Libya Revisited- UPDATED

I find I've almost forgotten about the Libya war, which I addressed early on a bit but haven't touched since then.  Now I read this from Andrew Sullivan, an Obama supporter like me, and find myself in complete agreement.  This is a process worry- the president has gone to war without getting any kind of vote from the Congress.  This seems to be illegal, but like Bush II Obama has found lawyers who tell him there's no problem.  If other lawyers have warned otherwise, he's just ignored them.

It's not like the presidency wasn't already a pretty powerful office before 2000.  The president has lots of power to defend the country.  But the congress has to declare war, and the congress has to fund it.  We're at war in Libya; this gets forgotten because we don't have troops on the ground sustaining casualties, but the US military is nevertheless engaged dropping bombs on a sovereign country with the clear purpose of regime change.  A country that was not threatening the US (at this time anyway).

Obama has joined George W. Bush in completely eviscerating the War Powers Act, and the congress under both presidents, in both parties, has gone along like lambs to the slaughter.  It seems the congress doesn't want to act- they'd rather be on the sidelines so they can't be blamed for the quagmire many of them see coming.

As I've said before, this won't end well.

UPDATE: I was thinking more about this, and want to point out the other big problem with the Libya operation, similar to the problem with Operation Iraqi Freedom.  Nuclear proliferation.  Why is it that we're not considering any military action against North Korea, which is as brutal as anyone in the Middle East and run by a dictator even crazier?  Maybe it's because oil isn't involved.  Or maybe it's because they have nukes.  If I were running Iran, listening to the US rattle sabers constantly, I'd be working like hell to get the Bomb- it's the only way to guarantee the Marines stay out.

Also, see Kevin Drum for more discussion about Obama's refusal to take the advice of the White House Office of Legal Counsel.  The Left blogosphere is not behind him here.