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The Spectacle Blog
It took the greatest military alliance in history about 7 months to finish off Libya’s Moammar Qaddafi. Comandante Obama is posing as one of history’s great conquerers, but his war was ostentatiously illegal. After all, he claimed, bombing and killing the armed forces of another government really wasn’t hostilities. Rather, it was a special Hawaiian greeting—with a Chicago twist. At least President George Bush went to Congress. The former lecturer in constitutional law at the University of Chicago law school couldn’t be bothered to do so.
No one should shed any tears for Qaddafi’s passing. While his regime posed no threat to the U.S, he received his just desserts, even if on the street rather than in a courtroom. Civilized people might not want to endorse exactly how he was killed—especially the apparent special use made of a knife—Charles Krauthammer is right to note the potential salutary precedent of “a Libyan state funeral. That’s when you lie on public view for four days, half-naked in a meat locker.”
However, it remains worth noting that President Obama started his non-war war under false pretenses. Qaddafi was a nasty guy. But there were no civilian massacres. The entire humanitarian claim was a fraud, a PR gloss for a slow-motion attempt at regime change which actually lengthened the Libyan civil war and made it much more deadly. That is, the administration’s policy killed more Libyans.
Explained Alan Kuperman at the Unitersity of Texas:
EVIDENCE IS now in that President Barack Obama grossly exaggerated the humanitarian threat to justify military action in Libya. The president claimed that intervention was necessary to prevent a “bloodbath” in Benghazi, Libya’s second-largest city and last rebel stronghold.
But Human Rights Watch has released data on Misurata, the next-biggest city in Libya and scene of protracted fighting, revealing that Moammar Khadafy is not deliberately massacring civilians but rather narrowly targeting the armed rebels who fight against his government.
So President Obama’s most successful foreign policy has been an illegal war started on a lie which may end up creating an unstable Islamist-oriented state with jihadists in positions of power. Along the way, noted Kuperman, U.S. intervention “prolonged Libya’s civil war and the resultant suffering of innocents.” Truly an extraordinary achievement!
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More Blog Posts by Doug Bandow
http://spectator.org/blog/2011/10/30/tears-for-the-constitution-not
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Sean| 10.30.11 @ 7:01AM
This conflict also calls into question NATO's role. It use to be to defend Europe against the Soviets. Now it seem to be to establish radical Islamist states. First Kosovo now Libya. The President gets his authority to go to war from NATO or the UN, but not Congress now. It is time to just leave these organizations.
Infantryman| 10.30.11 @ 9:55AM
The basicly guilty organization in all of our wars since WWII is the Congress which is the agency which has the power to declare war and fails to do so, permitting the Excutive Branch wage war as it pleases. What is needed in this country is deliberate public debate by the Congress before we begin a war or continue it if we are attacked. The first questions should be: what are our national interests in going to or continuing a war; what are our objectives and can we attain them; and, most importantly will our people support the war? If those questions cannot be answered, don't go to or continue a war.
Occam's Tool| 10.31.11 @ 11:28AM
The big problem with this, as I see it, is two-fold: 1) the regime that will succeed Daffy will be Islamist and worse than Daffy; and 2) where's the encouragement to other Dictators to NOT go for Nuclear Weapons?
Daffy was a piece of excrement. But the time to have killed him was before he made agreements with us.
Clint| 10.30.11 @ 11:33AM
Dr.Ron Paul,
“The President also defended his unconstitutional intervention in Libya,
authorized not by the United States Congress but by the United Nations,
and announced new plans to pressure Syria and force the leader of that
country to step down.
“Our military is already dangerously extended, and this administration
wants to expand our involvement. When will our bombing in Libya end? Is
President Obama seriously considering military action against Syria? We
are facing $2 trillion dollar deficits, and the American taxpayer cannot
afford any of it.
“Our military’s purpose is to defend our country, not to police the
Middle East."
The Tea Party Rebellion Is Here.
RJ| 10.30.11 @ 11:39AM
This is scandal illustrates how the United States has transformed into a lawless society and dictatorship. Going into international military action is the most serious exercise of government authority. In Libya, there was no threat of imminent attack against the US, no treaty obligations triggered, and no Congressional approval. Obama's actions struck at the very core of our Founding Fathers' constitutional concerns, yet there was little outcry. In earlier times, no president would have considered such actions without Congressional approval. These days the Emperor of the United States unilaterally decides to send the legions into distant battle while the public is focused on getting the newest electronic toy and following the "reality" circuses on TV. Our society needs to be restored before our government can be restored.
Dai Alanye | 10.30.11 @ 7:33PM
Hyperbole watch:
"...the United States has transformed into a lawless society and dictatorship."
Red Phillips | 10.30.11 @ 12:17PM
How long before the democratizing fetishists around here place a post attempting to rebut this?
Occam's Tool| 10.31.11 @ 11:30AM
Sorry, Red. I believe in glass blowing in the Middle East, except for Israel, of course. Trinitite has a beautiful look to it, appropriate for Teheran, Tripoli, Damascus, Cairo, Riyadh, Mecca, Medina, etc.
PattyMor| 10.30.11 @ 4:22PM
Well its been Congress that has been enhancing the Executive Branch over the Congress for YEARS. So why don't the Repbs complain? Heck they probably just want their turn at the wheel.
Venal, corrupt, and derelict of duty. Fire most of them, starting with John Boehner. Feckless, Spineless and Afraid of his own shadow.
Solo| 10.31.11 @ 7:54AM
Exactly correct!
The reason that the Congress has surrendered their authority to the Executive is an attempt to avoid being responsible if things go "sideways".
This is the same reason the Congress has developed the penchant for "Bi-Partisan Commissions".
These guys and gals in Congress want all the perks and power, but they want none of the responsibility that comes with leadership. After all...if they make a mistake, they might lose their phony-baloney jobs.
AVCurmudgeon| 10.31.11 @ 1:28PM
We know that the neocons have no problem with the constitutionality of Obama's actions because they do not want the executive to be required to answer to Congress on these matters. To them, it is all simply a matter of whose hand is on the wheel.
As for the outcome, we now read that Hillary is taking credit for piecing the "coalition" together and keeping it together throughout the misadventure. She is ecstatic about the outcome ("we came, we saw, he died") and seemingly has no problem with the imposition of sharia law under the new regime.
We have an executive with no scruples about lying to accomplish his aims: the "humanitarian" lie was exposed at the top, as was the overall nature of the so-called "rebel" leadership not to mention the dithering dissembling in the use of the phrase "kinetic military action."
It is a disgrace that Obama felt no need to go to Congress; yes, the law requires it but there is something more fundamental at stake. Going to Congress means putting policy into a public forum where the American people can consider it and make their voices heard. As we see more and more with Obama's campaign against Congress, this is a process he cannot accept much less really participate in.
Yes, we are a republic. "The people" do not govern directly but through their elected representatives. But that governance requires that the elected representatives do their jobs, force these issues into the open and give their constituents the opportunity to be heard. None of that happened here, nor is it happening in Obama's technowar through the Middle East.
Mike Owens| 10.31.11 @ 12:03AM
I have to ask: is your description of President Obama's undeclared war as a "special Hawaiian greeting" in any way a reference to the USS Pueblo sailors, who likewise used a special Hawaiian good luck sign (aka, extended middle finger) in North Korean propaganda pictures, to show that the pictures were coerced by their captors?