There are very legitimate arguments being made that Barack Obama is in blatant violation of a law that was passed over Richard Nixon’s veto – the 1973 War Powers Act. By aligning himself with Nixon over an issue the most disgraced Republican president in history went to the mat over – and lost – Barack Obama is doing the same thing in what should be a game of political brinksmanship with much higher stakes.
Nixon’s veto was overridden; Obama is thumbing his nose at the result. The law states that any president must get Congressional approval before engaging U.S. Forces in military conflict for more than 60 days; that deadline came and went on May 21st, without any such approval.
Though George Will did not use the word ‘impeach’ in his recent column on the subject, he did use the word ‘meretricious’ to describe the audacity with which Obama is breaking the law. Last I checked, the penalty for ‘high crimes and misdemeanors’ is impeachment. The debate about whether a presidential crime has been committed warrants consideration but it also begs a possibly more important question.
Why is Obama going to the mat over Libya?
Attacking Muammar Gadhafi only outraged staunch Obama allies like Louis Farrakhan and New Black Panther Party leader Malik Zulu Shabazz, who spewed ideological venom directly at the White House when they learned what Obama was doing to their beloved Gadhafi; Farrakhan and Shabazz have been conspicuously silent since late March. If ever there was a time for such men to rub raw the sores of their own discontent, it would be now. Conspicuous silence indeed.
In the same speech Obama called on Israel to return to its 1967 borders, he also said the following about the misnamed ‘Arab Spring’ while championing it:
“Two leaders have stepped aside (Tunisia and Egypt). More may follow (Libya and Syria).”
In addition to Obama, there are three entities that also welcome the stepping aside of these leaders: Turkey, its Gülenist movement, and the Muslim Brotherhood. The former used to be ground zero for the Islamic Caliphate known as the Ottoman Empire and the latter was created to reinstall it in the same place. An article in the New York Times even talks about how modern Turkish nationalism includes “echoes of its Ottoman age,” when national borders were replaced by the rule of the Caliphate:
“Across the region, the Arab revolution has inspired a rethinking of identity, even as older notions of self hang like a specter over the revolts’ success. In its most pristine, the revolution feels transnational, as demands of justice, freedom and dignity are expressed in a technology-driven globalism. It echoes even in Turkey, where religious and national divides are increasingly blurred.”
GMBDR is reporting that the Syrian ambassador to Turkey is not the least bit pleased with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s cozy relationship with a powerful man named Gazi Mısırlı, who was a trustee of a group representing the Muslim Brotherhood in Europe, a place where Turkey itself – through the deceptive Turkish Imam Fetullah Gülen and his schools – has tremendous influence; Wikileaks has revealed that Turkish president Abdullah Gül is himself a ‘Gülenist.’
When you add all of this up, Barack Obama is going to extraordinary lengths – illegal ones according to George Will – in Libya. In so doing, the United States is furthering the cause of forces that want the return of an Islamic Caliphate. Why won’t Obama address these issues? Enough people have certainly raised them.
Among the worst mistakes made in response to silence from powerful political leaders is equating that silence with ignorance. The voluminous amounts of documents released by Wikileaks demonstrated that reality all too clearly. Though ironically misattributed to FDR, there is a quote that has the staying power reserved only for truisms:
“In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens you can bet it was planned that way.”
If the Middle East policy of this administration, regardless of motive, mirrors the policy of a president who wants to aid in the resurrection of an Islamic Caliphate by breaking the law to help him do so, impeachment of that president by Congress becomes a Constitutional mandate.
Ben Barrack is a talk show host on KTEM 1400 in Texas and maintains a website at benbarrack.com