In 2009 newly-elected President Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize. It was a controversial award at the time. His record of bombing other nations where he has no legal right now exceeds that of the last Bush administration.
www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2014/sep/25/ryan-lizza/lizza-says-obama-has-bombed-more-... www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/may/15/irs-ap-benghanzi-not-real-scandals "What's worse, the administration blatantly expanded the mission in Libya from preventing humanitarian emergency to actively seeking regime change (a plan that worked as Libyan strongman Muammar Qaddafi was killed).
Even if one buys the administration's creative arguments on hostilities, it runs counter to the spirit of what Obama said in 2007 about the very notion of the executive branch acting unilaterally in the utilization of military force. As candidate Obama wrote:
"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 … History has shown us time and again, however, that military action is most successful when it is authorized and supported by the Legislative branch."
Except, it appears, when Obama is the president.
But what makes this flagrant abuse of presidential power so galling is at the same time Washington is in full scandal mode, it's happening again, right now, as we speak – and no one seems to care.
Last month, Jonathan Landay of the McClatchy News Service, relying on leaked intelligence reports, detailed what is probably the worst kept secrets in Washington – namely that US drone strikes in Pakistan are not targeting al-Qaida leaders, but rather militants who are crossing the border into Afghanistan.
This is problematic for two reasons. First, it contradicts repeated Obama administration assertions that drone strikes only target members of al-Qaida or those who pose an "imminent threat" to the United States. Taliban militants, while perhaps up to no good, don't fall into either category."
Even CCN reports the truth:
edition.cnn.com/2014/09/23/politics/countries-obama-bombed/ edition.cnn.com/2014/09/23/opinion/bergen-obama-wartime-president/index.html