House Votes To Cut Off Funding For Military In Libya-- And Also Votes To Continue Funding For Military In Libya

A meeting of the minds? Not really

Assigning motivation on non-party line votes can be pretty tricky. Thursday's failed House vote on Justin Amash's amendment (cosponsored by Dennis Kucinich) to H.R. 2219, the Defense Department Appropriations Act was exceedingly skewered... in every direction. And just 7 minutes before the amendment to cut off funds for the U.S. military to continue its role in Libya failed-- in a 199-229 roll call-- an amendment by Oklahoma Republican Tom Cole to bar the Pentagon from providing "military equipment, training or advice or other support for military activities" to Libyan rebel forces passed 225-201. 48 Democrats voted for Cole's amendment against the Obama administration. 67 Democrats voted for the Amash-Kucinich amendment, which was opposed by the administration.

There aren't any generalizations about motivation I can figure out about who voted which way for what reason on either vote. Reactionary warmongers and dedicated progressive anti-war Members were on both sides of both votes. Among progressives voting against Cole-- so in favor of continuing aid to the rebels-- were Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), Jerry Nadler (D-NY), Barney Frank (D-MA), Judy Chu (D-CA), Keith Ellison (D-MN) Karen Bass (D-CA), and Donna Edwards (D-MD), while equally trustworthy progressives voted with Cole to cut off funds-- like Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), Mike Honda (D-CA), Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), Chellie Pingree (D-ME), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Lynn Woolsey (D-CA) and Jose Serrano (D-NY). On the other side of the political spectrum, you had right-wing fanatics like Michele Bachmann (R-MN), Mean Jean Schmidt (R-OH), Jeb Hensarling (R-TX), Paul Broun (R-GA), Tom McClintock (R-CA), Louie Gohmert (R-TX), and Virginia Foxx (R-NC) voting to cut off funds, while equally extreme right freaks like Eric Cantor (R-VA), Paul Ryan (R-WI), Quayle's kid (R-AZ), Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Mike Pence (R-IN), Duncan Hunter (R-CA) and Trent Franks (R-AZ) voted against cutting off funds. And Blue Dogs were also on both sides of the argument. Dan Boren (Blue Dog-OK), Heath Shuler (Blue Dog-NC), Mike Thompson (Blue Dog-CA) and John Barrow (Blue Dog-GA) finally found something they could support Obama on (more war) while fellow rightist Democrats Jim Cooper (Blue Dog-TN), Kurt Schrader (Blue Dog-OR) and Collin Peterson (Blue Dog-MN) incongruously voted to end funding. Crazy...

And the next vote, on Amash's amendment, was just as all over the map. Solid progressives voting to end funding included Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Jesse Jackson, Jr, (D-IL), Chellie Pingree (D-ME) Yvette Clarke (D-NY), Maxine Waters (D-CA), John Lewis (D-GA), Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), and Donna Edwards (D-MD), while just as solid progressives like Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), Pete Stark (D-CA), Judy Chu (D-CA), Keith Ellison (D-MN), Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), and Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) voted against cutting off funding. Republicans were just as mixed and matched-- with fringe loons like Sandy Adams (R-FL), Bachmann, Mean Jean, Tim Griffin (R-AR), Allen West (R-FL) and Patrick McHenry (R-NC) voting to cut off funding while radical right sociopaths like Darrell Issa (R-CA), Eric Cantor (R-VA), Mike Pence (R-IN), David Rivera (R-FL), John Kline (R-MN) Steve King (R-IA) and Dan Lungren (R-CA) voted against cutting off funds.

So how do you rate these votes when you're trying to figure out who's for peace and who's a war-monger? The AP had as hard a time figuring it out as we did.

The House is sending mixed signals on President Barack Obama's military action against Libya, voting to prohibit weapons and training to rebels looking to oust Moammar Gadhafi but stopping short of trying to cut off money for American participation in the NATO-led mission.

In a series of votes Thursday, Republicans and Democrats expressed their dissatisfaction with the Libya operation, now in its fourth month with no end in sight and waning support from some nations in the international coalition. The House voted to bar military aid to the rebels but moments later rejected efforts to prevent funding for the limited U.S. mission.

The votes mirrored the contradictory actions of the House last month, when lawmakers refused to approve the operation but declined to cut off the money.

The latest House votes came on amendments to a $649 billion defense spending bill that lawmakers hoped to finish on Friday. The overall measure covering weapons and warships, jet fighters and bombers, personnel and military pay is $9 billion less than Obama requested but $17 billion more than current levels.

It covers the Pentagon budget beginning Oct. 1 but must be reconciled with a still-to-be-completed Senate version.

The congressional unrest over Libya stems from a stalemated civil war and Obama's contention that he didn't need congressional authorization to engage in another war on top of Afghanistan and Iraq because Libya fighting isn't full-blown hostilities. Among war-weary NATO allies, Italy announced that it was reducing its participation in the campaign by removing an aircraft carrier from the region and pulling thousands of troops home.

"Libya did not attack us. Libya did not attack NATO," Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., said. "However much we detest Mr. Gadhafi and his regime, we have no reason to be at war."

The House voted 225-201 for an amendment sponsored by Cole to bar the Pentagon from providing "military equipment, training or advice or other support for military activities" to an outside group, such as rebel forces, for military action in or against Libya.

Forty-eight Democrats backed the Republican-sponsored measure.

The intent of the measure was to prohibit aid to the rebels such as weapons and assistance to their Transitional National Council, including operational planning. The broad effort also would target contractors in Libya.

Obama already has authorized $25 million in nonlethal assistance to the rebels, including thousands of meals ready to eat rations from Pentagon stocks. The U.S. also has supplied some $53 million in humanitarian aid. Neither would be affected by the bill.

Moments after that vote Thursday, the House rejected a measure that would have prohibited funds for the U.S. military to continue its limited role. The vote was 229-199, with 67 Democrats breaking with the administration to support the amendment.

"This is our moment to reclaim the Constitution of the United States," said Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, who co-sponsored the amendment with freshman Rep. Justin Amash, R-Mich. "We have the power to determine when to go to war, not some rebel power in Benghazi."

Lawmakers argue that Obama violated the 1973 War Powers Resolution, which requires a president to seek congressional approval within 60 days of the first military strikes, a move the commander in chief did not make.

In a reflection of congressional anger toward the administration, the House voted overwhelmingly for an amendment that prohibits spending that violates the War Powers Resolution and focuses on future military operations.

The House also rejected two other efforts to prohibit funds for the U.S. military operation in Libya.

Sen. John McCain, the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, criticized the House vote on aid to the rebels, arguing that it sends the wrong message to Gadhafi and those challenging the long-time leader.

"I am saddened by the abandonment of America's traditional support for those struggling for freedom and democracy, which has been a hallmark of our Republican Party for decades," said the Arizona Republican, who traveled to Benghazi in April to meet with the rebels.

At least McCain was consistent. He's always in favor of war-- any war, anywhere for any reason at all.

Those aren't "hostilities" we're engaged in with Libya -- I guess it's more of a, you know, tiff

The Republican view of presidential power c2007

by Ken

No doubt you caught the Obama administration's response to the charge that the president has exceeded the permissible "Go to War Free" -- i.e., without congressional approval -- period prescribed by the War Powers Act (1973). Here's how Charlie Savage and Mark Landler reported it in the NYT:

The White House, pushing hard against criticism in Congress over the deepening air war in Libya, asserted Wednesday that President Obama had the authority to continue the military campaign without Congressional approval because American involvement fell short of full-blown hostilities.

In a 38-page report sent to lawmakers describing and defending the NATO-led operation, the White House said the mission was prying loose Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s grip on power. . . . [T]he report asserted that “U.S. operations do not involve sustained fighting or active exchanges of fire with hostile forces, nor do they involve U.S. ground troops.”

I don't know where on earth anyone would get the idea that we're engaged in hostilities with Libya. But "hostilities," as specified by the War Powers Act? Not a bit of it. Oh sure, in the heat of the moment harsh words may have been exchanged, and I suppose a fussbudget could quibble over all those bombs we've dropped, and assorted other military expenditures (which, however, "do not involve sustained fighting or active exchanges of fire with hostile forces," according to the administration report, "nor do they involve U.S. ground troops”), for which the tab, as Savage and Landler report the White House acknowledging, has run up to $716 million in the first two months and "at the current scale of operations" will rise to $1.1 billion by September.

But "hostilities"? Not that anyone in the administration can tell. In a joint interview, the Timesmen report, State Department legal adviser Harold Koh and White House counsel Robert Bauer --

contended that American forces had not been in “hostilities” at least since early April, when NATO took over the responsibility for the no-fly zone and the United States shifted to primarily a supporting role -- providing refueling and surveillance to allied warplanes, although remotely piloted drones operated by the United States periodically fire missiles, too.

It doesn't seem likely that the report is going to satisfy the demand made by House Speaker "Sunny John" Boehner for a legal justification for passing the congressional reporting deadline. After all, Sunny John is a veritable tiger when it comes to enforcing the spirit and letter of the War Powers Act, as he showed throughout the warmongering years of the Bush regime.

Ha ha ha! Sometimes I just make myself laugh. Sunny John doesn't give a damn about war powers, or any other executive powers, unless they're being exercised by a Democratic excecutive. Savage and Landler note:

The escalating confrontation with Congress reflects the radically altered political landscape in Washington: a Democratic president asserting sweeping executive powers to deploy American forces overseas, while Republicans call for stricter oversight and voice fears about executive-branch power getting the United States bogged down in a foreign war.

All those years when "Big Dick" Cheney and his Puppet Prez Chimpy were using their 100 percent bogus "doctrine" of the "unitary executive" to expand executive powers in a way never before dreamt by American pols, nothing was heard from Republicans in either house except cheering -- and vicious invective and even threats directed against "Bush-bashers."

But then, Republicans are never called to account for even the most flagrant of their lies and the most blatant of their hypocrisies. A colleague notes the irony (again, not really the right word) of the proposed prohibition, in the House Appropriations Committee's proposed Fiscal Year 2012 Financial Services Appropriations Bill, of the Executive Office of the President's use of funds "to prepare 'signing statements,' which has been used in the past to undermine or circumvent laws passed by Congress." The colleague points out that when the House Judiciary Committee, then chaired by Democrat John Conyers Jr., tried briefly in 2007 to look into the matter of presidential signing statements, the subject was dismissed out of hand and ridiculed by Rpublican Ranking Member (now Committee Chairman) Lamar Smith.

Another colleague, while recognizing the total hypocrisy of the current Republican pushbacks against executive authority, syas we ought nevertheless to go along with their efforts, on the theory that it's at least a way to get some executive limitations legislated. It's a point, I suppose, but a point that misses the point, it seems to me. Congressional Republicans will never attempt to apply any such restrictions against a Republican president, and Congressional Democrats, as we've seen, will never attempt to apply such restrictions against a president of either party.

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Is Congress Going To Force Obama To Stop Bombing Libya?

Good thing we didn't elect any of these warmongers president

I was hardly out of the country for a day when one of the local congressmen from around here, Brad Sherman (D-CA)-- who, because of redistricting, is going to be in an ugly primary battle with corrupt hawk Howard Berman-- offers an amendment to a military appropriations bill... and, unexpectedly, gets it passed by a vote of 248 to 163.

Sherman's amendment, which states that "none of the funds made available by this act may be used in contravention of the War Powers Act," is exactly the same as the one that failed 2 weeks ago-- rescued by a weaker, toothless, amendment offered by Boehner. Obama has 2 days to respond to that one. This one passed as part of the overall appropriations bill, H.R. 2055, yesterday.

When Berman's amendment was voted on Monday 138 Republicans and 110 Democrats voted for it; only 93 Republicans and 70 Democrats voted against it. Both the Republican Leader, Cantor, and the Democratic Leader, Pelosi, voted against it. Anti-war leaders on both sides of the aisle-- Kucinich (D-OH), Grijalva (D-AZ), Edwards (D-MD), Lewis (D-GA), Jones (R-NC), and Johnson (IL) voted for it. Most of the Blue Dogs voted for Obama's position-- NO-- for a change.

The amendment doesn't seem likely to pass the Senate... but you never know. Meanwhile, Qaddafi sent a thank you letter to Boehner for his help in undermining the U.S. position. During World War II Republicans conspired with Hitler against FDR and, in fact, the German's virtually underwrote most of the GOP election campaign against Roosevelt in 1940. Now we'll have to see if Qaddafi starts sending the Republicans money for their support. It may not even be illegal now that the Supreme Court has opened up campaign financing. Last year China underwrote much of the Republican campaign to retake the House and win several Senate seats, particularly for pro-China extremists Ron Johnson (R-WI) and Pat Toomey (R-PA).

Making War In Libya... For Goldman Sachs And J.P. Morgan?

An overwhelming majority of Americans don't like our involvement in the bombing campaign against Libya but whether you think that what looks like the congressional wrist slap goes far enough, the resolution Webb and Corker are proposing on that war, it certainly guarantees that there will be a debate on U.S. policies there and-- at least in theory-- if Obama can't make an argument on the merits (and so far he hasn't been able to), then Congress will be bound to restrain the executive branch over reach. That would be a first in many decades. This is the press release that went out with S.J.Res, 18 this week:

Senators Jim Webb (D-VA) and Bob Corker (R-TN) today introduced a joint resolution requiring the Administration to provide a detailed justification of U.S. operations in Libya and prohibiting the deployment of U.S. troops on the ground there. It further calls on the President to request authorization for the continuation of U.S. involvement in NATO activities and states that Congress should fully debate such a request expediently. Nearly 90 days after the initiation of force in Libya, such debate has not occurred.

The bipartisan resolution states, “The President has failed to provide Congress with a compelling rationale based upon United States national security interests for current United States military activities regarding Libya.” It calls for an unclassified report to provide essential information to Congress and the American public to evaluate U.S. involvement in Libya and appropriately debate it.

“When we examine the conditions under which the President ordered our military into action in Libya, we are faced with the prospect of a very troubling historical precedent that has the potential to haunt us for decades,” said Senator Webb. “The issue for us to consider is whether a President-- any President-- can unilaterally begin, and continue, a military campaign for reasons that he alone defines as meeting the demanding standards worthy of risking American lives and expending billions of dollars of our taxpayers’ money. It is important for Congress to step in and clearly define the boundaries of our involvement.”

“It has now been more than 80 days since the United States first launched military action in Libya in what was supposed to be only a very limited operation, but neither the Congress nor the American people have any clearer view of the administration’s stated mission or end game for our military involvement in Libya. Having been denied answers, repeatedly, to these fundamental questions or even a comprehensive debate to consider the merits of U.S. involvement in such an engagement, it’s long past time to set a final deadline to get the information every man and woman who puts on a uniform and every taxpayer who funds the operation deserves,” Senator Corker said.

The joint resolution, which would have the force of law, requires the Administration to publicly answer a detailed series of questions about the Libya operation within 14 days of enactment. Parts of the resolution mirror bills passed in the House of Representatives.

Someplace Webb and Corker don't have the imaginations or the will to go is to ask what the hell we're doing bombing the hell out of this small country in the first place. Why Libya instead of, say, Syria or Bahrain, each of which is doing far worse to its citizens, the ostensible "reason" we're involved with this massive attack on Libya? In a pair of powerful investigative articles that would do far more credit to the Senate than the toothless joint resolution, journalist Russ Baker posits that evidence makes it clear that Qaddafi has been set up and that the U.S. in part of a plan to create an “Arab Spring” for the Good Old Boys-- CIA, banks, oil companies. Hopefully, you've been following Matt Taibbi's exciting reporting on the relationship between Qaddafi and the bandits at Goldman Sachs.

Libya was eager to join the big leagues of finance, and its investors were “awed” by an Arabic-speaking Goldman executive who urged them into an options deal that bet on the fortunes of companies including Citigroup Inc. C +0.23% , Allianz DE:ALV -1.33% and Italy’s UniCredit IT:UCG +2.08%.

The LIA, Libya’s sovereign wealth fund, was charmed by the demonstration and decided to go all-in with a $1.5 billion bet. Goldman very quickly lost them 98 percent of that money.

I never knew it was even possible to lose 98 percent of an investment that quickly. If you sent a blind, three-legged donkey into Caesar’s palace with $1.5 billion in chips, it could probably stay solvent longer than this options package Goldman sold to Qaddafi.

How could the Libyans be enticed to take such a crappy deal? See if this sounds familiar: according to the Wall Street Journal, the Libyan fund manager felt that Goldman had "misrepresented" the fantastic investment opportunity Goldman sold to them, and also made trades "without proper authorization."

...Having managed to get their bankers out of Libya with their heads still attached to their shoulders, Goldman decided to make up for losing $1.5 billion of Qaddafi’s money by offering the international pariah a $3.7 billion equity stake that would have made him one of the largest single owners of the bank.

In con-man parlance, this is called the reload. You beat someone in a Ponzi scheme for his life’s savings, and when he shows up at your door with an axe, you get him to mortgage his house to buy a stake in the Brooklyn Bridge. After blowing $1.5 billion of Libya’s money almost instantaneously, Goldman’s solution to the problem was to immediately get Qaddafi reaching back into his pocket for a cash sum over twice the size of the original losses. It’s really hard not to admire the sheer balls of the whole deal.

Baker starts by asking if there is any actual evidence that the claims by Qaddafi’s defecting Justice Minister, Mustafa Mohamed Abud Al Jeleil, that Qaddafi was the culprit behind the bombing of Pan Am 103 are true. "This story," he points out, "made it into major news media throughout the world, without anyone stopping to raise questions about the propaganda benefit of the statement, or of the timing." And though no one has seen any of the promised "evidence," the original headlines did the trick-- anyone watching television or reading stories then would have been led to believe that Qaddafi was behind the Lockerbie tragedy. That's when Obama called on Qaddafi to step down and started down the road to the "humanitarian" attacks on Tripoli.

By December 2010, when a Tunisian man set himself on fire, the Arab Spring revolt was under way—in Egypt, Bahrain, and elsewhere. Pretty quickly, it was clear to everyone that the Western powers were in danger of losing crucial oil suppliers—and vital military bases.
It certainly was convenient that, right about that time, Libya showed signs of moving in the opposite direction-- into the US camp. Read our piece here about the CIA ties to the Libyan uprising.

Then consider the timing of February’s ramped-up claim by the defecting Libyan official, that Qaddafi himself had ordered the Lockerbie bombing.

If that wasn’t enough in the propaganda department to get the global public worked up, next came the Libya rape story. The average person doesn’t have the time or appetite to follow the kinds of complex corporate maneuverings that fascinate us here, but they do understandably get upset about bombs on civilian aircraft and rape.

...We noted the timing of the story, the alacrity with which the Western press grabbed it and spread it, and the simple fact that there’s no evidence tying Qaddafi in any way to any such act. Even the woman herself doesn’t claim that.  Yet it infuriated untold millions and postings all over the Web show that it moved a lot of public opinion into the column supporting military action to remove the Libyan leader.

That the corporate media cannot see what is going on here, or refuses to see, tells us how far we have not come since the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution.

Still, we can hear the other shoe dropping if we listen carefully enough. For example, the website Politico ran a little item the other day on a powwow between Hillary Clinton and corporate executives over business opportunities in Iraq.

FIRST LOOK: WALL STREET IN IRAQ? – Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Deputy Secretary Tom Nides (formerly chief administrative officer at Morgan Stanley) will host a group of corporate executives at State this morning as part of the Iraq Business Roundtable. Corporate executives from approximately 30 major U.S. companies-- including financial firms Citigroup, JPMorganChase and Goldman Sachs-- will join U.S. and Iraqi officials to discuss economic opportunities in the new Iraq. Full list of corporate participants.

Give it a couple of years, and they’ll be having the same party celebrating a more sympathetic regime in Libya.