When Obama ordered the US military to wage war in Libya without Congressional approval (even though, to use his words, it did "not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation"), the administration and its defenders claimed he had legal authority to do so for two reasons: (1) the 1973 WarPowersResolution (WPR) authorizes the President to wage war for 60 days without Congress, and (2) the "time-limited, well defined and discrete" nature of the mission meant that it was not really a "war" under the Constitution (Deputy NSA Adviser BenRhodes and the Obama OLC). Those claims were specious from the start, but are unquestionably inapplicable now.
From the start, the WPR provided no such authority. Section 1541(c) explicitly states that the war-making rights conferred by the statute apply only to "a national emergency created by attack upon the UnitedStates, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces." That's why YaleLawProfessor BruceAckerman -- in an article in ForeignPolicy entitled "Obama's Unconstitutional War" -- wrote when the war started that the "The WarPowersResolution doesn't authorize a single day of Libyan bombing" and that "in taking the country into a war with Libya, Obama'sAdministration is breaking new ground in its construction of an imperial presidency."
Ackerman detailed why Obama's sweeping claims of war powers exceeded that even of past controversial precedents, such as Clinton's 1999 bombing of Kosovo, which at least had the excuse that Congress authorized funding for it: "but Obama can't even take advantage of this same desperate expedient, since Congress has appropriated no funds for the Libyan war."
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