Even the White House seemed to recognize the absurdity of that excuse -- the WRP explicitly applies "in any case in which United States Armed Forces are introduced (1) into hostilities" -- and the President thus subsequently requested a Resolution from Congress approving the war.  That authorization, however, never came, and now it seems that Congress is closer to doing the opposite: approving a bipartisan bill opposing the war:

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. . . .

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."

Conservatives expressed support for the bill in a closed meeting, but GOP leaders put off the vote.

Waging a war for 74 days without Congressional approval is illegal enough.  Doing so when there is a growing bipartisan movement in Congress to compel an end to the war -- rather than approve it -- is even worse.  And note the individuals on whom Obama is now relying to protect him from this bipartisan effort to put an end to his illegal war:  "GOP House leaders" -- John Boehner and Eric Cantor, who refused to allow the bill to come up for a vote despite ample support among conservative members of their caucus as well as numerous liberal House members.  Can we hear more now about how the two parties are so radically different that bipartisan cooperation is impossible?  The Emperor has decreed that we will fight this war, and thus we will -- that seems to be the prevailing mindset.

* * * * * 

Last week, I delivered the keynote address to the ACLU in Massachusetts for their annual Bill of Rights dinner. The topic was the Bipartisan National Security State and President Obama's continuation of it, and it obviously relates to the Libya issue. Those interested in listening to the 25-minute speech can do so here.

the Obama administration is pushing back strongly, with one senior official saying the article garnered "a collective eye roll" from the White House . . . two administration officials told POLITICO's Playbook that's not the case. . . . a senior administration official said. . . . "There is a clear, ongoing pattern of deception" from Iran . . ."the senior administration official added" . . . And a senior intelligence official also ripped Hersh, saying his article amounted to nothing more than "a slanted book report on a long narrative that's already been told many times over" . . .  

Dutifully writing down what government officials say and then publishing it under cover of anonymity is what media figures in D.C. refer to as "real reporting."  But the most hilarious part of this orgy of cowardly anonymity comes at the end, when Politico explains what is supposedly the prime defect in Hersh' journalism:

Hersh has faced criticism for his heavy reliance on anonymous sources, but New Yorker editor David Remnick has repeatedly said he stands by his reporter’s work.

That's the criticism that ends an article that relies exclusively on anonymous government sources, appearing in a D.C. gossip rag notorious for granting anonymity to any powerful figure who requests it for any or no reason.  The difference, of course, is that the Pulitzer Prize-winning, five-time-Polk-Award-recipient investigative journalist who uncovered the My Lai massacre and the Abu Ghraib scandal grants anonymity to those who are challenging the official claims of those in power (that's called "journalism"), while Politico uses it (as it did here) to serve those in power and shield them from all accountability as they spew their propaganda (which is called being a "lowly, rank Royal Court propagandist").

Indeed, the First Amendment not only protects the mere "attending" of a speech "promoting the violent overthrow of our government," but also the giving of such a speech.  The government is absolutely barred by the Free Speech clause from punishing people even for advocating violence.  That has been true since the Supreme Court's unanimous 1969 decision in Brandenburg v. Ohio, which overturned the criminal conviction of a Ku Klux Klan leader who had threatened violence against political officials in a speech.

The KKK leader in Brandenburg was convicted under an Ohio statute that made it a crime to "advocate . . . the duty, necessity, or propriety of crime, sabotage, violence, or unlawful methods of terrorism as a means of accomplishing industrial or political reform" and/or to "voluntarily assemble with any society, group, or assemblage of persons formed to teach or advocate the doctrines of criminal syndicalism."  The Court struck down the statute on the ground that it "purports to punish mere advocacy" and thus "sweeps within its condemnation speech which our Constitution has immunized from governmental control."  The Court ruled that "except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action" -- meaning conduct such as standing outside someone's house with an angry mob and urging them to burn the house down that moment -- "the constitutional guarantees of free speech and free press do not permit a State to forbid or proscribe advocacy of the use of force" (emphasis added).

As Think Progress explains, Paul's argument runs directly afoul of these established constitutional principles and "is especially appalling coming from someone who fashions himself as a staunch defender of civil liberties."  There's no doubt about that (and, ironically, some of the rallies from the Tea Party movement, the faction most responsible for Paul's election, as well as many pro-life rallies, may well qualify as "speeches from someone who is promoting the violent overthrow of our government" if viewed by a hostile government official). 

But what Think Progress doesn't mention is that the Obama administration is not only advocating views that violently breach the same principle, but has been attempting to act on those violations for more than a year now as they try to kill the American-born Terrorist suspect Anwar al-Awlaki (along with at least three other unknown U.S. citizens targeted for assassination).  Indeed, this is one of the prime principles that has made me view the President's assassination program as so odious from the start.

What has made Awlaki of such great concern for American officials is not any alleged operational role in Terrorism, but rather the fact that he advocates violent jihad and does so with some degree of efficacy.  To see how true that is, just consider this morning's New York Times debate forum that asks: "How Dangerous Is Anwar al-Awlaki? With Yemen on the verge of civil war, how aggressive should the U.S. be in trying to kill an American-born cleric?"  The responses from five Terrorism experts span the range of opinion from "he's not particularly dangerous" to "he's extremely dangerous," but all of them -- in explaining why he's attracted so much attention -- emphasize the speeches he gives and ideas he advocates, and make only the most passing and cursory reference to the unproven government assertions that he's involved in plotting Terrorist attacks:

Gerges: Awlaki "is not even the leader of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula . . . a more effective measure [than killing him] would be to shut down Awlaki's propaganda shop by convincing the tribe that gives him shelter, the Awalik in southern Yemen, to turn him over to the Yemeni authorities."

Bodurian and Nelson:  "Awlaki's real danger -- his potential to incite Islamist terrorism among far-flung constituencies living in the United States, Europe and even Asia. The American-born, Yemeni-raised cleric delivers scathing English-language online lectures to audiences in the West. Awlaki's rhetoric plays up a war between the West and Islam and has led some Muslims living throughout the world to embrace Al Qaeda’s toxic ideology and to plan attacks."

Benotman:  "Awlaki’s fluent English certainly sets him apart from most other Al Qaeda members. It also makes him a potent force among Western Muslims. Thanks to a long immersion in American culture and many years of working with Muslims living in the West, he understands how to recruit impressionable young Muslims with his message that Muslims will never be accepted by the West, and that the only correct Islamic response to the West's cultural, political and economic influence is jihad."

Khalil:  "Awlaki remains a potent threat to U.S. security. He has a proven ability to radicalize would-be violent extremists in the West in a way that Bin Laden, Zawahiri and others could never have. He has a unique talent in reaching out to a segment of disaffected people, mostly male and English-speaking, who may or may not have originally come from a Muslim background. . . . He is able to reach them through snazzy graphics, videos and speeches posted online. Inspire Magazine, an online English publication thought to be published by Awlaki encourages a kind of do-it-yourself terrorism . . . ."

Mendelsohn:  "Few jihadists represent a bigger threat to the United States than Anwar al-Awlaki. He played an important role in a string of attacks in the West and, more than any other figure, proved to be great inspiration for homegrown cells and lone terrorists."

Plainly, the American obsession with Awlaki has virtually everything to do with his advocacy and, especially, the fear that it's effective because he can speak to English-speaking Muslims.  In other words, the U.S. Government is trying to kill him primarily because of his constitutionally-protected speech in advocating the justifiability and necessity of violence.

This is not an academic question.  The right at stake here is absolutely vital.  It is crucial to protect and preserve the right to argue that a government has become so tyrannical or dangerous that violence is justified against it.  That, after all, was the argument on which the American Founding was based; it is pure political speech; and criminalizing the expression of that idea poses a grave danger to free speech generally and the specific ability to organize against abusive governments.  To allow the government to punish citizens -- let alone to kill them -- because their political advocacy is threatening to the government is infinitely more dangerous than whatever ideas are being targeted for punishment, even if that idea is violent jihad.

Indeed, it is simply obvious that an American citizen -- Muslim or otherwise -- is and should be Constitutionally permitted to stand up and make the following argument:

For decades, the U.S. Government has been engaging in violence and otherwise interfering in the Muslim world.  Hundreds of thousands of innocent Muslim men, women and children have died as a result.  There is no end in sight to this American assault on the Muslim world and those of its client states.  Therefore, it is not only the right, but the duty, of Muslims to engage in violence against Americans as a means of self-defense and to deter further violence against Muslims.  That is the only available means for fighting back against the world's greatest military superpower.  The only alternative is continuing passive submission to this onslaught of violence aimed at Muslims.

That is Awlaki's core message in explaining why he supports the use of violence aimed at Americans (while arguing that it should be aimed at military rather than civilian targets):

I have been seeing my brothers being killed in Palestine for more than 60 years, and others being killed in Iraq and in Afghanistan. And in my tribe too, US missiles have killed 17 women and 23 children, so do not ask me if al-Qaeda has killed or blown up a US civil jet after all this. The 300 Americans [targeted by Abdulmutallab] are nothing comparing to the thousands of Muslims who have been killed. . . . The American people are the ones who have voted twice for Bush the criminal and elected Obama who is not different from Bush as his first remarks stated that he would not abandon Israel, despite the fact that there were other anti-war candidates in the US elections, but they won very few votes. The American people take part in all its government's crimes.  If they oppose that, let them change their government.

One can find that view odious and repugnant.  One can find it dangerous and frightening.  But what one cannot do is dispute that it is pure political speech squarely within the zone of First Amendment protection, as established by Brandenburg.  And to punish or kill an American citizen for expressing those views -- which is exactly what the Obama administration is attempting to do with Awlaki -- is a grave assault on core free speech rights (let alone to do so without any judicial process).   The Supreme Court, in Claiborne, has also ruled -- unanimously -- that the First Amendment bars imposing liability on someone for the criminal acts "inspired" by their speech (it so ruled when protecting NAACP officials from attempts by the State of Mississippi to hold them liable for the violent acts their fiery speeches inspired on the part of their followers). If one wants to argue that Awlaki's speech falls outside the scope of Brandenburg and Claiborne protections, the place to do that is a courtroom after indicting him, not vesting the President with the power to act as judge, jury and executioner.

In recognition of that fact, the Obama administration -- once the existence of its hit list became public -- began asserting, with no evidence presented and usually anonymously, that Awlaki has an "operational role" in Al Qaeda.  But as Yemen expert Gregory Johnsen said today in response to the NYT debate: "We suspect a great deal about Anwar al-Awlaki, but we know very little, precious little when it comes to his operational role"; he added in response to Mendelsohn's claim that Awlaki "played an important role in a string of attacks in the West":  "We just don't know this, we suspect it but don't know it."  Of course, punishing (or killing) Americans based on government accusations that have never been proven in court happens to violate a different though equally critical Constitutional principle (the Fifth Amendment's guarantee that "no person shall be deprived of life [or] liberty . . . without due process of law).

It will never cease to amaze me how acquiescent the country is to the seizure by this President of the extremist and warped power to target American citizens, far from any battlefield, for killing, all without a shred of due process.  It's not just a profound assault on due process rights but also free speech rights. 

Submission to this power is, I believe, based on three factors:  (1) blind faith in political leaders of the type that led Americans to accept the due-process-free punishment at Guantanamo ("my President accuses this person of being a Terrorist and therefore it's true; I don't need a trial to know it's true"); (2) acceptance of anything done to a fellow citizen as long as he has a foreign-sounding, Muslim-ish name like "Anwar al-Awlaki," who dresses in white cleric robes and is in Yemen and is thus probably guilty of something or other; and (3) the automatic and enthusiastic embrace by America's Foreign Policy Community of the use of force in response to any problem, as epitomized by this bloodthirsty-rant-masquerading-as-Serious-analysis in Foreign Policy, which notes that Awlaki's role in Al Qaeda has been drastically overstated but nonetheless concludes -- citing the fact that he's a "brilliant and captivating orator" and that Yemeni officials privately describe "Awlaki's sermons as convincing and dangerous" -- with this:

The most omnipresent terrorist threat the United States faces today is the opportunistic attacks that are either homegrown or stem from weak or failing states, not the spectacular attacks that take months of preparation. . . . And those are the kind of attacks Awlaki has the power to inspire. In the end, it doesn't help much to ask who the next bin Laden is, since the problem is bigger than any one man. Regardless of whose image captivates the world, al Qaeda figures, including Awlaki, are busy plotting terrorist mayhem. And Washington needs to do all it can to reduce the risk of another attack.

The government "needs to do all it can" in the name of Terrorism:  even targeting its own citizens with assassination without a trial based on the mere suspicion that he's doing something criminal  -- or invading other countries that haven't attacked us -- or dropping a continuous stream of missiles on people's homes who are purely innocent -- or locking people up for life without a trial.  This is the sociopathic mindset of the security fetishist that dominates our political discourse -- Terrorism:  the meaningless though all-justifying slogan -- and, more than anything else, this is what explains why something as radical and dangerous as the President's due-process-free assassination program aimed at American citizens triggers so little objection.  "Washington needs to do all it can" -- no matter how violent and lawless -- "to reduce the risk of another attack."  To a militarized, authoritarian, collapsing Empire in a posture of Endless War, security is the only cognizable value.

UPDATE: Last week, I delivered the keynote address to the ACLU in Massachusetts for their annual Bill of Rights dinner.  The topic was the Bipartisan National Security State and President Obama's continuation of it, and it relates to many of the topics discussed here.  Those interested in listening to the 25-minute speech can do so here.

"This should be the last attack on people's houses," the president told a news conference in Kabul. "Such attacks will no longer be allowed."

Karzai's call was viewed as mainly symbolic. Western military officials cited existing cooperation with Afghan authorities and pledged to continue consultations, but said privately that presidential authority does not include veto power over specific targeting decisions made in the heat of battle.

So we're in Afghanistan to bring Freedom and Democracy to the Afghan People, but the President of the country has no power whatsoever to tell us to stop bombing Afghan homes.  His decrees are simply requests, merely "symbolic." Karzai, of course, is speaking not only for himself, but even more so for (and under pressure from) the Afghan People: the ones we're there to liberate, but who -- due to their strange, primitive, inscrutable culture and religion -- are bizarrely angry about being continuously liberated from their lives: "Karzai's statements . . . underscored widespread anger among Afghans over the deaths of noncombatants at the hands of foreign forces."

Indeed, the Afghan People -- on whose behalf we are fighting so valiantly -- are total ingrates and simply do not appreciate all that we're doing for them.  A poll of Afghan men released earlier this month by the International Council on Security and Development found overwhelming opposition to NATO operations in their country.  First there was this in Southern Afghanistan, where most of the fighting has taken place and where we are liberating residents from Taliban tyranny:

Then there's this from Northern Afghanistan, long said to be the region most sympathetic to NATO's fighting:

The Taliban is widely unpopular among Afghans (though in the South, a majority oppose military operations against them); but whatever else is true, 8 out of 10 men, spread throughout all regions of that country, believe that NATO operations are bad for the Afghan people.  

So the decisions of the Afghan President are totally irrelevant (when it conflicts with what we want).  The views of the Afghan People are equally irrelevant.  But we're there to bring them Freedom and Democracy (while we decree their elected leaders' decisions "merely mainly symbolic") and are fighting for their own good (even though virtually none of them recognize that).  What a great war, now America's longest and close to a decade old.  

If you cover politics on the campaign trail, the Patriot Act is extremely unpopular, and can -- people running for office rail against it.

Once they get in office, especially those in charge of the national -- nation's security, they tend to support it. So, I assume, once they get in office and they understand what it's doing behind the scenes, they tend to think it's probably a good idea.

And this is what's happened to President Obama. It's what's happened to most people who are privy to how it actually works.

Our Leaders know secret things that we don't that make them know better, and justify their complete abandonment of what they promise when campaigning (and as I've said many times, if that's really what happened -- if Obama got into office and learned Secret Things that showed him that his criticisms of Bush/Cheney Terrorism policies were misguided -- then don't he and his defenders owe the GOP a serious apology for the inaccurate harsh criticisms they spewed all those years?).  Then Shields offered this "counterpoint":

I think the indispensable part that intelligence played in the capture and [sic] -- of Osama bin Laden probably strengthened the case for the Patriot Act's -- Patriot Act's reinstatement. And I would say intelligence remains the cornerstone of the exit strategy from Afghanistan and to Iraq to a considerable degree. And I think that neutralized some of the opposition.

Now that we killed bin Laden, we need civil-liberties-eroding measures like the Patriot Act more than ever.  The notion that the death of bin Laden would trigger a winding down in the War on Terror -- as though bin Laden was the cause of those policies rather than pretext for them -- will prove to be one of the more absurd notions advanced on such matters.  Speaking of which:

At least 14 civilians, including women and children, have been killed in a NATO air raid in the Afghan southern province of Helmand, local authorities say. . . .

The statement said the dead included five girls, seven boys and two women. . . .

Afghan authorities said on Sunday NATO had killed 52 people, mostly civilians, in air strikes against fighters, as violence picked up in recent weeks with the start of the fighting season.

Separately, the governor of Nuristan on Sunday said that 18 civilians and 20 police were killed by "friendly fire" during recent US-led air strikes against al-Qaeda-linked fighters in his troubled northeastern province.

More Afghans liberated by the U.S. . . . from their lives:  because, as we know, the killing of bin Laden changed everything.  When it comes to the absurdity department, one of the few things that can compete with the claim that the bin Laden killing will restrain the War on Terror is this event.

Actions always speak louder than words.  The diplomatic manner of dealing with human rights abuses is frequently condemned by the abuser [sic] -- often publicly -- with the hope that these statements will be all they need to do.  The say:  "oh, yes we're against these human rights violations -- we're for the rule of law -- we're for people being able to come forward and tell us about problems and be able to correct things"  . . . . They think that their words will be enough.  But we know differently.  We know what's happening with Russia. Here's a person whose only crime was to bring to the public attention the problem of public corruption in Russia. 

So the Russians are heinous for punishing those "whose only crime was to bring to the public attention the problem of public corruption."  In public, the Russians say "we're for people being able to come forward and tell us about problems and be able to correct things," but their actions prove they want to punish that very behavior.  Behold the Russian hypocrisy and tyranny, Cardin urged.

This is the very same Sen. Benjamin Cardin who has also introduced legislation that, if enacted, would be the most severe legislative attack on whistleblowers in the United States in the last several decades at least.  In particular, his bill, as Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists explained, "would broadly criminalize leaks of classified information" and would, in effect, turn all disclosures of classified information into a felony, regardless of how corrupt or even illegal the exposed conduct was:

Under existing law, criminal penalties apply only to the unauthorized disclosure of a handful of specified categories of classified information (in non-espionage cases). These categories include codes, cryptography, communications intelligence, identities of covert agents, and nuclear weapons design information. The new bill would amend the espionage statutes to extend such penalties to the unauthorized disclosure of any classified information. . . .

The bill does not provide for a "public interest" defense, i.e. an argument that any damage to national security was outweighed by a benefit to the nation. It does not address the issue of overclassification, nor does it admit the possibility of “good” leaks. Disclosing that the President authorized waterboarding of detainees or that the government conducted unlawful domestic surveillance would be considered legally equivalent to revealing the identities of intelligence sources, the design of secret military technologies or the details of ongoing military operations.

Open Congress added that Cardin's bill "makes it a felony for government employees and contractors to disclose any information in violation of their nondisclosure agreements, regardless of whether or not the discloser was trying to help a foreign government or harm the U.S."  Worse, the bill creates a "presumption" that any and all leaks harm national security, and then imposes the burden on the accused leaker to prove that the leak (contrary to government claims) did not result in such harm, a burden Aftergood says "would be nearly impossible to meet."  

In sum, Cardin's bill would turn virtually all whistleblowing into a felony punishable by decades in prison.  It would drastically expand the scope of covered information from the limited categories now covered into all classified information (which is basically anything and everything the government does of any significance).  If Cardin's bill were enacted, it would single-handedly stifle the vast majority of whistleblowing -- one of the very few remaining avenues for learning about what government officials do (as "authorized" whistleblowing processes typically achieve nothing other than recriminations for the whistleblower) -- as nobody in their right mind would even consider leaking classified information once all such acts are presumptively criminal.

Yet there was Ben Cardin yesterday on the Senate floor urging us to look over there at how those awful Russians pay lip service to the virtues of whistleblowing while taking action to punish it.  Meanwhile, Cardin spouts all sorts of words about the virtues of whistleblowers while taking severe actions against them.  And while it's true that Russia brutalizes its whistleblowers (the Magnitsky case was horrendous), Cardin sat silently while the U.S. -- the country for whose conduct he's responsible -- did the same (in fact, Time suggested that Cardin's anti-whistleblowing legislation was motivated by the alleged leak of Bradley Manning).  Cardin, needless to say, has also never objected to the Obama administration's unprecedented war on whistleblowers in his own country, nor to his Democratic Senate colleague's effort to prosecute WikiLeaks for "espionage":  something that would criminalize all investigative journalism.

But this is typical of U.S. officials; it's one of their favorite pasttimes.  They love to point over there and denounce the conduct of those Other Countries while they engage in exactly the behavior that they flamboyantly condemn.  It's one of the most potent and destructive forms of propaganda (it constantly bolsters the idea that oppression and tyranny happens only in Other Countries, never in the U.S.).  It's just that in this case, Cardin's conduct -- condemning Russia for hypocritical defenses of whistleblowers while Cardin does exactly the same thing -- is so brazen it's hard to believe someone didn't tell him to refrain.

* * * * *

One of my favorite cases of this type of nationalistic self-regard was when the Bush State Department condemend Russia in 2006 for illegally spying on its citizens without judicial oversight and then, worse, failing to hold accountable the officials who were responsible.  That condemnation of Russia came less than one year after The New York Times revealed that the Bush administration was illegally spying on Americans without the warrants required by law, lawbreaking for which nobody was ever held accountable.

A more recent example came when evidence emerged that the U.S. cooperated with Israel in unleashing a sophisticated computer virus in Iran, an act that would clearly be an "act of war" pursuant to cyberwar standards recently promulgated by the Obama administration.

But what makes Cardin's conduct special is that he wasn't merely condemning exactly that which he does; that would just be garden-variety nationalistic hypocrisy.  It's that he went a step further by specifically denouncing those who hypocritically defend values they simultaneously subvert: it's a double, meta form of hypocrisy that is really difficult to construct.  That's what makes it impressive.