OMG!
I agree with Bill O’Reilly? Say it’s not so!
And I disagree with Dennis Kucinich?
The world has truly gone insane, or shifted more on its axis than originally reported.
It’s not that Dennis is wrong….
Of course he’s right that "US military action against Libya absent imminent threat or Congressional approval is outside the legal scope of the Presidency."
But since when have we insisted on a Congressional Declaration of War before invading another country? There are obviously ways around that little technicality the only Congress can declare war. We have declared War only 5 times in our history, most recently against Bulgaria in 1942! So all those wars since then? Korea, Vietnam, Grenada, Iraq, Afganistan etc etc….We just attacked and then justified our actions when it’s too late to stop, and Congress didn’t much protest. Until now!
Ever since the Cold War, Defense and military spending has been sacrosanct, and Congress the Pentagon’s rubber stamp. (You’d think we were some kind of Banana Republic run by a military Junta!)
It’s absolutely right that Congress, the press and the people start debating the legality of our almost continuous wars and their cost. But not just now.
This time, it is absolutely clear that had Obama (and the UN and the Arab League) not acted, Kaddafi would have slaughtered the citizens of Benghazi, and anyone else opposed to his rule. No one doubts his ability or willingness to do so. Had we waited another 12 hours before attacking, thousands of people would have been killed.
Knowing how the Repubs in Congress are against Obama himself, (he is black, after all) and are doing everything they possibly can to discredit him, do we think Obama could have gotten an authorization to assist the rebels in Libya in a timely fashion? Not likely. (And then they would have blamed him for allowing a humanitarian disaster to occur.)
He IS black, after all.
If Obama hadn’t acted, he would have signaled other dictators in the Middle East and elsewhere that we DO NOT stand for democratic reforms, that we will support any potentate no matter how hated, to keep our precious petroleum flowing. (And with the nuclear disaster in Japan, petroleum – with it’s very short half-life - is looking relatively good right now.) The NATO countries, our allies in this effort may have acted for humanitarian reasons, or maybe just to protect their economies, since Libya supplies a significant quotient of Europe’s oil.
Ah….Oil
We have been screwing up our relationship with the Middle East for a very long time….all for oil.
Remember the cartoon of a few years ago,
“Why is our oil under your sand?”
A careful study of the Middle East is desperately needed to understand how much havoc Western Industrial countries, most notably the British, French and ourselves, have wrecked on this part of the world to satisfy our thirst for oil.
Just one example: we – meaning Eisenhower and the Dulles brothers– overthrew a democratically elected president of Iran – for oil, earning the deep resentment of the Iranians who had looked to us for support as they tried to overthrow British colonialism….which itself was all about oil. Then, we installed the corrupt Shah who ruthlessly suppressed his people, but kept our oil coming, and to avoid bankrupting us, graciously funneled the money we paid him for his oil back into our defense industry. When the Iranians finally threw him out, we backed Saddam Hussein who invaded them. (This was the meeting Rumsfeld had with Saddam, who in exchange for Saddam giving Bechtel rights to build an oil pipeline, was given helicopters and intelligence with which to attack Iran. After 9/11, the Iranians were genuinely moved and sympathetic, and there presented itself a moment of rapprochement, but George Bush called them “the Axis of Evil” which truly shocked the Iranian people, and sent relations back into the crapper where they remain today.
Our bunglings and mishandlings and misunderstandings of all things Middle Eastern have cost hundreds of thousands of lives and billions of dollars. Now with the recent expressions of the yearning of the people of the Middle East and Northern Africa for freedom, we have a chance to do it right. Obama is cognizant of history. He knows how delicate this moment is. To be seen as a Western Colonial invader would be disastrous. To be seen as assisting a people attain their freedom sends a signal to all dictators that their days are numbered. Mubarak was right to resign as quickly as he did, as were the rulers of Tunis. Yemen should be next…and then….Sudan.
The situation in each Middle Eastern Country today is different and delicate. Obviously we can’t militarily support the people in every country that rebel against their corrupt rulers, but we were right to do so in Libya. We will pray for the wisdom and restraint of all parties, that the legitimate needs of the people will be respected, their wishes for freedom heeded.
Sorry, Dennis. I know you’re probably worried about our NEXT undeclared war, and the next one after that. And I am too. I hope you get traction on this, I do. A President Palin or Bachmann or Trump will probably invade Iran in you don’t succeed. And you are right to be questioning the cost of this military action. We note that Congress gave Bush a blank check for a Bogus war, but now we know the country’s broke and can’t afford to waste a dime, or a missile or a fighter. But we were right to come up with a few million million for this one. (And the teachers weren’t going to get that money anyway!)
This illegal act, for which the precedent has been long in place, was the right one. We hope and pray for a quick and favorable outcome.
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