "We might as well grow up and realize that if we don’t play globocop, nobody else will," he said.

The Financial Times reported last week we’re now spending $2 million a day on the war in Libya.  That’s chump change compared to what the president has blown on failed stimulus programs. But we’re $14.4 trillion in debt.  It adds up.

We’ll spend about $120 billion this fiscal year on the war in Afghanistan.  That ‘s roughly twice as much as we were spending there when President Obama took office.

More Republicans would support the conflict in Libya if they thought prospects for success were greater.  But President Obama has chosen to fight it in a way more politically correct than militarily sound.  That’s why a military commitment he said would be over "in days, not weeks" has extended into months.

In a Rasmussen poll released Monday (6/13), 59 percent of respondents said the president should get the approval of Congress if he wants to continue the U.S. military action in Libya.

The War Powers Act was passed in 1973 over the veto of President Nixon, who considered it an unconstitutional restriction on his authority as commander in chief.  It never has been tested in the courts.  If President Obama agrees with Nixon, he should say so, and bring on that test. 

Republicans who favor a strong national defense are not "playing politics" when they object to wasting blood and treasure in no win wars, or when they insist the president obey the law.

The ones playing politics are those Democrats who loudly supported the War Powers Act — until Mr. Obama flouted it.

Jack Kelly is a former Marine and Green Beret and a former deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force in the Reagan administration. He is national security writer for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.