Libyan Invasion as Further Expansion of Obama's Executive Power

Well over 100 cruise missiles have been shot into Libya. 

We've established a no-fly zone-- an act of war, as much so as a naval blockade.

We've spent hundreds of millions of dollars, if  not a billion, already, on this "non-war."

There is not excuse for the members of congress to allow this. It is a brazen act of hubris, a grab for even more executive power than Obama has already grabbed, over-reached for and embraced. He started by embracing rather than spurning the abusive over-reaches for executive power that George W. Bush, with the help of Darth Cheney and Karl Rove stole-- yes stole-- from the other branches-- mostly congress. 

This is more of the same hubris. 

A handful of members of congress are protecting the separations of power. The rest of them are cowards, afraid to speak out, just because the military is involved. 

Of course, there's really a fourth branch of power in the US-- the most powerful-- the military-industrial-medical complex. They call the shots. It's been a long time since a president or a congress have had the spine to tell the military what to do. Instead, they ask Generals with massive conflicts of interest-- whose entire careers ride on seeing action, blowing things up and killing people-- to make the hard choices for them about war, about keeping troops in, taking them out. Avoiding these decision is the most abject form of cowardice. When a president says, "I'll wait for what the Generals say," he almost always, maybe ALWAYS means he will DO what the generals say. 

The congress is supposed to be there to demand accountability and to represent we the people. 

It may very well be that the US should be part of the Libyan invasion. But the US congress should have been asked, and having not been asked, if it fails to hold the president accountable, even with the utmost option, impeachment, then the congress will have again proved itself to be a dwindling power of diminishing, impotent influence-- which is a disaster for democracy.

Congress must hold hearings on the war AND on Obama's failure to ask for war powers. Failure to do so is a betrayal of the constitution.