Libya no model.

• Author: Rothschild, Matthew
• Position: Editor's Note - Violation of the Constitution and the War Powers Act

With the rebels in control of Libya, The New York Times was quick to report that the intervention "may, in some important ways, become a model for how the United States wields force in other countries where its interests are threatened."

I should hope not. Because what the United States and its European allies did was "international gangsterism," as Representative Dennis Kucinich so colorfully put it.

Kucinich was referring to the fact that President Obama violated the Constitution and the War Powers Act by bombing Libya without Congressional approval when Libya didn't pose a threat to the United States.

For their part, the allies flagrantly violated the U.N. Security Council resolutions on Libya by providing huge amounts of weapons to the rebels when those resolutions had imposed an arms embargo on all parties. What's more, the CIA trained the rebel forces and guided their assaults.

And the rationale that Obama used, late in the game, for not abiding by the War Powers Act was a classic: The Administration said that because Libya's air defenses were wiped out, U.S. pilots were no longer in harm's way, so Congress need not worry about it.

This is the Obama Doctrine: The President can go bomb any country he feels like so long as that country doesn't have air defenses, or the President can go destroy a country's air defenses and continue to wage war against that country--all without bothering to get approval from Congress.

This sets a terrible precedent.

Yes, I'm happy that Qaddafi is no longer in power. Yes, I'm happy that the people of Libya have the opportunity to taste freedom. But I'm not convinced that they couldn't have arrived at this point by nonviolent resistance. Nor am I sanguine about some of the rebels the United States has been supporting--and what role they might have in the future.

Above all, though, I fear that the "Libya model" is but a...