The NATO military operation against Libya's Muammar Qaddafi is turning into a protracted farce.  The Libyan dictator has the innocent blood of Americans and other nationalities on his hands through his regime's four decades of supporting terrorism.  If we were engaged in a real military operation against Qaddafi, we would have sent ground troops in a long time ago and the Libyan dictator's regime would be no more.  Unfortunately, Obama and his clueless administration, in their desire to obsequiously pander to the Islamic street and internationalist ideology, decided to outsource this operation to NATO with incredibly restrictive rules of engagement.

For one thing, Obama promised that the U.S. and NATO would not commit ground troops to this operation.  The first rule of any kind of contest with an adversary is to never tell them what you will not do!  This incredible error by Obama gives Qaddafi and his regime the hope that we will eventually tire of this half-cocked operation and not have the intestinal fortitude to topple his regime.  Our bombing raids have been episodic instead of concentrated and sustained.  Do NATO pilots go on a multiweek vacation after completing a single sortie?  We have no knowledge of the ideology of the Libyan rebel forces beyond their antipathy to Qaddafi.  After a few months we still don't know what domestic or foreign policies they will pursue, their opinions of the United States, Israel, and Al Qaida.  We have let ourselves be bamboozled by the worst sort of sentimental humanitarianism without determining whether it is in our strategic interests to spend money and blood in the Libyan skies and sands.

In response to this muddle, a motley assortment of bipartisan members of Congress have decided to file suit against the Obama Administration claiming it is violating the War Powers Act.  This pathetic piece of legislation was passed by Congress in 1973 as a result of disenchantment with the Vietnam War and increasing animosity between Congress and then President Nixon.  The War Powers Act requires the President to report to Congress 90 days after the inserting military troops into combat operations.
Credible students of constitutional law and military affairs analysts think the War Powers Act is an unconstitutional usurpation of the President's powers as commander-in-chief.  Both Republican and Democratic presidents have held this act in contempt since its enactment, via congressional veto override, nearly four decades ago but no administration has had the cojones to directly challenge its constitutionality.  The leaders of this recent lawsuit include such dim bulbs as Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich which says a lot for the credibility of this action.  Many members of Congress still adhere to the quaint notion that only Congress can legally declare war.  While it's desirable for Congress to be able to debate the potential commitment of U.S. military forces to war, the fast moving pace of contemporary military and geopolitical trends make such debate impossible in a way the founders could not have envisioned.  That's why it is so important that Americans have a commander-in-chief who can capably decide when it is or isn't in our national interest to use military force and commit the resources necessary, with congressional support, to achieve a victorious result from committing our military forces.  Barack Obama is not such a leader! 

Last week, the White House sought to comply with the War Powers Act reporting provisions by releasing a lamely reasoned paragraph seeking to justify U.S. involvement in Libya.  Unfortunately, it contained no compelling strategic reasons for committing U.S. forces, gave no timetable for when the operation would be concluded, let alone successfully concluded, and was of such shallow reasoning that it would be rejected by an elementary school teacher.  Congress can use its constitutional power of the purse to cut off funding for this sideshow operation, but it's doubtful it will carry out this action. 

We are again seeing the consequences of a strategically incompetent administration that is more concerned with surrendering command of U.S. military forces to an international coalition which does not have the guts or means to do the nasty work of toppling a third rate thug and his bloodthirsty regime.  This action is seriously damaging the credibility of the NATO alliance and its ability to respond effectively to emerging threats from Iran or even a revanchist Russia.  This inept operation is also being closely observed in Pyongyang, Beijing, and Caracas.  We are seeing the abject failure of liberal internationalism to carry out a multilateral military operation.  While some of our NATO allies, such as Britain, still have significant military assets and capabilities, the fact of the matter is only the U.S. can successfully carry out longer term military operations such as the one in Libya.  The old saying that if you want something done, do it yourself, applies to the military operations in Libya.  To many cooks in a military operation spoil the broth and damage the produce and its end result.