Clueless Congress: Gates grilled over US Libya mission

[The Northerner]

Run time: 03:59 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThVQcUIcLRw   Posted on YouTube: April 01, 2011 By YouTube Member: RussiaToday Views on YouTube: 2308   Posted on DU: April 01, 2011 By DU Member: The Northerner Views on DU: 826

 
U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen, faced a grilling in front of Congress over the Libyan campaign. Gates said Washington shouldn't assist the Libyan rebels, and should instead leave nation-building to other countries.

[Jumping John]

1. Looks like Obama went rouge and dismissed Congress, the Joint Cheifs and Gates. n/t

[Name removed]

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[JDPriestly]

3. This is getting interesting.

Congress sat rather idly by while Bush used a very vague resolution to go into Iraq.

Now, Congress is exerting its authority to review and be informed of the president's decision and to declare war. Maybe the powers of the president in his role of commander in chief are not as great as Bush seems to have thought.

This is a recurring problem -- defining the limits on the president's authority when acting as a commander in chief.

Maybe we will finally get some resolution now that the president is a Democrat. The Constitution is very clear that Congress has the authority to declare war and make many legislative decisions about our troops, our military and prisoners of war while the president is merely the commander in chief (presumably in times of war since the Constitution does not provide for a standing army and requires voting on funding regularly so as to insure that the army is not too powerful).

Interesting.