An AV-8B Harrier jump jet returns to USS Kearsarge for fuel and ammunition resupply in support of Joint Task Force Odyssey Dawn, March 20, 2011. The jet is from the Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron, 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit. Coalition forces launched the operation to enforce U.N. Security Council Resolution 1973, which protects the Libyan people from their ruler. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Michael S. Lockett

I can sense the tortured souls of 72 million people. Or, as Obi-Wan “Ben” Kenobi said in “Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope,” “I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened.”

Unlike Kenobi, however, I know exactly the source.

President Barack Obama, after hemming and hawing for several weeks, launched an illegal, immoral and unjust war against Libya and our nation’s 72 million Democrats aren’t sure how to react. After all, isn’t this exactly the kind of thing they hated about President George W. Bush?

Turns out Obama is as much a warmonger as his predecessor. The Nobel Peace Prize winner is now running three wars as well as a concentration camp in Cuba and its military tribunals. While he ended torture, he has reserved the right to use extraordinary rendition so he can turn terror suspects over to other countries who will then do the torturing for us.

In fact, Obama has now ordered military strikes in six different countries: Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen, all predominantly Muslim countries. No wonder the Muslim world hates us. It’s because we keep bombing them.

In a recent Zogby survey, 85 percent of Arabs expressed an unfavorable opinion toward the United States, eclipsing the 83 percent negative opinion in the final year of the Bush administration. This despite Obama’s “attempts” to reach out to the Muslim world.

Of course, the political show here in the United States is fun to watch as liberals try to rationalize away long-held beliefs.

Ironically, Obama, who said he would end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan but has yet to deliver on that campaign promise, entered this war with even less authority to conduct it than Bush did when he went into Iraq and Afghanistan.

Unlike Obama, Bush actually sought and received congressional approval for his actions.

Nor can Obama claim ignorance. In 2007, he told the Boston Globe, “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.”

Also in 2007, Vice President Joe Biden, then a U.S. Senator, said that if Bush “takes this nation to war in Iran without congressional approval, I will make it my business to impeach him.”

Clearly, Obama knows his limits under the Constitution and simply chose to ignore the law, which is puzzling given that the Congress would have likely approved the use of force in Libya. However, members of Congress would have likely asked questions for which Obama has demonstrated he has no answers. Questions, for example, concerning the mission’s objective and how and when it will end.

Obama tried to justify his decision by claiming the United Nations gave him authority to attack.

“The writ of the international community must be enforced,” he said in announcing the military attack.

However, the U.N. has no authority to authorize the president to take military action. The Constitution is clear that only Congress can declare war.

As for the wisdom of attacking Libya, there really isn’t any. It is more a civil war rather than a revolution. And we are not even sure of the aims of the insurgents. If Moammar Gadhafi is overthrown, who will lead the country, al-Qaida?

The United States has no national interests in Libya and, unlike Iran, it poses no threat to U.S. national security.

Then there is the cost of the war. It will cost as much as $800 million to establish the no-fly zone and about $100 million a week to maintain it. The United States has a $1.6 trillion budget deficit and is $14.23 trillion in debt. We simply can’t afford another war.

Finally, our actions will probably make the situation worse. By destroying Gadhafi’s air capabilities, we will be prolonging the fighting in that country without any guarantee that the overly mismatched rebels will even win. Thousands of lives will be lost needlessly.

In the end, we should let the Libyan people decide their own fate instead us killing Libyans in some misguided effort to help.

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