Obviously, Boehner is a hypocrite, but I am still very uncomfortable with whatever we think we are doing in Libya:
House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) warned President Barack Obama on Tuesday that he’ll be in violation of the War Powers Act if he doesn’t seek authorization for the Libya mission this week, but Boehner has questioned the law’s constitutionality in the past and even voted to repeal the law back in 1995.
“The president of the United States is, and should remain, the chief architect of America’s foreign policy and the commander-in-chief of our armed forces,” Boehner said in a 1999 press release when Congress was debating U.S. involvement in the Balkans. “Invoking the constitutionally-suspect War Powers Act may halt our nation s snowballing involvement in the Kosovo quagmire. But it’s also likely to tie the hands of future presidents … A strong presidency is a key pillar of the American system of government — the same system of government our military men and women are prepared to give their lives to defend. Just as good intentions alone are not enough to justify sending American troops into harm’s way, good intentions alone are not enough to justify tampering with the underpinnings of American democracy.”
In addition to his pretty clear remarks, Boehner voted in 1995 to repeal the War Powers Act and replace it with a weaker mandate for Congress to have a role in the war-making process.
And then there is Yemen:
Both The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post report today that the Obama administration is planning to exploit the disorder from the civil war in Yemen by dramatically escalating a CIA-led drone bombing campaign. In one sense, this is nothing new. Contrary to false denials, the U.S., under the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize winner, has been bombing Yemen for the last two years, including one attack using cluster bombs that killed dozens of civilians. But what’s new is that this will be a CIA drone attack program that is a massive escalation over prior bombing campaigns; as the Post put it: “The new tasking for the agency marks a major escalation of the clandestine American war in Yemen, as well as a substantial expansion of the CIA’s drone war.”
Putting aside the fact that I doubt we have any clear idea what we are accomplishing or any guidelines for ending this next new adventure, what troubles me the most is that politically, this is great news for the Obama re-election campaign. It’s kind of hard to be portrayed as “soft on terror” after you killed bin Laden, are leading four wars (that we know of), and the GOP is using the War Powers Act to claim you are overstepping your authority in waging war on brown people. I’ll tell you this much, David Axelrod and the folks at the 2012 campaign popped a champagne bottle when Boehner and members of the House invoked the War Powers argument.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
Fuck, it’s too damn early for strong drink.
Darius
I doubt it. Americans are getting increasingly tired of war.
The main thing Obama has going for him right now is that all of his major GOP challengers have zero foreign policy experience. (Huntsman is the main exception, but it remains to be seen whether he actually has a real shot at the nomination.)
Jewish Steel
Cue Le Fred.
Comrade Dread
Don’t forget Pakistan.
I fully expect us to add Syria and Mexico (eventually) to the list of nations being given free airshows of Predator drones.
Turgidson
@Darius:
This. He’ll be campaigning on how he has wound down the Iraq fiasco and (hopefully) is winding down Afghanistan – not on his super awesome other wars, that he’d just as soon not talk about unless we dislodge or kill Qadaffi at an opportune moment.
Villago Delenda Est
@Darius:
Huntsman has no chance in this cycle. He’s positioning himself for 2016. And hoping that the crazies will have been thoroughly discredited by the forthcoming 2012 debacle.
Just Some Fuckhead
Which is worse? Boehner pretending to be interested in limiting the CinC’s war-making ability or Obama pretending to be a Republican for electioneering’s sake?
burnspbesq
@Just Some Fuckhead:
The sort of Republican that Obama is pretending to be wouldn’t be welcome in the Republican party any more. Rockefeller, Eisenhower – even Nixon and Reagan would be seen a commies by the wingnuts if they were to come on the political scene now.
Jon
When, exactly, were the Democrats the peace party? In the 20th Century, every Democratic president except Clinton increased military spending and every Republican except St. Reagan decreased it. Every war in the 20th century except Iraq I was a “Democrat war” as my conservative friends say.
I’m a firm believer in more and better Democrats, but they are not the “peace party.” They are the war party. Just because the Republicans are the “war is peace” and “nuke ’em first, ask questions later” party doesn’t make the Dems a bunch of hippie pacifists.
That’s a “liberal media” meme. It’s a lie.
ruemara
I’d be surprised if we draw down at all before the next election in any serious numbers. And I doubt hypothetical NaderKucinichPaul would do it any differently, it’s all about optics.
david mizner
Really?
You think it’s a good for Obama’s reelection hopes that there’s a good chance that the GOP nominee, if not the GOP as a whole, will get to Obama’s left on the extremely unpopular wars in Afghanistan and Libya?
On a related note: what the hell does trying to remove Gaddafi have to do with fighting terrorism?
Culture of Truth
Perhaps, but the newest debate in Washington is whether, or when, or why we are not, using force in Syria.
Jonas
humanitarian intervention is just like profiteering war.
Cat Lady
I hate the drone attacks. I can’t imagine living like that where those inhuman things rain terror on unsuspecting noncombatants. I do however can’t help but wonder what they know now that they didn’t before from bin Laden’s private stash, and I don’t mean teh pr0n.
Jewish Steel
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Which dove Democratic president are you thinking of that O could be more like?
Jon
@Turgidson: Americans will never get tired of war until it comes to our shores, God forbid. That is the difference between us and the rest of the world. It is why the Europeans don’t adventure anymore.
david mizner
@Just Some Fuckhead:
There’s no difference between Republican and Democratic presidents on war, empire, and such.
Obama’s not “pretending to be a Republican” — he’s being a good killing and war-making Democrat in the Truman, Johnson, Clinton mold.
Fred
What a surprise. John Galt Cole whining about war and blaming Obama. Going as far as taking sides with Boehner! Yea, you first point out how you know Boehner is just being a hypocritical GOP douche but that didn’t stop you from then forgetting about that and using it to re-inforce your argument. LOL! Isn’t that special.
I’m guessing Greenwald must have also been whining about this too eh?
Of course your arguments are flimsy and factless hyperbole as usual. Trying to paint Obama as some sort of warmonger is laughable. Then to use Boehner as some sort of defender of peace and justice is ROFLMAO territory.
slag
Oh, please, John. Once you’ve killed OBL, the wars are just extra credit.
Maybe I’m just an optimist, but I honestly don’t see a real political payoff here. Not even a little bit of one. Which means that I find these adventures quite mystifying. With no logical corruption angle, I can only assume that we think we’re doing this for good reason. Which is also weird.
Lydgate
Oh Man! Two bonus wars! If only the prez were white and I could get behind them!
Trurl
Remember how important it was that McCain lose because he would drag us into a new war?
Yeah.
david mizner
@david mizner:
To clarify my question, I mean what does Libya have to do with terrorism even in the broadest rhetorical sense, because of course the War on Terrorism itself has nothing to do with fighting terrorism, on the contrary its purpose is to perpetuate it.
Mike Goetz
I absolutely hate it when people say we are waging war on “brown people.” It is totally stupid, as though there were no good reason for doing anything in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Libya. Nobody is just trying to kill “brown people,” and pretending otherwise is infantile crap.
david mizner
@Fred:
Maybe you’d like to cite the law or document that gives the president the authority to involve the U.S. military in Libya’s civil war.
Jon
@Jewish Steel: LBJ!
Mike Goetz
“because of course the War on Terrorism itself has nothing to do with fighting terrorism, on the contrary its purpose is to perpetuate it.”
No it isn’t, dummy.
kdaug
1. Spy boys got a bunch of drones sitting on the tarmac
+2. Greasy suits got a bunch of Hellfires to sell
=3. Let’s dance
Perpetual war becomes invisible war, we’re sold Happy Meals and iDetergent, and shut up, that’s why.
Suffern ACE
@Trurl: Well, to his credit, Libya and Yemen are not the same order as Iran. Or for that matter Russia. (Long Live Georgia!) I think the difference might be Obama has dragged us into armed conflicts only half as many times as McCain would and against much smaller countries. It’s what they give peace prizes for.
Trurl
@Turgidson:
As to that:
“The United States should maintain a long-term military presence in Afghanistan as a “tenant” on bases jointly occupied with Afghan forces, rather than on permanent U.S. bases, after its combat mission ends, according to Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates.”
U.S. wants ‘joint bases’ in Afghanistan, Gates says
Downpuppy
Yemen has a population of 24,000,000, growing 2.6% per year. Their oil exports fell from 345,000 barrels a day in 2002 to 112,000 bpd in 2010. There’s basically no other industry or resources.
Which means their future is war. And we’re making sure that we’ll be a target. Isn’t there anyone left in Washington who even pretends to think ahead?
AAA Bonds
It’s a big concern of mine too.
If the Democrats become the party of war in Libya, and the Republicans the party of war in Iraq, and both are for the war in Afghanistan . . .
In that context, it’s much more difficult for me to care about other issues. Because I’m still going into the booth and voting for war – expensive, costly, deadly war.
Much of my support for the Democrats in 2008 was premised on how the Democrats might drag their feet on withdrawal, but they certainly wouldn’t embroil us in any other conflicts in the region by pure choice. They certainly wouldn’t try to depose a foreign despot unless he posed an existential threat to us or our allies.
Not because the Democrats are an anti-war party, but because they ran in 2008 on an anti-war platform – and I doubted the party could win in 2010 unless they stuck with it (wowsers!)
I was just disappointed about universal health care. I’m shocked about Libya.
david mizner
@Mike Goetz:
Yeah, sure, and the fact that the people we’re killing are overwhelmingly brown (and occasionally black) is entirely irrelevant, a non-factor, because surely American foreign policy would remain popular with Americans if we’d killed hundreds of thousands of white people in recent years.
Turgidson
@Jon:
I think the tepid support for the Libya affair and our never-ending Afghanistan involvement put lie to this notion, though.
Americans can probably always be whipped into a patriotic froth about a war if it is justified on the proper “America, Fuck Yeah!” grounds, but that enthusiasm does have its limits.
Adam C
@Mike Goetz:
Purpose or not, that’s the main result.
Dummy.
crybaby peepants
Guys, this is just 47 dimensional chess. Obama knows that if he pushes his powers too far, the Repubs will have no choice but to push back, thus undermining the expansive Executive powers introduced by Bush. It’s brilliant!
Just Some Fuckhead
Where is Joe from Lol when you need a vigorous defense of permawar?
Brachiator
@Jon:
Reductive and false. Does the invasion of Grenada under Reagan count as a “war?”
And would your conservative friends have preferred strict neutrality on the part of the US from 1914 through 1945?
@Cat Lady:
Would you prefer American troops on the ground? Or do you want a strict non-interventionist policy no matter what the circumstance?
Chinn Romney
I still can’t get over Greenwald. He’s ignoring the all-important story in the DC Blade, for pap like this? Shame! Shame! Tell’m Foley (or whatever your screen name is today. I may be an uninformed troll, but at least I always remember my name).
AAA Bonds
@Turgidson:
What are the effective “limits” of American support for war if both parties are in favor of more war?
Turgidson
@Villago Delenda Est:
That’s what I thought too, until Huntsman summarily flip-flopped on most of his mainstream positions. I think he may actually think there’s an opening for him this cycle, and is willing to damage his moderate appeal to go for it. Or maybe he just thinks no one will care what he is saying now in 4 more years. Which is possible of course.
AAA Bonds
@Brachiator:
Brachiator, stop being a fucking moron
Just Some Fuckhead
@AAA Bonds: New Democratic slogan: We do everything Republicans do, just better.
Jon
@david mizner: That’s a more complicated question than you might think. It’s not simply Article I versus Article II as we usually read. There is an ocean of treaties out there, that, once ratified by the U.S. Senate can commit us to all kinds of things.
And you and I both know that at best this is only a hypothetical point of Constitutional law. The unwritten, real Constitution allows the President to pretty much fight wars at will, does not include the 4th Amendment, etc.
Mike Goetz
@david mizner:
Yes, it is a non-factor and entirely irrelevant. It’s the difference between correlation and causation. Were we targeting Japanese and Germans for no other plausible reason in WW2?
david mizner
@Adam C:
Well, I’m sure some naive and/or stupid pols support the war on terrorism because they want to actually decrease terrorism, but for profiteers and others who benefit from war, terrorism is a gift from Allah, and they know the war on terrorism is self-perpetuating. They have the profits to prove it.
Lydgate
@AAA Bonds: what you said.
Chris
@david mizner:
Well, in its day as a Soviet surrogate, Qaddafi’s Libya did once provide money, training and safe havens for terrorists and insurgents from all over the world – and some of them, like Charles Taylor in Liberia and Foday Sankoh in Sierra Leone, went on to tear entire countries to pieces. In the “broadest possible sense,” Libya used to be a hub for international terrorism.
That, however, was then. As far as I know, nobody’s tried to connect Qaddafi to al-Qaeda and the like, and nobody’s claiming that the military actions against him have anything to do with the war on terror – it’s being sold as a humanitarian intervention, Yugoslavia-1990s style.
Jewish Steel
@Brachiator:
psst. does not bolster your position.
Pococurante
@Cat Lady:
It’s like this.
And this.
Daddy-O
The only proper response to any demand made by the Orange Drunk:
ha ha
In his FACE!
kdaug
@AAA Bonds:
Ain’t about the Executive, it’s about the MIC.
Ike warned us. We ignored. Here we go.
Get what you pay for.
chopper
@david mizner:
you forgot FDR and JFK. pretty much everyone except carter, and even he’s suspect.
Mike Goetz
@Adam C:
If it is not the purpose, then your whole baby-talk edifice is built on nothing. Purpose is the whole fucking ballgame.
chopper
@Trurl:
it was important for mccain to lose so he wouldn’t drag us into war with iran. trust me on this, what’s going on in libya aint that.
Daddy-O
@Lydgate: That’s some most excellent snark, dude…
And: IOKIYAR, no matter HOW many un-paid-for wars you drum up. Shit–I’m surprised Bush didn’t declare war on the entire world…
I keep forgetting my new tag line:
We’re dooomed…
slag
@Brachiator:
Even on game shows, you’re offered Door Number 3. And at least everybody knows those things are rigged.
Villago Delenda Est
@Mike Goetz:
Because the deaths of all those people who have made the mistake of not being proper Christians and often having swarthy complexions AND daring to live on top of OUR oil are considered to be not important to so many Americans.
AAA Bonds
@chopper:
Yeah, did you vote for us to keep trying to depose MENA despots through war in 2008?
Because I didn’t and I don’t think you did either.
Fred
@david mizner: So you approve of the Rwanda genocide? In that case the world reacted the way you want. Nobody went in there to fight the Gov’t. NATO and the UN did nothing and Clinton did nothing. So you proud of Clinton’s actions on that? You proud of how NATO and the UN acted?
chopper
@AAA Bonds:
yeah, libya aint iraq neither.
Josie
@Jewish Steel: You certainly nailed it with #3. Le sigh…
Just Some Fuckhead
@chopper:
We can do two or three small wars for the price of one war in Iran. Why blow all yer money on four days in DisneyWorld when you can go to Busch Gardens, Kings Dominion and Water Country USA for a week or more?
david mizner
@Mike Goetz:
Yeah, that’s like saying it’s irrelevant that the War on Drug disproportionately harms people of color. To be clear, we don’t wage the WOD or the WOT explicitly to hurt people of color (well, most of us don’t) — we wage them for other reasons, but the fact that the victims are people of color makes these efforts politically sustainable and morally acceptable in the eyes of many. If half of young white men did prison time, or if we were killing white, English speakers with drones — you get the picture. The lives people of color are expendable.
George Carlin:
“If You’re Brown, You’re Goin Down. Especially if your country is full of brown people. Oh, we like that, don’t we? That’s our hobby now. But it’s also our new job in the world: bombing brown people. Iraq, Panama, Grenada, Libya. You got some brown people in your country? Tell ’em to watch the fuck out, or we’ll goddamn bomb them!”
Adam C
@Mike Goetz:
Hey, did you hear the one about the road to hell? Turns out that having a “noble” purpose wasn’t enough to change direction. My point is that the War on Terror has been very successful at perpetuating terror, regardless of what the purpose was. Results, I would suggest, are the whole fucking ballgame.
“Baby-talk edifice”? You’re barely coherent.
Marc McKenzie
@Fred:
I’m didn’t get that Cole was defending Boehner, Fred. He pointed out that he thought that Boehner was a hypocrite, and I agree. Where was the Bronzed One when Bush was going ape all over the ME?
Boehner isn’t doing this for the right reasons–it’s only to jump all over Obama, while hiding the fact that he’s got nothing up his sleeve.
david mizner
@Chris:
Yeah, on the contrary, the Libyan rebels have ties to Al Qaeda — a well-established fact that doesn’t undermine their moral claim to independence but that does reveal the incoherence of U.S. foreign policy.
Just Some Fuckhead
I don’t oppose all wars. What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war.
DBrown
One thing everyone is missing on the two new “wars” – there are zero – count them; zero troops on the ground/fighting or even close to battle. So, these are not really wars as most of us view them (on our end.)
That said, wtf is Obama trying to achieve or prove by not just asking congress to authorize these support actions to help Librans and kill known terrorist in Yemen? Is he being a total ass or just stupid … wait, he has a brilliant strategy to get the thugs to start impeachment … see, once more, eighty-seven dimensional level chess in action.
AAA Bonds
@chopper:
Nice try, so I’ll go ahead and ask my question again:
When you entered the voting booth in 2008, were you thinking, “I am voting in favor of going to war against despots in the region for the purpose of regime change as long as that war is ‘not Iraq’ and ‘not Iran'”?
Or were you thinking, “well, at least we won’t get into any more stupid wars of choice for ‘regime change’ if Obama is elected”?
What is closer to what you were thinking that day when you voted – if you voted?
Ash Can
@ Cat Lady:
This occurs to me as well. The situations with Libya and Yemen stink and I wish they would end. But the underlying fact is that they, and everything else, are happening on the watch of a president who, while not campaigning or ever portraying himself as a dove, is certainly not a warmonger. On the surface, it simply doesn’t make sense. So I can only surmise that there’s more to it — in which case, due to the nature of national security, we may very well never find out what that is. It’s profoundly frustrating.
El Cid
I didn’t notice much effort, for that matter much observable interest, to look at the situation more broadly, see what the likely patterns of intervention would be, what the variety of forces and groups and historical patterns on the ground were, and the range of likely consequences.
I can certainly understand that at certain decision-making and planning levels, the major debate would be about whether or not the US-UK-FR (backed by the GCC after what was likely a deal to allow Saudi troops to occupy Bahrain to repress a democratic & Shi’a resistance) would militarily intervene, what would be constructed as UN resolutions, how those would be interpreted over time, and what would be done.
I don’t understand as well why this limited debate was to be found across most blogs and other discussions.
It’s still likely to result in a military stalemate (not definitely), and a de facto though maybe not de jure partition of the country; and/or it could develop into the sort of ongoing insurgency effort which once again would destabilize North Africa. It’s not like Chadian forces cost so much to Qaddafi in sending them to attack Sudanese.
Including places like Tunisia which had moved so far with its leading democracy movement.
Reportedly one of the leading reasons why the Obama administration was motivated to launch aerial military attacks on Qaddafi’s forces and support was a fear that the nation would indeed fall into the sort of destabilizing mess which seems very possible today — whether or not Qaddafi falls or skedaddles. Though maybe not.
It seems like it’s never time to discuss an issue like this in as much breadth and depth about likely developments later on, based on an understanding of all the forces involved, when it’s at the start.
Not even on blogs where no one (likely) is a significant decision-maker or policy planner, yet the emphasis is still completely on whether or not ‘we’ should or should not launch such actions.
david mizner
@Fred: \
There was no impending genocide in Libya. There might have been a massacre that, however horrific, wouldn’t justify “humanitarian intervention,” much less the regime change operation taking place. Genocide has a special place in international law and Just War Theory: because the worst has happened, or is about to happen, then there’s little moral need to consider the downside of intervention. That wasn’t the case in Libya, where the long-term costs of intervention clearly outweighed the immediate benefits — costs that we’re only beginning to realize. That’s why Michael Walzer, who literally wrote the book on Just War, opposed the Libyan intervention.
Marc McKenzie
@Brachiator:
“Would you prefer American troops on the ground? Or do you want a strict non-interventionist policy no matter what the circumstance?”
Good question. I remember this being asked about Bosnia and Kosovo in the 1990s, and hell, it came up in regards to Libya.
We do not have troops on the ground in Libya. It’s mostly European NATO forces that are handling it. And while I also have misgivings, here’s my concern:
What the f**k were we supposed to do, let Khaddafi (sic) keep killing his own people? This POS said as much. The rebels asked for help, the Arab League wanted action done, and the UN passed a resolution (which is law here, since we signed the UN treaty).
So if the rebels were slaughtered…what then?
I know, I know…someone’s going to bring up Syria, and Yemen, and any number of hotspots around the globe. And I’m prepared to face anything coming my way about that. But think of this first–are the actions in Syria happening because they saw what Khadaffi did in Libya–going all out, killing rebels with extreme prejudice, and thinking that was the way to, as opposed to what happened in Egypt, where Mubarak stepped down after a short period of time?
Any thoughts on this? Or is it even worth bothering to consider?
AAA Bonds
@Ash Can:
Your logic is astounding.
1) The President is getting us into more wars, by choice.
2) ???
3) So clearly, the President isn’t pro-war!
4) ???
5) Thus, the President has good reasons for what he’s doing that he can’t tell us about, because it would hurt us if we knew the truth.
I mean, you’re really missing a lot more than two steps there but there’s a start for you to build an argument for your position, if you want to do so.
Villago Delenda Est
@DBrown:
Oh, so we’re only expending out treasure on bombs, not putting “our boys” in danger, so it’s OK.
Right.
AAA Bonds
@Marc McKenzie:
Here’s a possibility: the war is not based on any of those things but on the stated policy of all NATO combatants (and their leaders) of violent regime change in Libya.
We saw a window when the civil war began there, and quickly aligned ourselves with the anti-Qaddafi side.
El Cid
@AAA Bonds: Well, it depends on how much attention people pay to US policies which historically (empirically, academically, demonstrably) persist over time across administrations.
I was pretty skeptical of how greatly the Iraq policy would change; in addition, for better and worse, the precedent has been more and more strongly set that the bodies like the UN Security Council (the 3 Western powers with typical Russian & Chinese abstaining) or NATO can authorize military interventions for humanitarian reasons.
What I hoped was that the scale would be smaller and the recklessness reduced from what I had seen of Republican use of force.
I didn’t expect, for example, the US to back the democracy movement in Egypt until it was no longer possible; I had seen the bullshit joke of ‘opposition’ to the Honduran coup. (Thankfully there was enough of a strong opposition by South America from individual nations and via the OAS that it didn’t set a precedent that coups would now be so easily undertaken by conservative forces.)
Mike Goetz
@Adam C:
If you want to criticize the result, then do that. Don’t just sling rote bullshit about the “MIC” and “brown people” and all the rest of that jive. Because that goes to motive.
For the record, when you see bomber footage from WW2, all those bombs are falling on white people. They just happened to be dangerous to us at the time, and no, not many people here had much a problem with it.
chopper
@AAA Bonds:
sorry, when i went into the voting booth in 2008 i didn’t boil my preferred foreign policy into a one liner.
if you had asked me, in line for the voting booth, if i would mind much if the guy i was voting for was to take part in NATO’s enforcement of a no-fly-zone and bombing campaign against the military of a crazy dictator, i’d have said ‘no, as long as it’s likely to succeed and not escalate out of control’.
i’m not, and never have been, reflexively anti-military-action.
i certainly did not have some stupid caricature in my head of obama as some hippie peacenik, nor did iraq and afghanistan completely ruin me on the idea of any military action, ever.
david mizner
@chopper:
Yeah, all of them. I agree Jimmy Carter was the least violent but even he basically drove the National Security State as it’s intended to be driven (or the other way around.)
cleek
this post is racist
Marc McKenzie
@El Cid:
“Not even on blogs where no one (likely) is a significant decision-maker or policy planner, yet the emphasis is still completely on whether or not ‘we’ should or should not launch such actions.”
Hmmm…El Cid, you got a point there. A damned good one, too.
Chris
@david mizner:
Hadn’t heard if the Libyan rebels had ties to al-Qaeda or not, but I do know that the local Muslim Brothers have been trying to kill Qaddafi since the 1980s at least. Salafists hate him, think he’s an apostate and a sellout just like Saddam, Musharraf, the Saudi princes, etc.
The fact that the Salafists early on so often targeted people like him is a big factor in why we ignored them for so long.
Lolis
Call me crazy, I think signs point that Obama will accelerate troop withdrawal from Afghanistan. First, Gates is on the way out and he was the biggest supporter. Second, Obama has made comments about most goals there being reached. Third, Obama reference bin Laden being dead when talking about Afghanistan. Fourth, Congressional allies and Obama’s re-election team want us out of Afghanistan.
Libya is a dumb clusterfuck. We should never have gone in and need to get out. Obama should use this opportunity to get out. He can blame Republicans when he talks to Cameron and Sarkozy about it.
Brachiator
@Jewish Steel: RE: Does the invasion of Grenada under Reagan count as a “war?”
psst.
There’s no particular “position” being defended here. I get tired of the lie that there are only “Democrat” wars. It’s nonsensical and ahistorical.
@AAA Bonds:
No, you pretty much have that covered.
@slag: What’s your Door Number 3?
someguy
The important thing here is not whether Boehner is right or wrong, whether innocents are getting killed or whether we’re getting drawn into an apocalyptic Middle Eastern conflagration, but that Obama gets re-elected. I just want to make sure everybody keeps sight of that. That, and the fact that Boehner is an orange cry baby.
Turgidson
@AAA Bonds:
They’ll get tired of it if it drags on too long, and won’t automatically support it unless it’s sold aggressively enough (Iraq) or seems justified (Afghanistan).
Of course, the fact that both parties are, generally speaking, reflexively pro-war for political expediency or corruption purposes is a pretty serious problem. Public disapproval of a war only goes so far to change the political calculus or the policy decisions being made, as the past decade will show.
Marc McKenzie
@AAA Bonds:
And what if that’s not the case?
And I must ask you this question–should we have ignored the rebels when they asked for help (which they did)? Should we have let Khadaffi slaughter them? Why was it okay to support uprisings (albeit peaceful ones) in Egypt and Tunisia–but instead let this one Libya go?
I’m just asking for a straight answer, that’s all.
Mike Goetz
“There might have been a massacre that, however horrific, wouldn’t justify “humanitarian intervention,” much less the regime change operation taking place.”
Fucking Jesus, the cavalier way you just throw that out there. How can we possibly bestir ourselves in the face of a mere horrific massacre? What a hero.
Steve
I don’t think the wars are a political asset for Obama. I don’t see a lot of people hyped up about Libya one way or another, but I certainly don’t see a bunch of swing voters going, “It’s wartime! Must rally behind our President!” If anything, there is a general sense in the air that we aren’t really accomplishing much over there, the killing of bin Laden notwithstanding.
AAA Bonds
@El Cid:
Then I hope you can understand that this is far and away the most pressing policy question for most Americans, at their “certain decision-making and planning levels” as voters and taxpayers.
chopper
@Marc McKenzie:
this. the UN passed a resolution, and NATO is enforcing it. we are part of the UN and NATO and thus are part of that enforcement. this is not iraq, this is not mccain’s hypothetical invasion of iran.
even if obama didn’t want to have anything to do with libya, we would be involved here.
NR
@Ash Can: This line of thinking reminds me of Pangloss in Candide. God is good, therefore this is the best of all possible worlds, therefore any evil that happens is both absolutely necessary and the least that it could possibly be.
Brachiator
@El Cid:
Also no discussion yet (as far as I can see) of this latest little kerfluffle (NY Times and others):
I suppose the knee jerk reaction to this could be “get out of Afghanistan!” But should we also suspend all relations with Pakistan along with that?
Ash Can
@ AA Bonds: It must be so nice to live in a world as simple as yours.
ETA @ NR: I see you’re not terribly quick on the uptake either.
How’s about you both get back to me once you learn a little bit more about how government in general and national security in particular work.
Marc McKenzie
@Lolis:
“Call me crazy, I think signs point that Obama will accelerate troop withdrawal from Afghanistan.”
Nope, you’re not crazy. It could happen that way. After all, OBL is dead (whether he was a viable part of Al Queda or not), and Karzai is making waves that he’s pretty much tired of the US being there. Also, there are the talks between the US and the Taliban (at least, supposedly), so….
I still find it unbelievable that people forget that Obama campaigned on putting more troops in Afghanistan. He had a valid point–Bush had put them there, but took his eye off the ball so he could pull out and shake his wingwang over Iraq. The other points you put down are also valid, but I’d say that the signs were there.
It’s just that it won’t be an “immediate” withdrawal, but an eventual drawdown. But let’s not forget–Obama didn’t put us in Iraq or Afghanistan. Bush the Dim Son did. And he made it very tough for us to get out.
Steve
They have found a new perfect war, cyber war.http://thinkingaboot.blogspot.com/2011/06/slow-news-day.html
Trurl
CBS News
Fred
@Marc McKenzie: Of course. We both agree on that. So for John Galt Cole to use Boehners actions to re-enforce his argument is laughable.
John Galt Cole is just looking for excuses to whine about war and blame Obama. Using Boehner means he must be getting pretty desperate to get his whine on.
Marc McKenzie
@Trurl: @Mike Goetz:
““There might have been a massacre that, however horrific, wouldn’t justify “humanitarian intervention,” much less the regime change operation taking place.””
Good Christ…and to think that the person who said this still calls him/herself “human”….
kindness
The Libya adventure, I can support. It’s primarily NATO, not us specifically.
The Yeman stuff…Obama & co is way out of line there. Yea I know what ever government takes the place of the current dictator won’t like us as much as the dictator but we owe it to the people of yeman to choose their own without the US telling them what to do. Let the Saudi’s dirty their hands some more.
AAA Bonds
@Marc McKenzie:
Because going to war against governments we don’t like, but who don’t pose a substantial threat to us or our allies, is a fool’s gambit. We’ve proven that we don’t have the social and political technology to make “humanitarian intervention” work reliably, not yet, anyway.
The reward does not bear the risk. But those in power seem to have endless confidence in themselves.
When we do choose to try this anyway, we take direct responsibility for the entire situation. And we currently are foster parents for the entire populations of Afghanistan and Iraq.
We have a lot to worry about at home. We are not preventing genocide in Libya. We’re fighting a civil war as the rebels’ air force.
I am still a little stunned that anybody could conclude this war was to avert a humanitarian crisis after the Cameron-Obama editorial.
We are there for the “humanitarian” purpose of changing Libya’s government, and all of our leaders have said as much.
Fred
@Trurl: Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul. Gosh…what a surprise.
And since Kucinich has never had a resolution or bill get out of committee much less become law…I guess we all know how far this political stunt will get.
AAA Bonds
@Ash Can:
LOL, you’re such a little fascist.
You’ve moved from “Obama has esoteric holy knowledge from the Mount of National Security” to “I, too, have gazed upon these secrets, and lo, bombing Libya is completely necessary.”
It’s too bad we live in a democracy, eh? Where public debate is supposed to drive policy?
Mnemosyne
I’m curious to see how this lawsuit plays out given Gates’ recent speech saying that NATO allies aren’t pulling their weight and keep expecting the US to bail them out.
AAA Bonds
@chopper:
Yes, that’s the United States government all over – humble servants of NATO and the United Nations, who sighed heavily as they stirred themselves to fulfill their reluctant obligation to the decision by others to bomb Libya.
Fred
@david mizner: Nobody is running around with machette’s but I guess the gov’t encouraging rape is ok with you?
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=13227961
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jun/09/libya-mass-rape-viagra-claim
Besides, there is nobody who can tell you definitively what would have happened if NATO did not intervene. That is were leadership comes in. To be proactive and make the tough unpopular decisions that are easy to critisize and hard to defend.
Paris
Hearts and Minds! Its not just a dessert any more.
Captain Goto
There has been some damn good reporting in The New Yorker about Libya and Yemen–at least in the dead tree editions; I’m not having any luck finding links.
Re Libya, it is asserted in the article I read that the hatred inside Libya for Qaddafi is deep and wide. It also depicts a clusterfuck of major proportions; mostly having to do with the utter unpreparedness of 90% of those fighting against Qaddafi. And since Qaddafi has little to worry about in re the loyalty of his troops, as they are bought and paid for, the results are predictably ugly for the rebels, except where the NATO attacks are helping them.
Re Yemen, the “power vacuum” being bandied about now, and the opportunity it offers to the Islamist radicals, is depicted as one of the exact things that the Obama admin was sweating in the run-up to the current sitch–which is why the criticism we directed at Saleh was tepid at best. Sadly, I would guess that the drone attacks are the predictable don’t-just-stand-there-do-something response to a very real problem, that we otherwise don’t have a fucking clue about how to respond to.
Shorter Captain: man, this foreign-policyin’ is HARD!!
AAA Bonds
@Ash Can:
By the way, I’m wondering how much work you’ve done in public policy and administration, compared to me. My guess is not much, hombre.
Paris
@chopper: Germany is part of NATO and is not involved in Libya. So are a lot of other former Eastern block countries. Don’t forget Poland!
david mizner
@Marc McKenzie:
I assume, then, that you, as a human, must be demanding intervention in Syria. You and Joe Lieberman, fellow human.
chopper
@AAA Bonds:
jesus, you’re just a strawman-making machine.
david mizner
@Paris:
Yeah, of course, a country’s membership in NATO doesn’t compel participation unless there’s an attack on one of them, in which case Article 5 kicks in.
Tho it’s a little more complicated in the case of the US, because we are, in large measure, NATO.
Martin
Not to be too much of a dick, but what troubles me most about these kinds of assessments is that it treats the 30 million people in Libya and Yemen, who may or may not be better off due to this (something worthy of debating) as less important than the political implications or whether the activities hew to what we expect progressive war powers to look like.
The entire debate is inward looking, like some kind of case study, with hardly any reference to what’s actually been happening in Libya and Yemen and what we expect will happen in the future.
Villago Delenda Est
@Captain Goto:
Just drop a bunch of bombs from B2s, declare victory, and bask in the admiration of a grateful public.
Piece o’ cake!
Bill H.
No doubt I’ll be attacked for trolling here, but Obama was in violation of the act the day he started the war in Libya, because the act only authorizes him to act if this nation is attacked or is in immenemt danger of attack.
kdaug
@Mike Goetz:
See, here’s the funny thing, jackass. There were troops on the ground then.
Now we play “I Spy With My Little Eye” from Nellis AFB with no blood in the game, just bots.
Line up the sights on your screen, pull the joystick trigger, Lockheed gets another $1m, some brown people die, everyone’s happy.
Trurl
@Fred:
Also John Conyers and Michael Capuano.
What ad hominem blow-off do they get?
slag
@Captain Goto:
And here’s where I wish we had more constraints on our use of military power. The relative lack of constraints makes it hard to avoid the suspicion that our military has become a huge, expensive crutch for us in the world. It’s the ripcord that’s way too easy to pull.
AAA Bonds
@chopper:
Fine, since you can’t see the wheat in the field, let me spell it out for you.
1) America horse-traded for abstentions by Russia and China on the UN vote, according to press coverage of the State Department. The vote would not have gone the way it did unless we already wanted it to go that way. This is unsurprising, as our official policy is to overthrow Gaddafi.
2) America is the only sustained force behind NATO intervention, as Gates has stated repeatedly; NATO’s involvement could not have happened unless America wanted it. This is unsurprising, as our official policy is to overthrow Gaddafi.
In other words, NATO and the UN are “acting” – once again, EXACTLY AS GATES HAS DESCRIBED – based on the decision of the United States government to bomb Libya and to bring its wealth to bear in the form of American bombs and planes.
Certainly, I think there are plenty of right-wingers to blame for this elsewhere. I think it likely the bombing was Sarkozy’s government’s brainchild, but agreed so much with preexisting American goals that we put our weight behind it, thus making it possibility instead of fantasy. Libya is not the Ivory Coast, after all.
Make no mistake: the entire NATO war in Libya is due to the American government’s choice to go to war against Libya, not due to the American government’s international obligations.
It’s made easier because no one really likes Gaddafi nowadays, save certain African leaders. However, that doesn’t transform a bad idea into a good idea.
Ronbo
Still trying to figure out why it is good news that the Dems/Obama “…are leading four wars (that we know of), and the GOP is using the War Powers Act to claim you are overstepping your authority in waging war on brown people.”
Polling shows that the majority of the public is ready to end the wars, save the trillins in war expenses and move to a peace-time jobs-focused economy. Why whould they be “popping their corks” when they are on the wrong side of an issue? The Dems/Obama are being out-flanked, when they are out-flanking the Republicans.
More and more the Dems/Repubs are looking like different sides of the same coin.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Martin:
Yes, if you look at war as just another tool in yer diplomatic bag, no better or worse than other choices, yer likely to be confused as to why one might be inclined to exhaust all political efforts to avoid it.
Also, you seem to be confusing progressive politics with your own conservative Republican tendencies.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Ronbo:
Remember when we used to make the Bush reelection bumpersticker joke: “Four More Wars”.
Not so funny anymore.
Trurl
@Ronbo:
The correct terminology is “not a dime’s worth of difference”.
Welcome to the party, pal.
Lydgate
@DBrown: And it follows that if some country started drone bombing us, they would not be at war with us. Right?
chopper
@AAA Bonds:
even if the WH wasn’t personally interested in taking out gaddhafi, we would be involved. 1.5 million bpd, and 40 billion or so barrels-in-ground of the best crude on earth (from europe’s point of view, much better than that shit light blend KSA is trying to shop around as a replacement) is why. one thing you’re right about is that this aint the ivory coast.
UncertaintyVicePrincipal
@Trurl:
Yeah. I do. Also it was the ultimate slap-down response to anyone criticizing Obama in any way around here for a long time afterwards. “Fine, vote for someone like McCain then and have us dragged into non-stop wars!”
Health care issues, creeping theocracy, even erosion of civil liberties possibly resulting from a Republican winning were all minor concerns compared to the big one that supposedly was so devastating that it stopped all argument: “Wars! You really want more wars?”
Martin
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Way to prove my point. Thanks.
Lol
We didn’t get involved in the Ivory Coast because France had the situation well in hand.
We intervened in Libya because there’s an actual rebel army that can be supported in a limited fashion that will pay off in toppling Gadhaffi. Small investment for a likely large payoff.
And unlike Saddam, Libya has been a major force in arming terrorists. If Mizner doesn’t understand what Libya has to do with terrorism, he should probably talk to Scotland.
And since it needs repeating, we don’t have troops on the groud and we’ve long since stopped flying combat missions. Do drone attacks require Congressional authorization?
Citizen Alan
Two points:
1. I only had to two reasons for favoring Obama over Hillary. One was that Bill is a bloviating jackass crypto-Republican and I didn’t want to see him on TV every other day. The other was that I thought Obama would be less inclined to go to war than Hillary because, as a woman, she would constantly be accused of not having the balls/stones/testicular fortitude/choose your crude genital metaphor for belligerence in a way that Obama would not. But for those two factors, I’d have probably favored Hillary because she at least has enough sense to acknowledge the VRC.
2. That said, while I am ambivalent about Libya, I don’t want to hear a damn thing about it from the Republicans, because if McCain were president, we’d have boots on the ground, the media would give saturation coverage to the idea that Qaddafi is the “new Hitler,” and anyone on the who said boo about it would be an American-hating, treasonous Qaddafi sympathizer. Also, OBL would still be alive and living in comfort.
Citizen Alan
@Lol:
We didn’t get involved in the Ivory Coast because the “good guy” is a Muslim and the “bad guy” is a fundamentalist Christian who keeps Pat Robertson, James Inhofe, and half the C-Street Sex Cult on speed dial.
Lawnguylander
@cleek:
Didn’t you mean, “raaaaaaacist?”
Alan in SF
You left out two. I’m guessing Iraq (60,000 troops just there to enjoy the climate and scenery) and Colombia. Don’t feel bad; everyone forgets Colombia.
Alan in SF
@david mizner: @Trurl: A basic tenet of the DLC, which rules the Democratic Party and occupies every significant position in the Obama Administration (except those occupied by actual Republicans), is never be caught to the left of Republicans on war, national security, civil liberties, or domestic spying. While Republicans actually believe in permanent war, Democrats just do it as a political strategy. If you ask me, that’s worse.
Ghanima Atreides
Cole, Dude, in Libya we are ON THE SIDE OF THE BROWN PEOPLE for once.
WE ARE ON THE SIDE OF THE ISLAMISTS.
Obama would just like to have at least one airbase in MENA, choo know?
Iraq is planting a boot in America’s big fat white judeoxian ass in December and we lose the three largest airbases ever built on foreign soil, and it now appears that even if Karzai negotiates “permanent ” airbases, the Taliban will give us the boot the minnit the power-sharing agreement collapses.
If Imran Khan brings the Arab Spring to AfPak we will be leaving in helos from Kabul rooftops a la the Fall of Saigon.
Dar ul Islam hates america’s guts at this point.
Khan is SUING America in international court over the droning of Pak tribal areas.
This isnt permanent war. Its strategic positioning to be on the right side of history for once.
Ghanima Atreides
@Citizen Alan: im not sure. There are islamists and students and secularists among the Libyan rebels.
There are islamists and students in every single Arab Spring protest.
Qaddafi can’t survive, but congress is in a hurry to slap O with a reprimand while they can.
Because when Qaddafi goes down, and he will, O gets another bump.
I wonder how the electorate is going to view the loss of the Iraqi airfields and oilfields in December?
I think….the conservative elite welded HorrorshowBush onto Iraq for the teabaggers. Spending a cool trillion for nothing, not to mention 7k dead soljahs is going to leave a mark.
Pretty soon Iraq is going to be flyingChinese JF-17 Thunders out of the swell Iraqi airbases that american taxpayers built for them.
;)
Uncle Clarence Thomas
.
.
Fortunately, President Obama is very efficiently using two of his undeserved awards – for Peace and for Transparency – to allow ungrateful populaces here and abroad to finally feel the real Fierce Urgency of Now.
.
.
El Cid
@AAA Bonds: I’m not sure, you might have missed the point.
First, no one here is in some immediate capacity to alter the outcome of a short term decision by the US foreign policy establishment, short term meaning there is very little time before the policy is decided upon. I could scream as much as much as I wanted, as loudly as I wanted, and with as revolutionary a tone and anti-imperialist a tone (or the opposite) and I’d have no effect via my comments on a blog named “Balloon Juice”.
You think somehow you’re able to grasp the importance of this issue, and I’m not because I basically tell people commenting on blogs that maybe you should explore the situation to understand what the hell is going on outside the immediate — and shallow — question of ‘to do’ X or ‘not to do’ X?
Without the foregoing, how the fuck are people supposed to come to reasonable decision-making?
This is a fucking blog. There are no (unless there are) generals here or UN diplomats or people (as far as evidence indicates) whose fucking blog comments are about to commence a nation-wide demonstration of some sort of tens or hundreds of millions which somehow would alter the course of military action moreso than it did for Iraq.
Is the opposing argument that we don’t have TIME to THINK?
Why do people come to blogs to leave their comments? Because they’re under a duty to use what is likely to be a brief and surface level understanding of what is being yelled about to come to an at best somewhat informed conclusion because otherwise you can’t stop the action, the clock is ticking, ticking, go go go go go go go?
No one stopped it from starting, apparently; no clear sign of an end to this military intervention, or the civil war, is in sight.
Is there still too little time to examine the situation in more depth? Do we just need to wait until 5 or 10 or 20 or 30 years from now when academics examine the record and integrate the most publicly accessed arguments in the sorts of contexts they’d bring?
Is the assumption that to think about and learn about and assess such issues in a wider or deeper conflict — how frequently did anyone discuss in depth the best available knowledge of the makeup of the various rebel forces, or the geographical nature of Qaddafi’s integration of tribal leadership including Chad border issues? — would somehow take years?
Really? Because I’ve been reading about that, and listening to speakers on these various issues, and it doesn’t appear to have taken me more time than it does for people to repeatedly make the same emphasized points over and over.
@Brachiator: I suppose there could be a kneejerk reaction to that. I assume there already has been (haven’t been paying much attention today), and there will be more.
Again, ask yourself the same questions: What would be the basis upon which one would decide such things? What do you need to know about the situation? What are the different forces involved?
How many people really feel that they know enough about the divisions, overt and covert, within the Pakistani military and ISI on the issues of fundamentalist group support, or in terms of which sections of the military might be more significant regionally? Or the very unity of the state or any of those organizations?
For that matter, the very nature of what’s going on in the ‘tribal areas’? Do that many people know? Know what sorts of populations did and don’t know live there? The effects of the clashing of not only Pakistani military and Islamic-fundamentalist (for example Harakat-ul-Mujahedeen, in the news today due to its leader’s location, or Lashkar e Taiba) groups (together or clashing) and US drone attacks, but what the economic slams they’ve been experiencing with floods and displacement and such?
It’s not like anyone has to write a doctorate. But you can’t make sense of a situation and make a gigantic pronouncement of policy without having some idea what you’re talking about — even knowing what you might need to know in order to know what you’re talking about. (Not “you” as in you.)
HyperIon
John Cole wrote:
Yup. No Arab spring for them.
Same old, same old.
HyperIon
@Cat Lady wrote:
Umm, they’ve been bombing Yemen for a couple of years.
HyperIon
@david mizner wrote:
It really makes the Nobel Peace Prize Committee look like a bunch of idiots.
Fred
@Trurl: They are all using it as a campaign fundraising tool. If you haven’t figured that out then you are getting played like the rest of the suckers.
Kucinich is appealing to the lowest common denominator which I find particularly dispicable. Ron Paul and the rest are equally dispicable but at least they are more in the open about it.
http://theobamadiary.com/2011/06/15/this-is-what-its-all-about/
Just Some Fuckhead
@HyperIon:
They can be forgiven for having the audacity of hope.
burnspbesq
@david mizner:
The United Nations Charter happens to be a treaty that was signed by a President and properly ratified by Congress. That makes it a legally binding obligation of the United States. It’s a very interesting and unsettled question of Con Law whether and under what circumstances a subsequent statute (e.g., the War Powers Act) can override the treaty.
burnspbesq
@AAA Bonds:
If you want to compare dick sizes, get a room. The rest of us don’t need to see that.
Just Some Fuckhead
@burnspbesq:
lolz
Are you able to extrapolate this to your schtick?
Just Some Fuckhead
Oh, check this out Burns. Funny, funny stuff. Yer gonna just die:
https://balloon-juice.com/2010/08/21/trumped-up-charges/#comment-1977194