Blame game: Obama's 2,800 airstrikes lacked 'authorization'

Analysis by FPI / January 5, 2020

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, many other Democrats, leftist media outlets and hysterical celebrities including sports personalities scolded President Donald Trump for ordering the U.S. military to take out one of the world’s top terrorists, Iranian Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani.

Pelosi said Trump should have asked for permission from Congress before conducting the airstrike.

“The administration has conducted tonight’s strikes in Iraq targeting high-level Iranian military officials and killing Iranian Quds Force Commander Qasem Soleimani without an Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) against Iran. Further, this action was taken without the consultation of the Congress,” Pelosi said Thursday night in a statement.

She also said “The full Congress must be immediately briefed on this serious situation and on the next steps under consideration by the administration, including the significant escalation of the deployment of additional troops to the region.”

Such outrage from the Left was nowhere to be found when President Barack Obama was ordering airstrikes on terror targets — and plenty of them.

Obama launched more than 2,800 strikes on targets in Iraq and Syria without congressional approval.

“The U.S. military has been conducting strikes in Iraq for 10 months, and began striking directly at targets in Syria last September as part of Obama’s announced campaign to degrade the capabilities of the Islamic State,” The Washington Times reported in April 2015.

The 2015 report noted that Obama had justified the attacks “under his commander in chief powers and under the 2001 resolution authorizing force against al Qaeda, and the 2002 resolution authorizing the ouster of Saddam Hussein in Iraq.”

The Washington Times’ report quoted Chris Edelson, assistant professor of government at American University, as saying: “For Obama, his unilateral stance is also an about-face from his time as a senator, when he argued Congress needed to keep the president from acting unilaterally in declaring war.”

“The president does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation,” Obama said during a 2007 interview with The Boston Globe.

“As president, unfortunately he doesn’t follow that approach,” Edelson said, adding that Obama had conducted unilateral strikes in 2011 in Libya before his campaign against the Islamic State.

Writing for RedState on Jan. 4, columnist Jeff Charles asked:

“Where was the widespread outrage against President Obama when he was approving airstrikes against terrorists in Syria and Iraq? Where was the collective pearl-clutching that we are seeing today? Did CNN, MSNBC, NBC, and the rest of the left-leaning media establishment take him to task for not asking Congress for permission to fight America’s enemies? In a word, no. But why not?

“Because they didn’t care then, and many of them don’t care now. The over-the-top reaction from progressives who claim Trump should have consulted with Congress first reeks of politically-motivated hypocrisy.

“These individuals are simply using this story as yet another political attack against the president, not standing on principle. You can rest assured that if a Democratic president makes a similar decision in the future, their outrage will transform into fervent support. Don’t you love politics?”

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