Libyan Conflict

The New York Times website is one of my favorite sites to get news from.  I signed up to get emails from them.  Everything morning I have an email sent to me updating me on the most current events.  The website has a plethora of news and covers the entire world.  I also love the pictures that they have to go along with the articles.  The also often have graphics and maps to help explain the articles.

Here is a link the pictures involving the Libyan conflict. Its nice that they divide up the pictures up over different days so that you can see the progression over time. I think that pictures can describes things better than any article ever could so I enjoy looking at the slideshows.  

I found the article under the Africa section of the world news section.  I’m sure almost everyone has heard something about the current situation in Libya.  There is a revolution going on in Libya, a country in the North part of Africa.  The Tripoli based government lead by Muammar Gaddafi controls much of the western part of the country and then the Benghazi based Transitional National Council lead by Mustafa Abdul Jalil controls much of the eastern part of the country. This article caught my attention because it was the main article for the day and it involves the United State’s role in this conflict.  There was a lot of debate going about the American role in NATO operations in Libya. 

The White House did not initially come to the congress about the support in the NATO operation.  While the administration say it acted in accordance to the Wars Powers Act, the 60 day window of time allotted to allow such decisions to be made without consent of congress has expired.  The article stated the Obama sent a letter to congress saying that they had turned control of the operation over to NATO.  However, on Friday June 3^rd, the House of Representatives voted to not allow the American support in NATO operations to continue.  A report by the administration must be submitted to Congress telling the estimated costs and reasoning for support of the operation. 

            While it may seem to some that Americans should continue to help support NATO in attempts to protect the citizen of Libya, I understand that a vote had to be made.  The way our government is set up was designed to separate the power among different entities.  Because of this, there has to be guidelines that the White House follows and it can’t make all decisions without passing through the congress. 

Here is the link to the article published in The New York Times June 3rd, 2011 by Jennifer Steinhaur