One of the biggest problems of allowing a chief executive like George W. Bush to run roughshod over the Constitution is that it sets precedents. Now, President Barack Obama believes that as commander-in-chief he has the power to order the U.S. military into battle. By attacking Libya he has greatly expanded the unchecked executive powers that Bush's excesses and overreach established.
The good news is that, unlike the Iraq invasion, the United Nations has given the Libyan operation its imprimatur, rendering it "legal" in terms of international law. The bad news is that the United States Congress, the only Constitutionally-recognized war-making body, was rendered irrelevant in the process. As other commentators have pointed out: if President Obama can bomb Libya without a Congressional resolution authorizing him to do so, then a President Barbour or a President Palin can bomb Iran without going to Congress too. In fact, any future president could wake up on the wrong side of the bed one morning and begin firing off the Tomahawks at some hapless country.
And it's a little late to be talking about keeping the "footprint" of the American military action in Libya "light" and the operation "small" when the United States is already occupying two other Muslim countries of about 25 million people each.
Whenever the U.S. bombs a country the recent record shows pretty clearly that it always ends up being far more destructive than originally promised and the targets are often the state-run enterprises (parastatals) that multinational corporations (and free marketeers of all stripes) despise with a passion. The U.S. did it in Serbia. It did it in Iraq too. Privatization via bombing.
The United States military is ill-suited for "humanitarian" interventions because, once the violence is unleashed, it inevitably has a tendency to escalate and move in unpredictable directions. There are also so many seen and unseen ulterior motives to these periodic spasms of violence and the occupations that follow that they defy being labeled "humanitarian." When President Bill Clinton launched the U.S. military against Serbia for "humanitarian" purposes, it quickly targeted just about all of the remaining state-run enterprises. Those were the exact types of public institutions that any post-war Serbian government needed to rebuild and begin to meet the "humanitarian" needs of its people. The same phenomenon occurred when President Bush took the nation to war in Iraq. In addition to the WMD scare, even the "shock and awe" campaign claimed to have had a "humanitarian" component. (Remember all those neo-cons shedding tears over the plight of the Kurds and chatting up Saddam's "rape rooms?") But once again, Iraq's state-run enterprises came under blistering air assault, and then Paul Bremer went in and privatized the whole goddamned country.
The only thing the French and Italian governments care about is maintaining their corporations' access to Libya's light, sweet crude oil. It strains credulity that they've just discovered that after 40 years that Muammar Gaddafi is a despot. He's fighting against a revolution and killing his own people and he deserves to be condemned by the world community. But how pulverizing the infrastructure of Libya with Tomahawk cruise missiles and 2,000-pound bombs is going to alter the political equation inside Libya is anybody's guess. Libyan politics and the Libyan people themselves are going to have to sort it out one way or another. Remember, the Vietnam War was a "liberal" intervention with all of the same "humanitarian" trappings we hear today about Libya. In Vietnam, as we see happening in Afghanistan, as the United States military grew more and more powerful in the country, the U.S. political position among the indigenous population grew weaker and weaker.
Each Tomahawk cruise missile costs approximately between $750,000 and $1.5 million. If the average salary of a schoolteacher is $50,000 a year then -- Poof! -- with every single Tomahawk goes with it the taxpayer resources to pay 15 to 20 teachers' annual salaries. Raytheon Corporation must be stoked. And this doesn't count all of the money it takes to fly around-the-clock sorties with stealth bombers and all the other whiz-bang gadgetry money can buy. The Libyan operation once again exposes the obscenely skewed priorities of a society that slashes programs for the health and education of its citizens in order to feed a "national security" beast that devours over $700 billion a year.
President Obama's handling of the Libyan operation, like his decision to escalate the war in Afghanistan, shows he has clearly embraced the imperial presidency. In displaying "toughness" against Gaddafi and in Afghanistan, Obama diverts attention from his own obsequiousness to power domestically. He gave Wall Street a get-out-of-jail-free card because he didn't want to take the political risk involved in confronting the predators who collapsed the economy. He looked foolish when he advocated streamlining the licensing for more offshore deep-water oil drilling (a gift to Big Oil) just weeks before the BP/Macondo oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. He looks foolish having promoted nuclear power as part of his "green" energy initiative (a gift to the nuclear industry) now that the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear disaster has once again illustrated the potential costs of that particular energy source. He looks foolish calling for "staying the course" in Afghanistan even though the American people changed the channel on that war about five years ago giving Haley Barbour -- Haley Barbour! -- a political opening to criticize Obama by posing as a "peace" candidate. And if this Libya operation moves in an unpredictable direction, for instance, a Gaddafi-inspired terrorist attack against Americans requiring a "response," then Obama might appear foolish once again getting the U.S. waist-deep in another Big Muddy.
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Apparently, Obama believes that the United Nations, France and the Arab league have the authority to order the US military into war. This is far beyond what any other president has ever done. There is no precedent, and Congressmen on both the right and the left are correct in their criticism. And the fact that anybody is buying this nonsense about us not "leading" this effort is ridiculous. 95% of what is being done in Libya is by US assets and under the command of US officers. The only one not leading here is the president.
THANK YOU !!!!! I was arguing w/ people all day yesterday who kept trying to claim Serbia was a "humanitarian" mission. I don't know if they are just gullible or willfully ignorant.
I agree completely on everything else.
Now that they realize that O has the power, not so much.
What would you say if that hapless country happened to be none other than the USA, and the missiles were being fired at certain states whose inhabitants had dared to displease the potentate in the White House? Not that Posse Comitatus has been eviscerated, why not?
Unlike the fake cowboy president, we have a real UN resolution first and an agreement from the Arab League- so it is not like a unilateral event here.
Why are people ignoring or dissing this fact? It is not the same- neither is it even to bombing Yemen or Saudi Arabia- there is no UN agreement to do so- no consensus.
If Obama takes action -or doesn't - a big outcry is the only thing dependable.
Reminds me of the whine about Yugoslavia- thank god we got involved and too bad it was not sooner. Europe is affected most by the influx of immigrants from these war zones- probably a reason they took the first stand in both cases. Living in Europe, I saw first hand for months the atrocities of Milosovic. But Congress never gave permission- and time dragged on and more deaths occurred.
Thank god Clinton moved forward. I never saw one retraction of the critique that that was not a worthy war. It was messy but we stopped the killing. Wish we could have acted sooner to save more of the Muslim population there.
At the end of the war both the pentagon and UN counted less than 1800 killed which included over 200 Kosovian troops. All presidents lie us into war including Obama escalating Afganistan and now Libya.
Interesting that the Prosecutor laid out the big NATO/KLA and mass Media lie.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/1999/nov1999/koso-n13.shtml
500 Allied Airmen former WWII POWs took out a full page ad in the Washinton Post, telling reader's not to take the word of our Government. They had been told that if they were shot down over the Balkans to try to find Albanians because the Serbs would turn them in for the rewards.
Come to find out, it was just the opposite. 500 of them ended up in Serbian hands. Their leader wrote of their treatment, one family had only one egg to eat, and they gave it to the POW. They all had a reunion after the war.
Mantime, this ws going down: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Belgrade_in_World_War_II
Belgrade was bombed by Anglo-American air forces on April 16 and 17, 1944, which was Orthodox Easter Day. The most important unit that took part was American 15th Air Force, based in Foggia in the south of Italy. This carpet bombing raid was executed by 600 bombers flying at high altitude. Civilian casualties were as many as 1,160, while German military losses were 18.
It was supposed to break down the Germans but actually had destroyed Belgrade more than the German bombs. On some found bombs, it was written in Serbian Cyrillic Happy Easter. X3?
What would you have President Obama do? He is doomed if he does and he is also doomed if he doesn't do something in Libya. For instance: 1) he was criticized for not getting involved in Libya earlier by Senator McCain, 2) he was attacked by Lugar for supporting the UN resolution without a plan and without consensus of the Congress (not a valid criticism as he outlined that the military had already presented exit and transition plans ahead of time), 3) then the news agencies allege that politicians indicated this to be impeachable offenses, 4) after that he is asked to cut his Latin America trip short to answer to Congress.
So, let me get this straight: We don't impeach war criminals, such as Republicans like Bush, Rumsfeld, or Cheney for the lies that led us into a pre-emptive war in Iraq but we want to see Democrats impeached for providing humanitarian aid and assisting their allies in UN-sanctioned actions or for personal immoral actions that were unrelated to their job performance???
Finally, in 2011 Republicans are worried about the costs of our involvement in Libya but where were these concerns for the Iraq and Afghanistan actions? Where were these concerns after the WMD lies were uncovered / Abu Ghraib made us hated around the world?
No, you are correct McCain or Lugar don't make the decisions (luckily) but they had a hand in expanding Bush's executive powers during times of war and that's what President Obama operates under at this time.
Not sure what to make of your comment regarding news press secretary but last I checked I am entitled to voice my opinion based on what I have heard on the various news media.
Finally, the last section pertaining to the president's travel to Bogota is a bit silly and unwarranted. Obviously, President Obama is briefed while he is traveling and besides that we have Vice President Biden in the US. A good leader must know how to delegate and trust his team to do their respective jobs, i.e., Secretary Clinton, Secretary Gates, Admiral Mullen, etc. That's obviously what's taken place because he was briefed on the scope of our planned involvement in Libya, including exit strategy and timeline before he left on his trip. So, he's been in the loop and made informed decisions the entire time. With today's technological capabilities, his whereabouts are irrelevant to the situation.
Oh, and lest I forget no comments in regard to the previous administrations fault in racking up billions (and perhaps more) in costs over Iraq??? but now we are worried about the cost of a crashed plane and Tomahawk missiles? Hmm.
Obama got the sanction to call it a 'world police' action and Bush should have done the same. The Obama 'actions' are being driven by cautious calculation while the Bush 'actions' seem to have been driven by impetuosity, emotion, arrogance, and avarice. We'll see.
We're in Libya, to help insure that the revolutions that are succeeding continue on track (the despots behind the scene don't take the lead from Qaddafi). At the same time, we need to continue to maintain cover for some ugly regimes that are not yet ready (conditioned) for change. Hypocritical but necessary.
Net-net, Obama is simply taking the opportunity to enable some progressive change in the Middle East (including North African Arab States)........to give peace a chance going forward.
We're not perfect, but our approach is probably the most civilized, sophisticated, and humane in history. War and politics is not pretty; solutions are not ideal. Got to live w/it!
The US Congress no longer has that power?
Really? So why do we support these despots in the first place?
While there may have been a momentary stunting, the thing was already in motion and if speculation is allowed; perhaps illustrated by our present circumstance, that it is not so important who occupies the seat of the President, but that it is occupied.