As House GOP leaders fend off vote on Libya resolution, antiwar sentiment simmers

[WestVirginiaRebel]

Washington Post:

On Wednesday, 74 days after U.S. forces joined the military operation in Libya, President Obama seemed to run out of goodwill on Capitol Hill.

A group of both liberals and conservatives — defying the leaders of both parties — threw their support behind a bill to pull the U.S. military out of the Libya operation. That prospect led GOP leaders to shelve the bill before it came to a vote.

That episode signaled how abruptly the politics of U.S. warmaking have changed, as the intervention in Libya follows a bloody, weary decade in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Now, a Democratic president has asked the country to support a new military action and missed a legal deadline that required him to get Congress’s authorization.

In response, an antiwar movement has appeared in an unlikely place: a House dominated by the Republican right.

“We are in control in the House, and we want something on the floor,” said Rep. John Campbell (R-Calif.), one of a number of conservatives who called Wednesday for a showdown with Obama. “Put a resolution up, and let us express . . . to the president that ‘you no longer have the authority of this Congress to conduct military operations in that country.’ ”

Since the beginning of the Libyan operation, congressional leaders have been quietly supportive of Obama — but mostly just quiet. In the Senate, a resolution in support of the president is still waiting for a vote.

In the House, GOP leaders had said little on the subject, even after Obama missed a deadline set in the 1973 War Powers Resolution. That law required him to obtain congressional permission within 60 days, a deadline that passed last month.

“His intention is not to undermine the commander in chief, at a time when we have troops in harm’s way,” Kevin Smith, a spokesman for House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), said Wednesday.

But also on Wednesday, discontent with that military operation — and with warmaking in general — seemed to boil over.

An early warning had come the week before, when the House narrowly voted down a proposal to demand a speedy transition of U.S. forces out of Afghanistan. In 2010, a similar bill garnered 162 votes in defeat, including nine Republican votes. This time, it still lost — but with 204 votes, including 26 Republican votes.

On Wednesday, the bill at issue was far more drastic. Introduced by Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich (D-Ohio), it would demand that Obama withdraw forces from the Libyan operation within 15 days. That would be a crippling loss for the NATO-led campaign, which relies heavily on U.S. air power.

The resolution looked, a week before, like a legislative long shot.

Then, on Wednesday, it wasn’t.

“There’s been disquiet for a long time,” said Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), one of those who supported it. “Republicans have been too eager to support some military ventures abroad. And this, I think, is perhaps a little more consistent with traditional conservatism."
________

Obama tries to ignore Congress but Congress won't let him. And I'd never thought I'd find myself agreeing with Dennis K.