Ron Paul: Obama could preemptively nuke any country without permission

Spokane Conservative Examiner
By Joe Newby
Friday June 17th 2011

In an op-ed at the Daily Caller, GOP Presidential candidate Ron Paul (R-TX) explains why he and nine other members of Congress filed a lawsuit against President Obama over his actions in Libya.

Referencing a report issued by the White House, he writes that using the logic put forward by the Administration, Obama could preemptively nuke any country in the world without permission:

The Obama administration recently issued a 38-page paper stating that Obama is not in violation of the War Powers Act because “U.S. operations do not involve sustained fighting or active exchanges of fire with hostile forces, nor do they involve U.S. ground troops.” Under this argument, President Obama could preemptively launch nuclear weapons against any country in the world without Congressional approval. Obviously, this is not what the Founders intended!

Paul may have a point.

The Constitution says that only Congress has the authority to declare war.  Presidents have always had the authority to temporarily deploy forces when necessary to protect vital national interests.  Thomas Jefferson did it when he sent the Navy and Marines after the Barbary Pirates in the early 19th Century, and subsequent Presidents have deployed the military as well.

But the situation in Libya is far different, as Paul explains.

Our Founders understood that waging war is not something that should be taken lightly, which is why Article 1, Section 8 of the United States Constitution gives Congress — not the president — the authority to declare war. This was meant to be an important check on presidential power. The last thing the Founders wanted was an out-of-control executive branch engaging in unnecessary and unpopular wars without so much as a Congressional debate.
Unfortunately, that’s exactly the situation we have today in Libya.

He also notes the hypocrisy of then-Senator Obama who had issues with President George Bush:

Of course, in 2007, then-Senator Obama spoke passionately about the need to go after the Bush administration for violating the War Powers Act — the very same thing he’s doing now. In fact, while speaking at DePaul University in October of 2007, then-Senator Barack Obama said the following:
“After Vietnam, Congress swore it would never again be duped into war, and even wrote a new law — the War Powers Act — to ensure it would not repeat its mistakes. But no law can force a Congress to stand up to the president. No law can make senators read the intelligence that showed the president was overstating the case for war. No law can give Congress a backbone if it refuses to stand up as the co-equal branch the Constitution made it.”

Paul writes that members of Congress "are now taking Barack Obama’s past advice and standing up to the executive branch."

According to the Texas Republican, Obama has refused to follow the War Powers Act, and says the President's "time is up."

Paul also mentions the economics of the conflict, saying that Americans are being taxed to bomb a nation propped up by taxpayer dollars:

But even aside from violating the Constitution, it makes no economic sense for us to be engaged in yet another war overseas — especially during such tough economic times. For years now, we’ve been sending foreign aid to the very same Libyan government we’re now spending $10 million a day to fight. And it has been recently discovered that the Federal Reserve’s bank bailouts even benefited the Libyan National Bank. Now, we’re taxing the American people to bomb the very nation that we taxed them to prop up.

He concludes by writing:

The Founding Fathers did not intend for the president to have the power to take our nation to war unilaterally without the approval of Congress.

It’s time for the president to obey the Constitution and put the American people’s national interest first.

The White House maintains it has followed the law, and House Speaker John Boehner warned the President that he has until Sunday to seek approval from Congress to avoid being in violation of the War Powers Resolution.

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