Is America at War with Libya?

For the White House, the answer to this question is very clear: No. And it was justified before Congress’ demand for an explanation like so: “We’re not engaged in sustained fighting. There’s been no exchange of fire with hostile forces. We don’t have troops on the ground. We don’t risk casualties to those troops.”

The question isn’t worthless, since if the United States were at war, President Obama would be in violation of the 1973 War Powers Resolution, which requires that the executive put an end to military intervention within 60 or 90 days if it has not been previously authorized by Congress.

The Republican majority in the House of Representatives, as well as the more leftist sector of the Democratic Party, are outraged by what they consider an illegal and illegitimate expansion of the presidential powers, to the detriment of Congress, the main body of expression of the popular will.

The current discrepancies in defining what a war is isn’t new. During the Cold War and following the conflict in Vietnam, it has been asked what the line is that differentiates between military assistance of a country and open war. Since then, reality has made the traditional definition of war, in which two states officially declare the initiation of hostilities, out of date.

New technology has complicated even further the task of defining what constitutes a war. Is it the continued bombing of countries with unmanned planes, as the United States does in Yemen, Pakistan or Libya? Is necessary to have battles on the ground, or to have casualties? What is the point at which the use of sporadic bombing as a threat becomes a war?

It seems that Republicans and Democrats, or at least the majority of them, with Obama at the head, have different answers to these questions. Of course, their respective opinions could change radically if a Republican is elected to the White House in 2012.

It’s interesting to see the transition from the government to the opposition, and vice versa, with politicians immediately changing speeches and arguments. Not long ago, it was a Democratic Congress that cried to the heavens over the expansion of presidential power during the Bush administration, which argued that the commander in chief shouldn’t be subject only to legislative control.

A group of congressmen, among them the incombustible Dennis Kucinich, have urged the federal court to demand that Obama order the withdrawal of troops from Libya. Due to the lack of clear definition for what constitutes a war according to the Supreme Court, the matter will not be resolved in the courts, but rather in a political form.

Obama, like George Bush in his time, knows that no federal court will intervene in such a confrontation. However, it may be that the president was wrong not to seek the green light from Congress within the deadline established by the law, something that furthermore would have been obtained without major problems.