After Years of War, House Holds Votes to Check Military Action

Monday, May 30, 2011 by The Hill

by Russell Berman 

 

An increasingly war-weary House will vote this week on legislation that would halt the U.S. military intervention in Libya. The vote comes just days after lawmakers nearly approved a measure to expedite the American withdrawal from Afghanistan.

The office of Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said Friday the House would take up a resolution introduced by anti-war Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) that directs the president to remove U.S. armed forces from Libya. The liberal Democrat is acting under authority of the 1973 War Powers Resolution, which enables legislators to force a vote on troop withdrawal measures under certain conditions.

Kucinich has used the mechanism to force votes on withdrawing forces from Iraq and Afghanistan, most recently in March, but this will be the first such vote on the two-month-old Libya mission.

The measure is not expected to pass, but a significant number of votes in favor could send a sobering message to the White House, which has struggled to win congressional support for the military intervention in Libya. Both Republican and Democratic leaders criticized Obama for a lack of consultation with Congress in the run-up to the military deployment, and the House has ignored his request for a resolution supporting the mission.

Obama has also come under criticism for not providing enough clarity on the goals of the bombing campaign – whether it is merely to protect Libyan civilians from a crackdown by Moammar Ghadafi or whether it is to drive Ghadafi from power.

The House last week overwhelmingly voted to add amendments to a Defense authorization bill to bar the president from deploying ground troops to Libya and stating explicitly that Congress was not, as part of the legislation, authorizing the military mission.

Kucinich seized on those votes to declare increased momentum for ending the U.S. involvement. “Congress is not satisfied with the blank check that this administration has written for itself to conduct the Libyan war,” Kucinich said. “Congress has made it clear that the Libyan war has not been authorized as required by the Constitution and the War Powers Act.”

Aides said Democrats felt comfortable voting to prohibit ground troops in Libya because Obama has already deemed it U.S. policy.

An aide to Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said Democratic leaders would not whip their members on the Kucinich resolution.

In a separate vote, the House came surprisingly close to approving an expedited withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan. The bipartisan measure, authored by Reps. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) and Justin Amash (R-Mich.), failed 215-204 after drawing 26 Republican votes and all but eight Democrats.

During the debate over that resolution, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said that she told Afghan President Hamid Karzai that Americans wanted to end the war. “Each time I go there, I say, ‘The American people are growing tired of war,’ ” Pelosi said on the floor.

Obama: Liberal critics should stop griping and ‘wake up’

By Reuters - Tuesday, September 21st, 2010

President Barack Obama had some friendly advice on Monday for liberal Democrats who say he has not achieved everything on their wish lists -- quit complaining.

Making a whirlwind fund-raising tour of Philadelphia to rally support for his embattled Democrats before U.S. congressional elections in November, Obama offered a hint of his exasperation with parts of the liberal base that helped sweep him to power in the 2008 election.

"When I hear Democrats griping and groaning and saying ... 'the health care plan didn't have a public option', and ... 'the financial reform -- there was a provision here that I think we should have gotten better', or, 'you know what, yes, you ended the war in Iraq, the combat mission there, but you haven't completely finished the Afghan war yet', this or that or the other, I say 'folks, wake up', " Obama told wealthy donors at a Democratic National Committee dinner.

The bulk of Obama's remarks - he headlined three events in a single evening -- were devoted to trying to fire up supporters just six weeks before midterm elections where the country's economic woes threaten Democrats' hold on Congress.

The visit to Pennsylvania, a key swing state, followed a townhall-style meeting in Washington where audience members voiced anger and disappointment at his administration over its handling of high unemployment and a stumbling economy.

Speaking to a friendlier crowd in Philadelphia, Obama defended his agenda and lambasted Republicans, calling them the party of "no, we can't" and saying they would seek to reinstate failed Bush-era policies if they regained control of Congress.

But he also chided those on the left who have grown impatient with his sometimes middle-ground approach.

"This is not some academic exercise," Obama said. "As Joe Biden put it, don't compare us to the Almighty; compare us to the alternative," he said to laughter.

While conservatives have been Obama's loudest critics, with some even branding him a socialist, liberal commentators have become more vocal in complaining he has not fought hard enough for some of their priorities.

They say he was wrong to drop a government-run insurance option from his landmark healthcare overhaul, should have gone further in punishing Wall Street and has not done enough to end the wars, reform immigration, battle climate change and close the military jail at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs last month urged the "professional left" to give Obama credit for what he has accomplished, and some mainstream Democrats have appealed to them to cut Obama some slack for the sake of party unity.

"This is what change looks like," Obama said in Philadelphia. "In a big, messy democracy like ours, a country that's huge and diverse, you know, it's not smooth. But it's worthwhile."

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(OK, one-term corporate suck-up president. Who trashes his base with mid-terms coming up?--jef)