HR 1708 couldn’t be clearer.
No funds available to the Department of Defense or any other United States Government department or agency may be used to support Operation Odyssey Dawn.
Representative Scott Rigell calls the military action in Libya a “civil war” and questions whether President Obama has the authority to conduct it.
“One of the ways we honor our men and women in uniform is we honor and adhere to the Constitution that they are defending,” Rigell said. “I do not think our founding fathers intended that one person could commit our armed forces to military action… unless there was a threat or we had been attacked.”
“It was clear that American lives were not at risk. It was clear the security of the United States was not at risk,” he said. (Virginian-Pilot)
Even the War Powers Act provides that Congressional approval is required except when “a national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces.”
Libya certainly hasn’t attacked us to provoke our action. Rigell’s bill reminds me of the Boland amendments in the 1980s that blocked funding for aiding the Contras in Nicaragua.
Democrats had no problem supporting Boland. I wonder how they’ll feel about an internal conflict in Libya.
