The Obama Libyan mess

This is from someone at Brookings attacking Obama's policies. I still don't understand why we are involved in Libya but not another country such as Syria, where soldiers are shooting into crowds and 120 are dead in just the last two days. Apparently, even the Washington Post can't quite figure out what the administration is doing. The logic seems Ad Hoc.

“Deterring Qadhafi’s forces from moving forward doesn’t remove him from power, doesn’t create a functioning economy, doesn’t solve humanitarian problems of people being out of their homes, out of work — all of which comes from having this war drag on and on,” said Anthony Cordesman, a defense analyst at the Brookings Institution. “What gets totally lost here is you have hundreds of thousands of people displaced here — refugees … you’re losing economic opportunity, losing jobs, the educational system is breaking down, the whole infrastructure is coming under pressure.”

“The problem we face, is, having started this without evidently any clear plan as to what the outcome would be, we are everyday making this worse. These are not casual costs: When you don’t have medical services, you may not see people killed, but they’re dying,” Cordesman said. . . .

I will be interested in seeing what happens at the May 20th date. It seems to me that will be the crucial point in time for Obama with his base.

Under the War Powers Act, Obama is supposed to begin withdrawing U.S. troops from the Libya operation by May 20 if Congress has not authorized the mission. Presidents have generally complied with the notification requirement in the act, while contending the law is unconstitutional. . . .

Rand Paul has it right:

“I think it’s a big mistake and it’s a very bad precedent to allow a to be fought with no vote in Congress,” Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said at a policy luncheon this week in his home state. “Now, it also shows you the hypocrisy of the way politics goes. Many on the left criticized Bush to no end about the Iraq war. In fact, I wasn’t in favor of going to Iraq. But at the very least, Bush came to Congress and we voted before going to Afghanistan and Congress voted before going to Iraq.” . . .