When Bad Presidents Happen to Good Democrats

Though I may be giving them too much benefit of the doubt there.

Michael Tomasky has a piece on the Triumph of the Obama at the Daily Beast, celebrating not only the death of Qaddafi but how foolish the neocons look now. Obama, weak? Not in foreign policy, bitchez!

It’s worth stopping to realize that this Libya operation is, so far, not only a big success, but also a historic accomplishment in American history. Is it not the first multilateral and bloodless (as far as U.S. lives are concerned; admittedly not Libyans) intervention the United States has helped lead in its history to rid a people of a dictator and try to bring them democracy? It surely is.

I like that "so far": Tomasky's not so far gone as to ignore certain small failings of the Libyan rebels, and the fact that we really don't know yet who or what kind of system will replace Qaddafy. But right now, everything's coming up roses, especially on the graves of the Libyan civilians who weren't lucky enough to fall on the "bloodless" side of the ledger. As for "try[ing] to bring them to democracy," that remains entirely to be seen: Obama has not shown much interest in democracy so far. But no American blood was shed, and frankly, liberal Obamacrats don't care about any lives but Americans'.

This is an old trope, after all. I remember an article in The Nation that I wrote about exactly two years ago today. Eyal Press defended Obama against charges that he didn't care enough about human rights, claiming that Obama "has made it clear that he is a cautious realist, not a crusading idealist", and quoted Stephen Walt:

" ... No U.S. President--not even Jimmy Carter--was ever willing to spend a lot of blood or treasure solely to advance human rights, and Obama isn't going to be the first. And given that the U.S. record on this issue looks has been tarnished by Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, forced rendition, "enhanced interrogation" (aka torture), extra-judicial killings (aka "targeted assassinations"), our reaction to the Goldstone Report, and the thousands dead as a result of the invasion of Iraq, I'd say a bit of humility on this front was probably in order."

That's a contender for the understatement of 2009, wouldn't you say? I wrote at the time that the US has shown itself quite willing to spend quite a lot of "treasure" and plenty of foreigners' blood violating human rights.

But back to Tomasky. He's thumping his chest to celebrate Obama's supposed political victory over the neocons, confirmed by the defeat and death of Moammar Qaddafi. This was a "multilateral" intervention in the same way that Bush's invasion of Iraq and Bill Clinton's assault on Kosovo were. Bush's removal of Saddam Hussein wasn't "bloodless" even for American forces, but NATO suffered no military deaths in Kosovo, though Milosevic remained in power until he was voted out by his people. There were plenty of native dead in both cases, but Tomasky is willing to overlook that. Goodness, are American liberals already forgetting Clinton's historic victory in the Balkans? It was one of the security blankets they clung to fiercely throughout the Bush years to show how much better Democratic presidents were. Kosovo is conspicuous by its absence in Tomasky's piece, but then his whole aim is to put Obama's foot on the neck of the neocons: is Obama "weak"? Noooooo!

And finally: how out to lunch do those Republican presidential candidates look now on foreign policy? Though the foreign-policy discussion got little attention, it was the most unhinged part of the last GOP debate. The Republican electorate may eat up potshots at Obama for being weak, but I doubt the broader public is buying it. A president who iced bin Laden and has overseen the ousters of two leading autocrats (and a couple of other minor ones) is not weak. Leading from behind, the sneerers forgot, is still leading.

But Tomasky's article is mild compared another post at the Beast by Bruce Riedel, "a former longtime CIA officer" and "a senior fellow in the Saban Center at the Brookings Institution." Which Middle East dictator is going down next? he asks rhetorically. The piece is illuminated with a picture of "deadliest dictators": Hitler, Pol Pot (I think), Stalin, Ho Chi Minh, Lenin, and another Asian I don't recognize. Ho is out of place there; he wasn't Santa Claus, but he was "deadly" only to US hegemony in Southeast Asia. The US installed a dictator in Saigon who was at least as bad a Ho, as usual in such cases.

After tossing out a few other cases, Reidel mentions the elephants in the room:

The Bahraini ruling family has never supported terror nor been as brutal as the Libyan mad man but they should also be worried. They have rejected reform for far too long on their little island kingdom. The Bahrainis and their Saudi backers seem to believe repression will work forever. They are mistaken. The 21st century Arab world is changing like no one anticipated, least of all its dictators.

Except that there is no indication that Obama has any interest in seeing the King of Bahrain come tumbling down, let alone the Saudi rulers. Indeed, the Obama administration just announced the sale of $53 billion worth of weaponry to Bahrain. Some of my readers may recall how the Saudis and the UAE assisted Bahrain with mercenaries to kill dissenters there just a few months ago, with nary a complaint from the White House. Reuters just reported that Obama has decided to delay the sale because of a "local investigation into alleged human-rights violations since an uprising in February."

The Sunni ruling family put down the pro-democracy uprising with the help of neighboring Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Cooperation Council members, spearheaded by a reported 1,200 Saudi forces in 20 tanks and in other armored vehicles.

A key U.S. concern is that a fall of the Al Khalifa family and rise of a Shiite-led government could boost Iran's influence and lead to a loss of access to Bahrain's military facilities and U.S. influence in the region.

The US has no concerns of its own about those "alleged abuses," of course. Democracy must take second place to "Bahrain's military facilities and U. S. influence in the region." Nor was there any indication that the Obama administration was eager to see the dictator Hosni Mubarak fall in Egypt.

But hey, Obama just announced that US troops will be completely withdrawn from Iraq by the end of this year -- in compliance with the Status of Forces Agreement negotiated by the Bush administration. Of course "complete withdrawal" means "with several thousand exceptions": a hundred fifty or so "to assist in arms sales," plus "about 1,700 diplomats, law enforcement officers and various economic, agriculture and other professionals and experts who will be in Iraq into 2012, according to the State Department. In addition, 5,000 security contractors will protect the U.S. diplomats and another 4,500 contractors will serve other roles, such as helping provide food and medical services, until they can be done locally." "Security contractors" is US Newspeak for mercenaries hired through private companies like Xe (formerly Blackwater), of course.

Almost since he took office Obama had tried to pressure the Iraqi government to let American forces stay longer, without success. (Which means that despite his best efforts to break it, he kept his campaign promise.) The sticking point turned out to be Iraqi refusal to grant "legal protection" to US troops (again, Newspeak for immunity when they commit atrocities). Our mercenaries have no accountability, and a long record of atrocities in the US and abroad.

But credit where credit is due: Obama didn't unilaterally override the SOFA, and most US troops will be removed from Iraq by the end of this year, which isn't far away now. Some good things do happen. And once again, Oscar Wilde was a prophet:

Jack. Gwendolen, it is a terrible thing for a man to find out suddenly that all his life he has been speaking nothing but the truth. Can you forgive me?

Gwendolen. I can. For I feel that you are sure to change.

When Bad Presidents Happen to Good Democrats

Though I may be giving them too much benefit of the doubt there.

Michael Tomasky has a piece on the Triumph of the Obama at the Daily Beast, celebrating not only the death of Qaddafi but how foolish the neocons look now. Obama, weak? Not in foreign policy, bitchez!

It’s worth stopping to realize that this Libya operation is, so far, not only a big success, but also a historic accomplishment in American history. Is it not the first multilateral and bloodless (as far as U.S. lives are concerned; admittedly not Libyans) intervention the United States has helped lead in its history to rid a people of a dictator and try to bring them democracy? It surely is.

I like that "so far": Tomasky's not so far gone as to ignore certain small failings of the Libyan rebels, and the fact that we really don't know yet who or what kind of system will replace Qaddafy. But right now, everything's coming up roses, especially on the graves of the Libyan civilians who weren't lucky enough to fall on the "bloodless" side of the ledger. As for "try[ing] to bring them to democracy," that remains entirely to be seen: Obama has not shown much interest in democracy so far. But no American blood was shed, and frankly, liberal Obamacrats don't care about any lives but Americans'.

This is an old trope, after all. I remember an article in The Nation that I wrote about exactly two years ago today. Eyal Press defended Obama against charges that he didn't care enough about human rights, claiming that Obama "has made it clear that he is a cautious realist, not a crusading idealist", and quoted Stephen Walt:

" ... No U.S. President--not even Jimmy Carter--was ever willing to spend a lot of blood or treasure solely to advance human rights, and Obama isn't going to be the first. And given that the U.S. record on this issue looks has been tarnished by Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, forced rendition, "enhanced interrogation" (aka torture), extra-judicial killings (aka "targeted assassinations"), our reaction to the Goldstone Report, and the thousands dead as a result of the invasion of Iraq, I'd say a bit of humility on this front was probably in order."

That's a contender for the understatement of 2009, wouldn't you say? I wrote at the time that the US has shown itself quite willing to spend quite a lot of "treasure" and plenty of foreigners' blood violating human rights.

But back to Tomasky. He's thumping his chest to celebrate Obama's supposed political victory over the neocons, confirmed by the defeat and death of Moammar Qaddafi. This was a "multilateral" intervention in the same way that Bush's invasion of Iraq and Bill Clinton's assault on Kosovo were. Bush's removal of Saddam Hussein wasn't "bloodless" even for American forces, but NATO suffered no military deaths in Kosovo, though Milosevic remained in power until he was voted out by his people. There were plenty of native dead in both cases, but Tomasky is willing to overlook that. Goodness, are American liberals already forgetting Clinton's historic victory in the Balkans? It was one of the security blankets they clung to fiercely throughout the Bush years to show how much better Democratic presidents were. Kosovo is conspicuous by its absence in Tomasky's piece, but then his whole aim is to put Obama's foot on the neck of the neocons: is Obama "weak"? Noooooo!

And finally: how out to lunch do those Republican presidential candidates look now on foreign policy? Though the foreign-policy discussion got little attention, it was the most unhinged part of the last GOP debate. The Republican electorate may eat up potshots at Obama for being weak, but I doubt the broader public is buying it. A president who iced bin Laden and has overseen the ousters of two leading autocrats (and a couple of other minor ones) is not weak. Leading from behind, the sneerers forgot, is still leading.

But Tomasky's article is mild compared another post at the Beast by Bruce Riedel, "a former longtime CIA officer" and "a senior fellow in the Saban Center at the Brookings Institution." Which Middle East dictator is going down next? he asks rhetorically. The piece is illuminated with a picture of "deadliest dictators": Hitler, Pol Pot (I think), Stalin, Ho Chi Minh, Lenin, and another Asian I don't recognize. Ho is out of place there; he wasn't Santa Claus, but he was "deadly" only to US hegemony in Southeast Asia. The US installed a dictator in Saigon who was at least as bad a Ho, as usual in such cases.

After tossing out a few other cases, Reidel mentions the elephants in the room:

The Bahraini ruling family has never supported terror nor been as brutal as the Libyan mad man but they should also be worried. They have rejected reform for far too long on their little island kingdom. The Bahrainis and their Saudi backers seem to believe repression will work forever. They are mistaken. The 21st century Arab world is changing like no one anticipated, least of all its dictators.

Except that there is no indication that Obama has any interest in seeing the King of Bahrain come tumbling down, let alone the Saudi rulers. Indeed, the Obama administration just announced the sale of $53 billion worth of weaponry to Bahrain. Some of my readers may recall how the Saudis and the UAE assisted Bahrain with mercenaries to kill dissenters there just a few months ago, with nary a complaint from the White House. Reuters just reported that Obama has decided to delay the sale because of a "local investigation into alleged human-rights violations since an uprising in February."

The Sunni ruling family put down the pro-democracy uprising with the help of neighboring Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Cooperation Council members, spearheaded by a reported 1,200 Saudi forces in 20 tanks and in other armored vehicles.

A key U.S. concern is that a fall of the Al Khalifa family and rise of a Shiite-led government could boost Iran's influence and lead to a loss of access to Bahrain's military facilities and U.S. influence in the region.

The US has no concerns of its own about those "alleged abuses," of course. Democracy must take second place to "Bahrain's military facilities and U. S. influence in the region." Nor was there any indication that the Obama administration was eager to see the dictator Hosni Mubarak fall in Egypt.

But hey, Obama just announced that US troops will be completely withdrawn from Iraq by the end of this year -- in compliance with the Status of Forces Agreement negotiated by the Bush administration. Of course "complete withdrawal" means "with several thousand exceptions": a hundred fifty or so "to assist in arms sales," plus "about 1,700 diplomats, law enforcement officers and various economic, agriculture and other professionals and experts who will be in Iraq into 2012, according to the State Department. In addition, 5,000 security contractors will protect the U.S. diplomats and another 4,500 contractors will serve other roles, such as helping provide food and medical services, until they can be done locally." "Security contractors" is US Newspeak for mercenaries hired through private companies like Xe (formerly Blackwater), of course.

Almost since he took office Obama had tried to pressure the Iraqi government to let American forces stay longer, without success. (Which means that despite his best efforts to break it, he kept his campaign promise.) The sticking point turned out to be Iraqi refusal to grant "legal protection" to US troops (again, Newspeak for immunity when they commit atrocities). Our mercenaries have no accountability, and a long record of atrocities in the US and abroad.

But credit where credit is due: Obama didn't unilaterally override the SOFA, and most US troops will be removed from Iraq by the end of this year, which isn't far away now. Some good things do happen. And once again, Oscar Wilde was a prophet:

Jack. Gwendolen, it is a terrible thing for a man to find out suddenly that all his life he has been speaking nothing but the truth. Can you forgive me?

Gwendolen. I can. For I feel that you are sure to change.

Regime Change

There's a good op-ed in the Boston Globe, containing this poignant line:

On March 31, NATO formally warned the rebels to stop attacking civilians.

Now, in fact the rebels had been attacking civilians even before they attracted US attention. Doesn't that mean that President Obama has a moral obligation to bomb the rebels? (Yes.)

Someone, I can't recall who, pointed out that despite the official rejection of "violent protest", the only protestors against the Arab dictatorships who've gotten US support have been the violent Libyan rebels. Nonviolent protestors have been on their own, and the US has stood complacently by while Bahrain imported foreign mercenaries to kill its own people. (How sad -- the Crown Prince of Bahrain will not be attending the Royal Wedding because of the unrest in his country, and perhaps coincidentally because "Human rights campaigners had petitioned against his attendance because of his government's treatment of protesters." There's so much hate in the world, isn't there?)

Regime Change

There's a good op-ed in the Boston Globe, containing this poignant line:

On March 31, NATO formally warned the rebels to stop attacking civilians.

Now, in fact the rebels had been attacking civilians even before they attracted US attention. Doesn't that mean that President Obama has a moral obligation to bomb the rebels? (Yes.)

Someone, I can't recall who, pointed out that despite the official rejection of "violent protest", the only protestors against the Arab dictatorships who've gotten US support have been the violent Libyan rebels. Nonviolent protestors have been on their own, and the US has stood complacently by while Bahrain imported foreign mercenaries to kill its own people. (How sad -- the Crown Prince of Bahrain will not be attending the Royal Wedding because of the unrest in his country, and perhaps coincidentally because "Human rights campaigners had petitioned against his attendance because of his government's treatment of protesters." There's so much hate in the world, isn't there?)

The Gift That Keeps On Giving

... Cluster bombs, of course.

I don't remember where I first saw a link this weekend to the claim that loyalist (that's pro-Qaddafy) forces in Libya have been using cluster bombs. I do remember thinking that I should see if the article mentioned the fact that the US has often used such weapons, but I didn't get around to it until I found this post on the FAIR blog.

The Times article is indignant about the barbarity of Qaddafy's forces, with inflammatory details:

Where a crowd had assembled for food, bits of human flesh had been blasted against a cinder-block wall.

And:

“I jumped onto the ground when the explosions started,” said Ali Hmouda, 36, an employee of the port. “My friend did not. His head came off.”

As the FAIR blog post said, the article does mention US use of cluster bombs, in connection with "conflicting pressures" that may be brought to bear on President Obama:

At the same time, the United States has used cluster munitions itself, in battlefield situations in Afghanistan and Iraq, and in a strike on suspected militants in Yemen in 2009.

"Battlefield situations" is bogus, considering the circumstances: "battlefield situations" are wherever US forces happen to be fighting "suspected militants," such as cities, farmland, villages, and roadsides. As FAIR pointed out, the suspected Yemeni militants turned out to be "'21 children and 20 innocent women and men'" (NewYorkTimes.com, 12/9/10)--all killed in the U.S. attack." The same post listed past US use of cluster bombs in Serbia as well as Iraq and Afghanistan; it might have added northern Laos, where as Noam Chomsky says, civilians are still being killed by bomblets forty years later.

In Laos the Pentagon would not even provide instructions on how to defuse them to a volunteer British de-mining group that was working there. In Kosovo as well, the U.S. refused to remove cluster bombs.

(It's probably not entirely irrelevant that "In fact, one of the last acts of the U.S.-Israeli invasion [of Lebanon in 2006], right after the ceasefire was announced before it was implemented, was to saturate much of the south with cluster bombs. There’s no military purpose for that, the war was over, the ceasefire was coming."

UN de-mining groups that are working there say that the scale is unprecedented. It’s much worse than any other place they’ve worked: Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq, anywhere. There are supposed to be about one million bomblets left there. A large percentage of them don’t explode until you pick them up, a child picks them up, or a farmer hits it with a hoe or something. So what it does basically is make the south uninhabitable until the mining teams, for which the United States and Israel don’t contribute, clean it up. This is arable land. It means that farmers can’t go back; it means that it may undermine a potential Hezbollah deterrent. They apparently have pretty much withdrawn from the south, according to the UN.

But it's probably anti-Semitic of me even to mention it. And it occurs to me that, considering how long these weapons have been in use, the manufacturers and the countries that use them -- that includes us, remember, as well as Israel -- must be fully aware that they represent a long-term threat to civilians, including children, who are said to pick them up because they look like toys. In which case, the countries that use them -- including the US and Israel -- are responsible for the injuries and deaths of those civilians: they're an indirect but intended consequence of their use.)

So, where did Qaddafy's forces get these cluster bombs? According to the Times article, they were manufactured in Spain, just before Spain banned them.

How the Qaddafi military came to acquire Spanish cluster munitions, banned in Spain soon after their manufacture, was not immediately clear. But the war has shown what has long been known or suspected: that Colonel Qaddafi’s military, flush with oil money, has amassed stockpiles of arms from all manner of sources.

On the front lines in Libya, the government’s stockpile, whether used by loyalists or rebels who looted government armories, has included a full suite of former Eastern bloc arms beside former NATO munitions.

Like, Oh My God! By US propaganda standards, then, NATO is supplying Qaddafy with munitions! But that is probably true, since just a couple of years ago Senator John McCain went on a junket to Libya to discuss the possibility of supplying "non-lethal defense equipment to the government of Libya."

In March, the BBC innocently ran "Libya No-Fly Zone: Coalition Firepower," one of those stories on military hardware that give boners to little boys of all ages. It listed by country the newest, hottest war toys that would be deployed against the Libyan Hitler. Key US hardware included the A10 Warthog, a "[s]imple, effective and survivable twin-engine jet aircraft that can be used against all ground targets, including tanks and other armoured vehicles. A-10 - close air support, A-10C - airborne forward air control."

Weapons: 30 mm GAU-8/A seven-barrel Gatling gun; up to 16,000 pounds (7,200 kilograms) of mixed ordnance including cluster bombs, Maverick missiles, and laser-guided bombs

The B1-B Lancer, a "Long-range, multi-role, heavy bomber", has the "to carry up to 75,000lbs of munitions including general purpose bombs, Quick Strike naval mines, cluster munitions, Joint Direct Attack Munitions and Air-to-Surface Standoff Missiles." (Bold-type on the cluster weapons is mine, in both cases.) Excuse me; like all war fans, I think I'd better go have a lie-down for a moment.

Of course, the US would never use those cluster bombs on Libyan civilians -- we're there to protect them, not shred them and blow their heads off. Except that, of course, we have used such weapons many times before, often on civilians. According to the Wikipedia entry on cluster bombs, they were developed independently during World War II by the Germans, the US, the USSR, and Italy. I couldn't find whether the US used them during the Korean war; the Wikipedia article on cluster bombs includes a photograph of an American soldier loading "a munition with 22,500 Korean language leaflets in 1950 for use as psychological warfare during the Korean War", but contains no reference to their use for scattering bomblets.

The Times article mentions that cluster bombs "have been banned by much of the world", but the US has resisted such bans. That FAIR blog post points out:

As for cluster bombs being "banned in much of the world," that includes Britain. But as WikiLeaks revealed, the U.S. colluded with the British government to circumvent the ban and allow U.S. cluster bombs to remain on British soil. WikiLeaks also disclosed that the U.S. has been lobbying for countries to keep cluster bombs legal, arguing that they are "legitimate weapons that provide a vital military capability" (Guardian, 12/1/10).

Well! If the US regards cluster bombs as legitimate weapons with a vital military capability, it can hardly condemn Libya for using them, especially since they were evidently acquired legitimately with that good "oil money." Either that, or we'd better look into implementing no-fly zones over London and Washington, DC.

The Gift That Keeps On Giving

... Cluster bombs, of course.

I don't remember where I first saw a link this weekend to the claim that loyalist (that's pro-Qaddafy) forces in Libya have been using cluster bombs. I do remember thinking that I should see if the article mentioned the fact that the US has often used such weapons, but I didn't get around to it until I found this post on the FAIR blog.

The Times article is indignant about the barbarity of Qaddafy's forces, with inflammatory details:

Where a crowd had assembled for food, bits of human flesh had been blasted against a cinder-block wall.

And:

“I jumped onto the ground when the explosions started,” said Ali Hmouda, 36, an employee of the port. “My friend did not. His head came off.”

As the FAIR blog post said, the article does mention US use of cluster bombs, in connection with "conflicting pressures" that may be brought to bear on President Obama:

At the same time, the United States has used cluster munitions itself, in battlefield situations in Afghanistan and Iraq, and in a strike on suspected militants in Yemen in 2009.

"Battlefield situations" is bogus, considering the circumstances: "battlefield situations" are wherever US forces happen to be fighting "suspected militants," such as cities, farmland, villages, and roadsides. As FAIR pointed out, the suspected Yemeni militants turned out to be "'21 children and 20 innocent women and men'" (NewYorkTimes.com, 12/9/10)--all killed in the U.S. attack." The same post listed past US use of cluster bombs in Serbia as well as Iraq and Afghanistan; it might have added northern Laos, where as Noam Chomsky says, civilians are still being killed by bomblets forty years later.

In Laos the Pentagon would not even provide instructions on how to defuse them to a volunteer British de-mining group that was working there. In Kosovo as well, the U.S. refused to remove cluster bombs.

(It's probably not entirely irrelevant that "In fact, one of the last acts of the U.S.-Israeli invasion [of Lebanon in 2006], right after the ceasefire was announced before it was implemented, was to saturate much of the south with cluster bombs. There’s no military purpose for that, the war was over, the ceasefire was coming."

UN de-mining groups that are working there say that the scale is unprecedented. It’s much worse than any other place they’ve worked: Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq, anywhere. There are supposed to be about one million bomblets left there. A large percentage of them don’t explode until you pick them up, a child picks them up, or a farmer hits it with a hoe or something. So what it does basically is make the south uninhabitable until the mining teams, for which the United States and Israel don’t contribute, clean it up. This is arable land. It means that farmers can’t go back; it means that it may undermine a potential Hezbollah deterrent. They apparently have pretty much withdrawn from the south, according to the UN.

But it's probably anti-Semitic of me even to mention it. And it occurs to me that, considering how long these weapons have been in use, the manufacturers and the countries that use them -- that includes us, remember, as well as Israel -- must be fully aware that they represent a long-term threat to civilians, including children, who are said to pick them up because they look like toys. In which case, the countries that use them -- including the US and Israel -- are responsible for the injuries and deaths of those civilians: they're an indirect but intended consequence of their use.)

So, where did Qaddafy's forces get these cluster bombs? According to the Times article, they were manufactured in Spain, just before Spain banned them.

How the Qaddafi military came to acquire Spanish cluster munitions, banned in Spain soon after their manufacture, was not immediately clear. But the war has shown what has long been known or suspected: that Colonel Qaddafi’s military, flush with oil money, has amassed stockpiles of arms from all manner of sources.

On the front lines in Libya, the government’s stockpile, whether used by loyalists or rebels who looted government armories, has included a full suite of former Eastern bloc arms beside former NATO munitions.

Like, Oh My God! By US propaganda standards, then, NATO is supplying Qaddafy with munitions! But that is probably true, since just a couple of years ago Senator John McCain went on a junket to Libya to discuss the possibility of supplying "non-lethal defense equipment to the government of Libya."

In March, the BBC innocently ran "Libya No-Fly Zone: Coalition Firepower," one of those stories on military hardware that give boners to little boys of all ages. It listed by country the newest, hottest war toys that would be deployed against the Libyan Hitler. Key US hardware included the A10 Warthog, a "[s]imple, effective and survivable twin-engine jet aircraft that can be used against all ground targets, including tanks and other armoured vehicles. A-10 - close air support, A-10C - airborne forward air control."

Weapons: 30 mm GAU-8/A seven-barrel Gatling gun; up to 16,000 pounds (7,200 kilograms) of mixed ordnance including cluster bombs, Maverick missiles, and laser-guided bombs

The B1-B Lancer, a "Long-range, multi-role, heavy bomber", has the "to carry up to 75,000lbs of munitions including general purpose bombs, Quick Strike naval mines, cluster munitions, Joint Direct Attack Munitions and Air-to-Surface Standoff Missiles." (Bold-type on the cluster weapons is mine, in both cases.) Excuse me; like all war fans, I think I'd better go have a lie-down for a moment.

Of course, the US would never use those cluster bombs on Libyan civilians -- we're there to protect them, not shred them and blow their heads off. Except that, of course, we have used such weapons many times before, often on civilians. According to the Wikipedia entry on cluster bombs, they were developed independently during World War II by the Germans, the US, the USSR, and Italy. I couldn't find whether the US used them during the Korean war; the Wikipedia article on cluster bombs includes a photograph of an American soldier loading "a munition with 22,500 Korean language leaflets in 1950 for use as psychological warfare during the Korean War", but contains no reference to their use for scattering bomblets.

The Times article mentions that cluster bombs "have been banned by much of the world", but the US has resisted such bans. That FAIR blog post points out:

As for cluster bombs being "banned in much of the world," that includes Britain. But as WikiLeaks revealed, the U.S. colluded with the British government to circumvent the ban and allow U.S. cluster bombs to remain on British soil. WikiLeaks also disclosed that the U.S. has been lobbying for countries to keep cluster bombs legal, arguing that they are "legitimate weapons that provide a vital military capability" (Guardian, 12/1/10).

Well! If the US regards cluster bombs as legitimate weapons with a vital military capability, it can hardly condemn Libya for using them, especially since they were evidently acquired legitimately with that good "oil money." Either that, or we'd better look into implementing no-fly zones over London and Washington, DC.

Break On Through To The Other Side

Where the hell did the time go? I can't believe I haven't posted since last Wednesday. I don't really have an excuse, either. (The dog ate all the postings I wrote -- but I don't have a dog.) Some odd things have been going on in my life, and I may write about some of them in due time; but I think something in my mind simply said "Enough!" at the end of March.

So, I'm going to take the easy way out and point you once more to Lenin's Tomb. His latest post, "Springtime for NATO in Libya", is very good. For example:

This is one reason, incidentally, why it never even occurred to them to wonder how it is that - unlike in Iraq, which war they castigate as irresponsible - there was never even the pretence of diplomacy. I am no pacifist, but I don't like to be told that there are no alternatives to air-borne death when the alternatives haven't even been tried.

I don't think you have to be a not-pacifist to agree with that.

If the issue was the minimisation of bloodshed, then a logical solution would have been to allow Turkey and others to facilitate negotiations. Yes, I know. A negotiated settlement would be a step back from outright victory for the rebels. But that is an increasingly improbable outcome anyway, and I thought we were trying to save lives here? And as it happens, a diplomatic solution seems to be exactly what is on the cards now. The transitional council leadership in Benghazi has acknowledged as much. Qadhafi is sending ambassadors to talk to interested parties about a ceasefire settlement. If this is how the situation is going to be resolved, then it would have been better that it had been resolved this way several weeks ago. If the aerial bombardment was supposed to stop massacres, it doesn't seem to have done so. From 'Save Sarajevo' to 'Save Benghazi', however, the liberal imperialists are in their glory when on the warpath, and as facile with rationalisations and false consolations as they are contemptuous of the same when deployed by the right.

After all, we've got to do something, right? And "something" always seems to involve the creation of corpses. (Richard Seymour, the proprietor of Lenin's Tomb, is also the author of The Liberal Defence of Murder [Verso, 2008], which is relevant to this case.)

Worse still are the wised up comments to the effect that "the world is a murky place, blah blah, which should not be seen in black and white terms, yawn yawn, and we can't force people to die for the sake of some purist anti-imperialism, etc etc". No, indeed, but it's hardly better to expect people to die for the sake of a woolly platitude.

It's occurred to me that a lot (though not all) of the writers on politics whom I like are Marxists, and I wonder why that is, since I'm not a Marxist myself. I'm not all that sure what a Marxist is. (Reading Chris Harman's Zombie Capitalism last summer made me less sure, not more.) From what I can tell, few on the Right know what a Marxist is either: they only know that Marxism is doubleplusungood, and what more do you need to know? Aside from stray bits of terminology like "anti-imperialist," I can't see anything in Seymour's post that seems specifically Marxist. Just as you don't have to be a pacifist to object to the NATO war on Libya, I don't think you have to be a Marxist to object to imperialism. But it sure seems to help.

(Image via The Sideshow)

Break On Through To The Other Side

Where the hell did the time go? I can't believe I haven't posted since last Wednesday. I don't really have an excuse, either. (The dog ate all the postings I wrote -- but I don't have a dog.) Some odd things have been going on in my life, and I may write about some of them in due time; but I think something in my mind simply said "Enough!" at the end of March.

So, I'm going to take the easy way out and point you once more to Lenin's Tomb. His latest post, "Springtime for NATO in Libya", is very good. For example:

This is one reason, incidentally, why it never even occurred to them to wonder how it is that - unlike in Iraq, which war they castigate as irresponsible - there was never even the pretence of diplomacy. I am no pacifist, but I don't like to be told that there are no alternatives to air-borne death when the alternatives haven't even been tried.

I don't think you have to be a not-pacifist to agree with that.

If the issue was the minimisation of bloodshed, then a logical solution would have been to allow Turkey and others to facilitate negotiations. Yes, I know. A negotiated settlement would be a step back from outright victory for the rebels. But that is an increasingly improbable outcome anyway, and I thought we were trying to save lives here? And as it happens, a diplomatic solution seems to be exactly what is on the cards now. The transitional council leadership in Benghazi has acknowledged as much. Qadhafi is sending ambassadors to talk to interested parties about a ceasefire settlement. If this is how the situation is going to be resolved, then it would have been better that it had been resolved this way several weeks ago. If the aerial bombardment was supposed to stop massacres, it doesn't seem to have done so. From 'Save Sarajevo' to 'Save Benghazi', however, the liberal imperialists are in their glory when on the warpath, and as facile with rationalisations and false consolations as they are contemptuous of the same when deployed by the right.

After all, we've got to do something, right? And "something" always seems to involve the creation of corpses. (Richard Seymour, the proprietor of Lenin's Tomb, is also the author of The Liberal Defence of Murder [Verso, 2008], which is relevant to this case.)

Worse still are the wised up comments to the effect that "the world is a murky place, blah blah, which should not be seen in black and white terms, yawn yawn, and we can't force people to die for the sake of some purist anti-imperialism, etc etc". No, indeed, but it's hardly better to expect people to die for the sake of a woolly platitude.

It's occurred to me that a lot (though not all) of the writers on politics whom I like are Marxists, and I wonder why that is, since I'm not a Marxist myself. I'm not all that sure what a Marxist is. (Reading Chris Harman's Zombie Capitalism last summer made me less sure, not more.) From what I can tell, few on the Right know what a Marxist is either: they only know that Marxism is doubleplusungood, and what more do you need to know? Aside from stray bits of terminology like "anti-imperialist," I can't see anything in Seymour's post that seems specifically Marxist. Just as you don't have to be a pacifist to object to the NATO war on Libya, I don't think you have to be a Marxist to object to imperialism. But it sure seems to help.

(Image via The Sideshow)

His Eye Is on the Cruise Missile

Glenn Greenwald, who's been posing some good questions about Obama's Libya speech as a revelation of his (that is, Obama's) belief in American exceptionalism, linked today to a recent post by Andrew Sullivan, calling it "long and thoughtful." Well, he was half-right. It's about as thoughtful as most of Sullivan's writing, which is not very.

Sullivan is sure that the US-led attack on Libya is a good thing:

In this, especially with this Libya clusterfuck, Obama reverted to embracing the forces he was elected to resist and restrain. One appreciates the difficulty of this and the horrible moral dilemma of Benghazi; and I still hope for success - because I see no sane alternative to Obama anywhere and no one can hope that the monster Qaddafi stays in power.

"The monster Qaddafi." Well, yes, Qaddafi is a very bad man. That's been well-known for a long time, which raises the question of why the US, England, and other European countries decided to rehabilitate him. That began during the Bush administration, but did the Obama administration do anything to stop it? Before now, I mean? Nope: several people have pointed out John McCain's junket to Libya in 2009, which McCain himself has conveniently forgotten:

In August 2009 he led a delegation of senators, including fellow hawks Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman, on a trip to visit the Libyan leader in Tripoli. Discussed during the visit was delivery of — get this — American military equipment to Gadhafi (a man with American blood on his hands no less).

“We discussed the possibility of moving ahead with the provision of non-lethal defense equipment to the government of Libya,” the AP quoted McCain as saying at a press conference. McCain also noted that “ties between the United States and Libya have taken a remarkable and positive turn in recent years.”

One can also ask whether firing cruise missiles into Libya is the best or only way to protect civilians. And have you heard that Secretary of State Clinton told Congress that Obama would ignore any Congressional war resolutions restraining US military action in Libya as "an unconstitutional encroachment on executive power"? Well, now you have.

But back to Sullivan and American exceptionalism. First he admits:

But, of course, that [i.e., this] land mass was available so easily because of the intended and unintended genocide of those who already lived there - which takes the edge off the divine bit, don't you think? Call me crazy (and they do) but my concept of God does not allow for God's blessing of genocide as a means for one country's hegemony over the earth.

I'm not going to call him crazy, just ignorant. The Roman Catholic Sullivan's concept of God doesn't square with Biblical conceptions, which show "God's blessing of genocide" in the conquest of the Promised Land by his Chosen People. And "that land mass" became available to the US not only through the elimination of the indigenous people, but through conquest of other countries established by rival European powers, especially Spain. Much of the southwestern US was simply taken from Mexico by war.

He goes on (and on):

This is not to say that America doesn't remain, by virtue of its astonishing Constitution, a unique sanctuary for human freedom. We are freer here in terms of speech than in most other advanced countries, cowed by p.c. laws and restrictions. We are freer here in labor and capital than most other countries. To feel pride in this is natural. It is why I love this place and yearn to be one of its citizens. And the vast wealth of an entire continent, unleashed by freedom's flourishing, gave this land of liberty real and awesome global power, which it used to vanquish the two great evils of the last century - Nazism and Communism. This is the noble legacy so many now seek to perpetuate, with good intentions and benign hearts, despite the disastrous and costly interventions of the last decade.

"The vast wealth of an entire continent" was not "unleashed by freedom's flourishing" -- as Sullivan admits, it was unleashed by stealing it from the people who lived there before. The history of American capitalism isn't pretty, and it's ill-timed of Sullivan to prattle about US "freedom in labor and capital" on the 100th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, and as anti-labor forces are rampant. Even granting that World War II was "noble", and not everyone would, it was the exception rather than the rule. Before that war, the US had a nasty record in the Western hemisphere and elsewhere. After the war, the US usually fought Communism by stomping on liberty, replacing elected governments with brutal dictatorships, which our propaganda called "the Free World." Even where the repression we supported was not quite as harsh, we demanded economic policies that took a heavy toll in human life and health.

But Sullivan has always been patriotically ill-informed, like so much of the Right, and ready to vilify anyone else who criticizes US foreign policy. He can bitch about Sarah Palin all he wants, but he helped pave the way for her, Michelle Bachmann, and other professional ignoramuses.

His Eye Is on the Cruise Missile

Glenn Greenwald, who's been posing some good questions about Obama's Libya speech as a revelation of his (that is, Obama's) belief in American exceptionalism, linked today to a recent post by Andrew Sullivan, calling it "long and thoughtful." Well, he was half-right. It's about as thoughtful as most of Sullivan's writing, which is not very.

Sullivan is sure that the US-led attack on Libya is a good thing:

In this, especially with this Libya clusterfuck, Obama reverted to embracing the forces he was elected to resist and restrain. One appreciates the difficulty of this and the horrible moral dilemma of Benghazi; and I still hope for success - because I see no sane alternative to Obama anywhere and no one can hope that the monster Qaddafi stays in power.

"The monster Qaddafi." Well, yes, Qaddafi is a very bad man. That's been well-known for a long time, which raises the question of why the US, England, and other European countries decided to rehabilitate him. That began during the Bush administration, but did the Obama administration do anything to stop it? Before now, I mean? Nope: several people have pointed out John McCain's junket to Libya in 2009, which McCain himself has conveniently forgotten:

In August 2009 he led a delegation of senators, including fellow hawks Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman, on a trip to visit the Libyan leader in Tripoli. Discussed during the visit was delivery of — get this — American military equipment to Gadhafi (a man with American blood on his hands no less).

“We discussed the possibility of moving ahead with the provision of non-lethal defense equipment to the government of Libya,” the AP quoted McCain as saying at a press conference. McCain also noted that “ties between the United States and Libya have taken a remarkable and positive turn in recent years.”

One can also ask whether firing cruise missiles into Libya is the best or only way to protect civilians. And have you heard that Secretary of State Clinton told Congress that Obama would ignore any Congressional war resolutions restraining US military action in Libya as "an unconstitutional encroachment on executive power"? Well, now you have.

But back to Sullivan and American exceptionalism. First he admits:

But, of course, that [i.e., this] land mass was available so easily because of the intended and unintended genocide of those who already lived there - which takes the edge off the divine bit, don't you think? Call me crazy (and they do) but my concept of God does not allow for God's blessing of genocide as a means for one country's hegemony over the earth.

I'm not going to call him crazy, just ignorant. The Roman Catholic Sullivan's concept of God doesn't square with Biblical conceptions, which show "God's blessing of genocide" in the conquest of the Promised Land by his Chosen People. And "that land mass" became available to the US not only through the elimination of the indigenous people, but through conquest of other countries established by rival European powers, especially Spain. Much of the southwestern US was simply taken from Mexico by war.

He goes on (and on):

This is not to say that America doesn't remain, by virtue of its astonishing Constitution, a unique sanctuary for human freedom. We are freer here in terms of speech than in most other advanced countries, cowed by p.c. laws and restrictions. We are freer here in labor and capital than most other countries. To feel pride in this is natural. It is why I love this place and yearn to be one of its citizens. And the vast wealth of an entire continent, unleashed by freedom's flourishing, gave this land of liberty real and awesome global power, which it used to vanquish the two great evils of the last century - Nazism and Communism. This is the noble legacy so many now seek to perpetuate, with good intentions and benign hearts, despite the disastrous and costly interventions of the last decade.

"The vast wealth of an entire continent" was not "unleashed by freedom's flourishing" -- as Sullivan admits, it was unleashed by stealing it from the people who lived there before. The history of American capitalism isn't pretty, and it's ill-timed of Sullivan to prattle about US "freedom in labor and capital" on the 100th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, and as anti-labor forces are rampant. Even granting that World War II was "noble", and not everyone would, it was the exception rather than the rule. Before that war, the US had a nasty record in the Western hemisphere and elsewhere. After the war, the US usually fought Communism by stomping on liberty, replacing elected governments with brutal dictatorships, which our propaganda called "the Free World." Even where the repression we supported was not quite as harsh, we demanded economic policies that took a heavy toll in human life and health.

But Sullivan has always been patriotically ill-informed, like so much of the Right, and ready to vilify anyone else who criticizes US foreign policy. He can bitch about Sarah Palin all he wants, but he helped pave the way for her, Michelle Bachmann, and other professional ignoramuses.

We've Got to Do Something, the Latest Implementation

My friend the ambivalent Obama supporter phoned me tonight, and we talked about various things. The first thing on his mind was the current war in Libya, and he wanted to know what I thought should be done there. I had to admit that I didn't have a good answer, but I was sure what shouldn't be done there, namely firing cruise missiles and aerial bombing.

After we got off the phone I found this discussion by IOZ, which was more than usually serious and thoughtful -- snark is his usual mode of choice, but every so often he does something like this.

First, what Libyans? The Libyans in the West, centered on Tripoli, who seem politically and tribally loyal to the extant regime, or the Libyans in the East, centered on Benghazi, whose own "leadership," as it has so far coalesced into something only marginally less objectionable than Qaddafi's government--indeed, has coalesced around former figures from Qaddafi's government? Even a cursory examination of the news reveals the paucity of the pro-intervention line, which would have a dictatorial government on one side and a benighted people on the other, the latter begging for our assistance. Well, no, in reality, there is an existing government on one side and a rival power on the other, and the "intervention", whatever supposed humanitarian garb it wears, is alliance with one side in a civil war. ...

And, as the playground taunt reminds us, with what army? The one "protecting" the Afghan people from the Taliban? Yes, it is true that generalized disapproval of Western power is sometimes a poor position from which to argue, but the opposite argument is more damnable still: I mean, under what specific circumstances can Western bombs bring peaceful solutions on terms acceptable to all sides? Under no circumstances. So while it may be morally correct for a hypothetical power with capacities far in excess of and motives far less questionable than those possessed by the actual West to intervene in a hypothetical conflict in which there are no dubious, hazy conditions of relative morality and relative good, in the practical, actual world, none of this obtains, and what you have, as per usual, is the US and its allies lobbing cruise missiles into a country without reason or planning; just another brutal exercise of DOING SOMETHING because the roots of our narcissism drink from a deep well of insecurity that requires we constantly blow shit up lest we admit to human limitations.

I also learned that there has been another leak of precious American secrets by a so-called "journalistic" group called the Associated Press -- in wartime yet! The anonymous culprit is a "senior U.S. defense official [who] revealed the contents of the intelligence report on condition of anonymity because it was classified secret." As Glenn Greenwald asks, "Will the guilty party be charged with a capital crime and be held in solitary confinement near a cell occupied by Bradley Manning? Only time will tell."

We've Got to Do Something, the Latest Implementation

My friend the ambivalent Obama supporter phoned me tonight, and we talked about various things. The first thing on his mind was the current war in Libya, and he wanted to know what I thought should be done there. I had to admit that I didn't have a good answer, but I was sure what shouldn't be done there, namely firing cruise missiles and aerial bombing.

After we got off the phone I found this discussion by IOZ, which was more than usually serious and thoughtful -- snark is his usual mode of choice, but every so often he does something like this.

First, what Libyans? The Libyans in the West, centered on Tripoli, who seem politically and tribally loyal to the extant regime, or the Libyans in the East, centered on Benghazi, whose own "leadership," as it has so far coalesced into something only marginally less objectionable than Qaddafi's government--indeed, has coalesced around former figures from Qaddafi's government? Even a cursory examination of the news reveals the paucity of the pro-intervention line, which would have a dictatorial government on one side and a benighted people on the other, the latter begging for our assistance. Well, no, in reality, there is an existing government on one side and a rival power on the other, and the "intervention", whatever supposed humanitarian garb it wears, is alliance with one side in a civil war. ...

And, as the playground taunt reminds us, with what army? The one "protecting" the Afghan people from the Taliban? Yes, it is true that generalized disapproval of Western power is sometimes a poor position from which to argue, but the opposite argument is more damnable still: I mean, under what specific circumstances can Western bombs bring peaceful solutions on terms acceptable to all sides? Under no circumstances. So while it may be morally correct for a hypothetical power with capacities far in excess of and motives far less questionable than those possessed by the actual West to intervene in a hypothetical conflict in which there are no dubious, hazy conditions of relative morality and relative good, in the practical, actual world, none of this obtains, and what you have, as per usual, is the US and its allies lobbing cruise missiles into a country without reason or planning; just another brutal exercise of DOING SOMETHING because the roots of our narcissism drink from a deep well of insecurity that requires we constantly blow shit up lest we admit to human limitations.

I also learned that there has been another leak of precious American secrets by a so-called "journalistic" group called the Associated Press -- in wartime yet! The anonymous culprit is a "senior U.S. defense official [who] revealed the contents of the intelligence report on condition of anonymity because it was classified secret." As Glenn Greenwald asks, "Will the guilty party be charged with a capital crime and be held in solitary confinement near a cell occupied by Bradley Manning? Only time will tell."

Just Your Average Run-of-the-Mill Satan

I meant to write tonight, but I read instead. (Mary Lasswell's third Suds book, One on the House!) But I did send this to RWA1 today (no response), and wanted to share it further. It's a flowchart of possible Republican reactions to Obama's attack on Libya. Being a party loyalist like RWA1 is hard. Traditionally Republicans oppose wars started by Democratic presidents, which seems a bit unfair since Democrats will usually support Republican wars. As Adam Clark Estes Pareene wrote,

Just a few weeks ago, prominent GOPers like John McCain and John Bolton insisted that a no-fly zone would be the best action the United States could take in the warring North African nation. When Obama committed to the no-fly zone with U.N. support, the same camp was quick to scold the President for his lack of leadership in gathering support for a no-fly zone.

It takes a very disciplined memory, in the Ingsoc sense, to cope with this kind of cognitive dissonance, and I sympathize not only with RWA1 but with other Republicans caught in the same bind. They hate Obama, but they love war, but Obama is a Democrat so they have to oppose anything he does, but they hate Qaddafy (who was rehabilitated and armed by the Bush administration), but they also fear the Muslim hordes who seek to overthrow Qaddafy and other dictators. What's a Republican to do? Wring one's hands and lament that "this is an issue without an obvious right or wrong." At least some Democrats disagree, and oppose Obama's Operation Odyssey Dawn. So do at least some of the actual Left. Even Jon Stewart of the Daily Show is cautiously critical of Obama's new war.

Alex Pareene informs us that the first Republican to declare himself a candidate for the Presidency in 2012 is a gay man. He's already been blocked from one debate by the RNC. As Pareene says, candidate Ray Barger "will hopefully continue annoying the Republican party by forcing them to demonstrate, repeatedly, their increasingly unpopular bigotry." Don't worry, though, the corporate media will keep it under wraps.

And finally, this paean to real American values from The Onion.


Patriotic Teen Fails Spanish

Just Your Average Run-of-the-Mill Satan

I meant to write tonight, but I read instead. (Mary Lasswell's third Suds book, One on the House!) But I did send this to RWA1 today (no response), and wanted to share it further. It's a flowchart of possible Republican reactions to Obama's attack on Libya. Being a party loyalist like RWA1 is hard. Traditionally Republicans oppose wars started by Democratic presidents, which seems a bit unfair since Democrats will usually support Republican wars. As Adam Clark Estes Pareene wrote,

Just a few weeks ago, prominent GOPers like John McCain and John Bolton insisted that a no-fly zone would be the best action the United States could take in the warring North African nation. When Obama committed to the no-fly zone with U.N. support, the same camp was quick to scold the President for his lack of leadership in gathering support for a no-fly zone.

It takes a very disciplined memory, in the Ingsoc sense, to cope with this kind of cognitive dissonance, and I sympathize not only with RWA1 but with other Republicans caught in the same bind. They hate Obama, but they love war, but Obama is a Democrat so they have to oppose anything he does, but they hate Qaddafy (who was rehabilitated and armed by the Bush administration), but they also fear the Muslim hordes who seek to overthrow Qaddafy and other dictators. What's a Republican to do? Wring one's hands and lament that "this is an issue without an obvious right or wrong." At least some Democrats disagree, and oppose Obama's Operation Odyssey Dawn. So do at least some of the actual Left. Even Jon Stewart of the Daily Show is cautiously critical of Obama's new war.

Alex Pareene informs us that the first Republican to declare himself a candidate for the Presidency in 2012 is a gay man. He's already been blocked from one debate by the RNC. As Pareene says, candidate Ray Barger "will hopefully continue annoying the Republican party by forcing them to demonstrate, repeatedly, their increasingly unpopular bigotry." Don't worry, though, the corporate media will keep it under wraps.

And finally, this paean to real American values from The Onion.


Patriotic Teen Fails Spanish

Oceania Has Always Been at War with Eurasia

Another spurious coalition has attacked Libya. Justin Elliott writes at Salon:

President Obama, in what was obviously a carefully choreographed move, did not himself announce the beginning of the bombing. Indeed, when the news was announced by French President Nicholas Sarkozy, Obama was on an uncanceled trip to Brazil.

Obama's brief statement from Brasilia referred to a "broad coalition" that "brings together many of our European and Arab partners." He said he had authorized "military action in Libya in support of an international effort." Obama used the words "international" and "coalition" a total of ten times in a statement that lasted just three minutes.

The grandstanding was left to Sarkozy, who had ordered French planes to make the first flights over Libya -- before U.S. aircraft got involved. "Along with our Arab, European and North American partners, France has decided to play its part before history," he said.

• Continue reading

But strikes by over 100 American cruise missiles quickly followed the French action, and early Sunday morning a slew of American planes -- including B2s, F-15s, F-16s, Navy EA-18G electronic warfare planes and Marine attack jets, according to the AP -- bombed Libya. It's not clear whether any Arab nations -- some of which supported the Security council resolution -- have contributed military support at this point.

A hundred cruise missiles, then bombing by aircraft, will almost certainly mean lots of civilian casualties. But it's not our fault, it's Qaddafi's. Though there are differences between this invasion and Bush's invasion of Iraq, there are also similarities, as Glenn Greenwald points out: instead of ginned-up panic about a threat to our shores,

purported humanitarian goals have taken center stage now (though humanitarian appeals -- rape rooms, mass graves, chemical attacks on his own people, and sadistic sons!! -- were also prominently featured in 2003 and in virtually every other war ever started).

But if we care so much about Libyans groaning under a merciless dictator, why don't we care about, say, Bahrainis under attack by a Saudi-UAE coalition? We don't, of course.

Linking to a debate at National Review Online between neocon Paul Wolfowitz and George Will, RWA1 commented on Facebook, "This is an issue without an obvious right and wrong. The burden of empire is becoming onerous, albeit Qaddafi is pretty flaky and unpredicrtable" [sic]. I sympathize just a bit. RWA1 certainly doesn't want to be an apologist for Qaddafy -- like me, he's old enough to remember when Qaddafy was an official enemy -- but on the other hand, Qaddafy was welcomed back to the brotherhood of nations by a Republican administration. (It's so hard sometimes to remember whether we're at war or at peace with Eastasia this week!) And though Obama so far seems to have Republican support for this attack, it's unthinkable for an old-school Republican like RWA1 to endorse a war waged by a Democratic President. (It seems unfair that this should be so, since Democrats are almost always willing to endorse wars waged by Republican Presidents. But life is unfair.)

Will still advocates a "no-fly zone" in Libya, apparently unaware that a no-fly zone is a military intervention, indeed an act of war. How it would differ from his Rand-like yammering that the US has "intervened in a tribal society in a civil war", I don't know. It's kind of fun to watch Wolfowitz trying to split hairs.

“One of the things that makes this situation so unique is the monstrous quality of the Tripoli regime, the monstrous quality of Qaddafi and his sons. I know people say, ‘What about Bahrain? What about Yemen?’ This is a totally different case, where a man is actually slaughtering his own people, has no regard for his own people, and uses mercenaries to kill them. It is a unique case and it is being watched around the Arab world.”

Libya is not at all "a totally different case" from Bahrain, for example, where the monarch is actually slaughtering his own people, has no regard for his own people, and uses Saudi and UAE mercenaries to kill them. For that matter, the US has enthusiastically trained police, military, and mercenaries to kill and torture in their own countries many times in my lifetime alone.

And I have to link to this totally deranged comment, which, from what I know of him, RWA probably agrees with. It's the kind of reality-free bluster that's much beloved of people who've never lifted a weapon in their lives, and never will, but don't mind sending others to commit the butchery in their place. For example, his closing qualification:

This also includes not supporting dictators, especially when theres' no USSR for them to go to instead anymore. If we'd have instituted this foreign policy when the Berlin Wall fell, how much better off would we be today?

The commenter's program (first principle: "We drill here, now, and everywhere so that the oil supply issue is moot") definitely includes supporting dictators, which was a major part of US policy before and after the Berlin Wall fell, partly to get access to the oil supply or to any other resources the US wanted. If we'd instituted this foreign policy in 1989, we'd be more or less where we are today. Not surprising, because what the commenter recommends is a cartoon version of what US foreign policy is.

I don't agree that there's "no obvious right or wrong" with regard to Libya. I think that the US-led and -directed attack is wrong, and will probably undermine the popular resistance in Libya. I don't think that the US (or France or England, let alone the Arab League) wants democracy in Libya, any more than it wants democracy in Egypt. We seem to have failed to block it in Egypt, for now at least, but we can still save Libya and Bahrain.

By the way, Salon also posted an appalling, sycophantic AP account of Obama's visit to Brazil. "And on Sunday, he was determined to be with his family, get among the people and feel the culture." What a man.

Oceania Has Always Been at War with Eurasia

Another spurious coalition has attacked Libya. Justin Elliott writes at Salon:

President Obama, in what was obviously a carefully choreographed move, did not himself announce the beginning of the bombing. Indeed, when the news was announced by French President Nicholas Sarkozy, Obama was on an uncanceled trip to Brazil.

Obama's brief statement from Brasilia referred to a "broad coalition" that "brings together many of our European and Arab partners." He said he had authorized "military action in Libya in support of an international effort." Obama used the words "international" and "coalition" a total of ten times in a statement that lasted just three minutes.

The grandstanding was left to Sarkozy, who had ordered French planes to make the first flights over Libya -- before U.S. aircraft got involved. "Along with our Arab, European and North American partners, France has decided to play its part before history," he said.

• Continue reading

But strikes by over 100 American cruise missiles quickly followed the French action, and early Sunday morning a slew of American planes -- including B2s, F-15s, F-16s, Navy EA-18G electronic warfare planes and Marine attack jets, according to the AP -- bombed Libya. It's not clear whether any Arab nations -- some of which supported the Security council resolution -- have contributed military support at this point.

A hundred cruise missiles, then bombing by aircraft, will almost certainly mean lots of civilian casualties. But it's not our fault, it's Qaddafi's. Though there are differences between this invasion and Bush's invasion of Iraq, there are also similarities, as Glenn Greenwald points out: instead of ginned-up panic about a threat to our shores,

purported humanitarian goals have taken center stage now (though humanitarian appeals -- rape rooms, mass graves, chemical attacks on his own people, and sadistic sons!! -- were also prominently featured in 2003 and in virtually every other war ever started).

But if we care so much about Libyans groaning under a merciless dictator, why don't we care about, say, Bahrainis under attack by a Saudi-UAE coalition? We don't, of course.

Linking to a debate at National Review Online between neocon Paul Wolfowitz and George Will, RWA1 commented on Facebook, "This is an issue without an obvious right and wrong. The burden of empire is becoming onerous, albeit Qaddafi is pretty flaky and unpredicrtable" [sic]. I sympathize just a bit. RWA1 certainly doesn't want to be an apologist for Qaddafy -- like me, he's old enough to remember when Qaddafy was an official enemy -- but on the other hand, Qaddafy was welcomed back to the brotherhood of nations by a Republican administration. (It's so hard sometimes to remember whether we're at war or at peace with Eastasia this week!) And though Obama so far seems to have Republican support for this attack, it's unthinkable for an old-school Republican like RWA1 to endorse a war waged by a Democratic President. (It seems unfair that this should be so, since Democrats are almost always willing to endorse wars waged by Republican Presidents. But life is unfair.)

Will still advocates a "no-fly zone" in Libya, apparently unaware that a no-fly zone is a military intervention, indeed an act of war. How it would differ from his Rand-like yammering that the US has "intervened in a tribal society in a civil war", I don't know. It's kind of fun to watch Wolfowitz trying to split hairs.

“One of the things that makes this situation so unique is the monstrous quality of the Tripoli regime, the monstrous quality of Qaddafi and his sons. I know people say, ‘What about Bahrain? What about Yemen?’ This is a totally different case, where a man is actually slaughtering his own people, has no regard for his own people, and uses mercenaries to kill them. It is a unique case and it is being watched around the Arab world.”

Libya is not at all "a totally different case" from Bahrain, for example, where the monarch is actually slaughtering his own people, has no regard for his own people, and uses Saudi and UAE mercenaries to kill them. For that matter, the US has enthusiastically trained police, military, and mercenaries to kill and torture in their own countries many times in my lifetime alone.

And I have to link to this totally deranged comment, which, from what I know of him, RWA probably agrees with. It's the kind of reality-free bluster that's much beloved of people who've never lifted a weapon in their lives, and never will, but don't mind sending others to commit the butchery in their place. For example, his closing qualification:

This also includes not supporting dictators, especially when theres' no USSR for them to go to instead anymore. If we'd have instituted this foreign policy when the Berlin Wall fell, how much better off would we be today?

The commenter's program (first principle: "We drill here, now, and everywhere so that the oil supply issue is moot") definitely includes supporting dictators, which was a major part of US policy before and after the Berlin Wall fell, partly to get access to the oil supply or to any other resources the US wanted. If we'd instituted this foreign policy in 1989, we'd be more or less where we are today. Not surprising, because what the commenter recommends is a cartoon version of what US foreign policy is.

I don't agree that there's "no obvious right or wrong" with regard to Libya. I think that the US-led and -directed attack is wrong, and will probably undermine the popular resistance in Libya. I don't think that the US (or France or England, let alone the Arab League) wants democracy in Libya, any more than it wants democracy in Egypt. We seem to have failed to block it in Egypt, for now at least, but we can still save Libya and Bahrain.

By the way, Salon also posted an appalling, sycophantic AP account of Obama's visit to Brazil. "And on Sunday, he was determined to be with his family, get among the people and feel the culture." What a man.