At a time when the American people overwhelmingly oppose our continued military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq, President Obama has responded by committing the United States to another war. Today, the U.S. attacked Libyan forces with over a hundred cruise missiles hitting the capitol and surrounding areas. With the two wars already draining the United States of billions a day, these cruise missile attacks alone will cost hundreds of millions in both the equipment and commitment of forces.
While we go to war against Libya for its crackdown on democratic reformers and protesters, the United States continues to support its allies like Bahrain and Saudi Arabia (which have unleashed tanks on protesters). What is the principled line determining when we go to war to support protesters or reformers? Will the same line apply to our allies?
Here is what Obama has stated today: ”Today we are part of a broad coalition. We are answering the calls of a threatened people. And we are acting in the interests of the United States and the world . . .”
We are now going to war in a country which seems to be experiencing a civil war. It is also a country that greeted the mastermind of the PanAm terrorist attack as a national hero. Finally, we are once again going to war without a declaration of war. While the Framers were quite clear about the need for a declaration, we are once again simply circumventing that inconvenient principle. The same Democrats who insisted that they were misled in using a resolution to start the Iraq War are again standing silent in the face of another President committing this country to war without a declaration. I consider bombing the capitol city of a nation to be an act of war.
I seriously doubt that the majority of Americans are opposed to the other two wars but would want to go fight in Libya.
While we are clearly not committing to a ground conflict, this is a move that is clearly opposed to the public’s desire to end this foreign military entanglements — and not to add new ones. The political disconnect over these wars is both distressing and dangerous for a system that, while a representative democracy, is still based on the notion of responsiveness to the voters.
Source: CNN
I don’t think what is going on in Libya is a religious war as some have said. There was a revolution followed by a suppression. We have come in on the side of the revolutionaries. The Arab League supports this and they did not support the invasion of Iraq. As the Glenn Greenwald article says, this is different than Iraq and “glib comparisons should be avoided”. Obama listened to Hillary Clinton and the State Department rather than the military. I hope it does not last very long, and that there are never any troops on the ground.,
Farrakhan warns, advises Obama on Libya policy, proper guidance for America
To President Obama, Minister Farrakhan delivered a pointed warning: “Don’t let these wicked demons move you in a direction that will absolutely ruin your future with your people in Africa and throughout the world. They don’t like the way you handled (former Egyptian President Hosni) Mubarak! They don‘t like the way you’re handling the situation in the Arab world! So I would advise you to be careful-and move with wisdom and skill.
And then, Minister Farrakhan offered President Obama some divine advice.
“Why don’t you organize a group of respected Americans, and ask for a meeting with Gadhafi? You can’t order him to step down, and get out-who the hell do you think you are, that you can talk to a man that built a country over 42 years, and ask him step down and get out? Can anybody ask you? Well, well there’s a lot, now, [that are] going to ask you to step out of the White House, because they don’t want a Black face in the White House,” said Minister Farrakhan.
“Be careful, brother, how you handle this situation because it is coming to America! It has already started. Look in Wisconsin! Look in Ohio! Look at what’s going on in your country! And remember your words because the American people are rising against their own government: It’s not Muslims; it’s not Black people! It’s White militias that are angry with their government, and they are well armed. Are you going to tell them-’Put your arms down, and let’s talk it over peacefully?’ I hope so. But if not, America will be bathed in blood, not because Farrakhan said so, but because the dissatisfaction in America has reached the boiling point. Be careful how you manipulate the dissatisfaction in Libya and other parts of the Muslim world,” he warned.
http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/World_News_3/article_7666.shtml
What an ignorant utterance!
pete
Amen!
Jeff,
1) Khadaffi was not threatening sea lanes. The pirates based in Somalia are doing that. Why aren’t we at war there? The President and Secretary of State are not talking about national interest; they are talking about morality. And it is hypocritical in the extreme to talk about morality when you are supporting other undemocratic countries that have brutalized their citizens at the exact same time as you are shedding crocodile tears over civilian casualties in Libya. Are the dead protesters in Yemen worth any less than the dead rebels in Libya? Why isn’t the US concerned about dead children in Gaza or Lebanon? There have been atrocities in Ivory Coast and Sierra Leone. And so on.
2) “There must always be money for wars” perfectly encapsulates the problem endemic in the American politic. We can and must say “NO” to war except in the case of self-defense. Our priorities must change. Rome fell for a lot of reasons. All empires eventually fall because they are increasingly expensive and difficult to maintain and because people don’t like being ruled by foreigners.
Iraq is a second front in that same war against Islamism
========================================================
don’t drag the rest of us into your religious wars
PatricParamedic,
Just because people overseas do nor like the US government does not mean they are right and the US is wrong.
HenMan,
1. The USSR bankrupted itself because its economic system was so bad it could not sustain a military. The US economic system is different. You simply must have a military. Period. No military, no government.
B. The wars in Iraq and Adghanistan are not by Amy stretch of the imagination “pointless.” The Taliban government of Afghanistan and its Al Qaida allies attacked us on September 11, 2001. Unless you’re OK with the gaping joke where the Twin Towers should be – I am not – a massive mitary response was required. And unless you were OK with subjecting the entire population of Afghanistan to nuclear annihilation, a war like the one we have now was the only option.
Iraq is a second front in that same war against Islamism. The legal justification was there, the practical justification was there, the strategic interests were and are there. Iraq’s central geographic position gives the US needed options in Syria and Iran that we did not have before. Saddam Hussein was by his own statements a declared enemy of the US. September 11 showed that terrorist groups like al Qaida, PLO, Hezboallah, Hamas, Muslim Brotherhood, Abu Nidal and the like could be used as delivery systems for WMD. And Saddam Hussein openly supported terrorist groups; the notion that he would worked with every terrorist group EXCEPT al Qaida is preposterous.
Libya is similar to Iraq, except we gave a chance to depose a murderous anti-US tyrant with s minimum of effort and risk. There is no strategic reason not to act here.
War is generally not “pointless.” It almost always has an objective. Whether you agree with the objective is another question entirely. And objectives count in determining whether a war is moral or not. I cannot conceive of a moral justification for opposing war with Gadhafi right now.
But wars are what legitimate governments do to protect and advance the interests of their people. The bigger the country, the more interests it has to protect and the more wars will involve it, whether that’s the US, Britain, Rome or Achaemenid Persia. Avoiding war at all costs is simply lot dn option for a government that takes the responsibility of protecting its people seriously.
HenMan –
From my perspective you are right on the money.
Another concept worth tossing into the mix is that the U.S. – financially speaking – has at least in my lifetime, always been able to “afford” war. We could pay the bills, foolish as they were.
If merely from the standpoint of cost alone – considering the ungodly volume of out-of-work taxpayers – I see protracted war efforts in the Mideast, in the year 2011, as pure madness.
But as nearly as I can tell, our leadership has never been very good at looking around at how other, truly successful societies on the planet manage their business, and then say, “Wow. Let’s be just a little bit more like them.”
One of the most revealing experiences in life is to live overseas for a year or two, settle in as a resident, and take in what those around you really think of the United States government. The should bottle the experience and put in on shelves.
But we keep blundering along, spilling blood & dollars all across the globe, while concurrently shouting from the belfry that we know best.
American bravado creates its own monsters, and the soap opera plays on, on an endless loop.
O.K., maybe I’m stupis too.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/19/extremists-among-libya-rebels_n_837894.html
I remeber when G.W.Bush was asked a question about hostilities between Shiites and Sunnis in Iraq, he answered (without trying to be funny)”I thought they were Muslims in Iraq”.
Is our foreign policy really as stupis as it appears? Is there some super secret agenda (or not so secret agenda i.e. oil) that’s driving this. Last week I thought Sara Palin would have to run to get me to vote for Obama again. Now I think Glenn Beck will have to run to get me to get me to vote for Obama.
Jeff Cox-
The Soviet Union bankrupted itself with a pointless war in Afghanistan, an enormous military establishment, and trying to keep Eastern Europe under its control.
The U.S. is now bankrupting itself with 2 pointless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and another about to begin in Libya, an enormous military establishment, and trying to keep the Middle East under its control.
I don’t see how the outcome can be any different for us than it was for the Soviet Union.
Our invasion of Libya should be a cakewalk (where have I heard that before?) Our allies the British, Germans, and Italians can supply us with some really good maps of Libya-they have been there before. I think Manfred Rommel is still around, too, but I don’t know about any of Monty’s relatives.
We will invade. Obama’s bosses at the Military Industrial Complex will insist on it, and he will soon need the first installments of the 2012 campaign slush funds. The oil companies and Halliburton-KBR won’t allow him to stand by dithering while the British and French divy up the oil. That might even bring Dick Cheney out of his undisclosed secure location in the bowels of hell.(No, he isn’t dead yet- he’s just looking at some real estate.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_state
Shady,
1. The distinction between Libya and other crises such as Ivory Coast or Congo is US national interest. We have an interest in keeping the Mediterranean sea lanes open. We have an interest in removing terrorist-supporting dictators such as Muammar Gadhafi (or Saddam Hussein). We have an interest in removing anti-US leaders from power, be they Gadhafi or Hussein. And we have an interest in specifically removing Gadhafi from power because of his record.
B. There must always be money for wars, because wars – defense, security and foreign policy – are the primary functions of the US or any government. Domestic spending must always take a lower priority than defense and foreign policy, because the American people do not have the legal or practical ability to so it themselves. That is what a government is for. Rome dud not fall because of a lack of domestic spending; it fell because its military vanished.
Does the crisis in Somalia require a US military response?
What about the crisis in Sudan?
Ditto for Yemen.
Bahrain.
Chechnya.
Palestine.
Congo.
Georgia.
Xianjiang Province.
Ivory Coast.
etc…
The US can not and should not intervene in every civil war on the planet. Somehow there’s always money for war but when it comes to domestic spending that would help the middle class or lower classes we’re broke.
We don’t even know who the rebels are. We know that some of them have been taking the opportunity to rob, harass and murder African immigrants (legal or not). We don’t know what the end-game is for leaving Libya. Are we going to endorse the de facto partition of Libya? Will we provide air cover for rebel attacks? What do we do if (when) the rebels attack civilians.
What do we say to people who wonder why we’re supporting a dictator in Yemen who is shooting “his own people”. What do we want to happen?
Frank,
I agree that timing is a serious issue here. However, 1. Better late than never; B. it still has a chance, albeit a lesser one, to be effective; and III. democracies never do the foreign policy thing quickly. Even Reagan’s attacks on Gadhafi were long after the fact.
As for our Middle East allies, neither Jordan, Kuwait nor Saudi Arabia has effective military reach to accomplish anything in Libya on their own (ie without US involvement). Egypt has the military capability, and supposedly they also do have some troops on the ground in Cyrenaica, but the situation in Egypt itself probably prevents them from taking decisive measures.