THE WAR PRESIDENT

THE WAR PRESIDENT
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By Dave Gahary
Barack Obama, once hailed as the anti-war president, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for—supposedly—his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between people. Of course, this dog-and-pony show—complete with empty promises to bring home the troops—was conducted as an apparent outreach to the Muslim world and peace-loving U.S. taxpayers, and a supposed attempt to curb nuclear proliferation.

But, in light of Obama’s continued illegal aggression against sovereign nations, Bolivia’s President Evo Morales stated that Obama’s peace prize should be revoked. Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega and Cuba’s Fidel Castro have made similar statements.

Additionally, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, head of Russia’s Liberal Democratic Party, has also called for Obama’s Nobel Prize to be revoked.

So, what could explain President Barack Hussein Obama’s decision to continue U.S. hostilities against a sovereign nation past a deadline spelled out in the War Powers Act of 1973, commonly referred to as the War Powers Resolution? Since recent polls show strong opposition to American intervention in Libya, if Obama isn’t working for the American people, then who is his employer?

Revelations unveiled in The New York Times last week detail how the president “rejected the views of top lawyers at the Pentagon and the Justice Department” and “decided that he had the legal authority to continue American military participation in the air war in Libya without congressional authorization.”

This decision was based on Obama’s belief that the United States military’s activities “fell short of hostilities.”

Libya isn’t the only sovereign nation being subjected to the war president’s overt and covert U.S. military actions. In May, Stars and Stripes, the official newspaper of the U.S. armed forces, reported that despite the alleged death of Osama bin Laden, the U.S. is intensifying drone attacks in Pakistan. According to the article, “The U.S. started drone attacks in the Pakistani region in 2004; the numbers have continued to climb over the years, with 38 in 2008, 52 in 2009 and 132 in 2010.”

Yemen is also in the war president’s sights. According to Voice of America (VOA), the official overseas broadcaster of the U.S. federal government, the CIA “is building a secret air base in the Middle East to use for armed drone attacks on terrorists in Yemen [which] could be operational by the end of the year.”

This on top of stepped-up air raids in that sovereign nation by U.S. drones and fighter jets.