War Powers

An odd grouping of Congress Critters (thanks again, Molly Ivins) is challenging Our President's Constitutional power to conduct warlike operations in foreign countries without congressional approval. Part of the group consists of the usual Republican cabal who "refudiate" (thanks again, Sarah Palin) anything Barack Obama is inclined to do. The other part consists of Dennis Kucinich and nine fellow travelers of the sorry remnant of the Democratic left.

The administration says the War Powers Resolution doesn't apply because what we're doing there doesn't rise to the level of "hostilities." Personally, I think if you're sitting in the middle of a drone-launched missile strike, you're inclined to think the people sending the drones are pretty hostile. Just because we're sending robots instead of troops doesn't mean we're not engaged in war.

To me, it's also pretty clear that NATO has far exceeded the UN resolution permitting the "protection of civilians" from the forces of Muamar Ghadaffi/Qadaffi/Gadhafi/Gadaffi/etc. (Why can't the English language news media agree on a common transliteration from the Arabic?) The object of the campaign, clearly, is to remove the variously spelled dictator from power. That's not at all the same as keeping government artillery from leveling Bengazi.

It would be lovely if Boehner and friends helped bring this controversy to the Supreme Court, and if the conservative court decided they'd rather screw Obama than protect the administrative right to start worthless wars We'll see. Most interesting, from my perspective, is that our involvement in Libya had little to do with our role as the military force of the multinationals — or maybe not...

French, Italian, and British corporations all have economic interests in Libya, long threatened by Gadaffi. What we seem to be seeing from Obama is the smallest possible response needed to satisfy our corporations' corporate allies and preserve NATO.

Obama and Boehner will be playing golf tomorrow, but they may not give each other quite so many mulligans as the US is likely to need. Bah.

Who ARE those guys who asked us to bomb Libya?

With ten out of fifteen votes, the UN Security Council voted to lend air support to the "Libyan rebellion." Russia, China, India, Brazil, and Germany opted to abstain, which seems to be their way of saying "You assholes in France, the UK, and the US can do as you please, but we'll just sit back and deal with whichever side wins. Frankly, my dears, we don't give a damn."

Now that warplanes are on the way, it seems a bit overdue to answer the question I asked two posts ago — just who the hell is leading the "Libyan uprising?" Since the major media aren't bothering to tell us, I've done a little research, and come up with some names.

Former Libyan Justice Minister Mustafa Abdel Jalil, who defected from the government Feb. 21, appears to be one of those at the top of the pyramid — which means he's been an opponent of Gadaffi for about a month now. Omar El-Hariri, now in charge of military affairs for the rebels, was a participant in both Gadaffi's 1969 coup against the Libyan monarchy and a 1975 coup attempt against Gadaffi. It seems likely that Gadaffi now regrets commuting El-Hariri's death sentence.

Mohammed Younis, who was sent by Gadaffi to quell the protests in Bengazi and decided to switch sides instead, does not seem to have a formal position in the rebel government, but still exercises a lot of influence. Then there is Ali al-Essawiis, Gadaffi's former economic and trade minister, who now represents the rebels as Minister for Foreign Affairs.

Except for El-Hariri, all were close allies of Gadaffi very recently; and all of them, including El-Hariri, had ties to the Libyan army. None ever seemed in any way "pro-democracy" in the past, and none seem especially outspoken now. To me, at least, it looks like just another military coup — just not executed as well as the one in Egypt.

So why support the rebels, even after Defense Secretary Robert Gates told us doing so would in no way enhance our national interest? Did the Libyan intelligence service stop cooperating with the CIA? Did we have anything to do with fomenting the rebellion in the first place? Have the rebels agreed to privatize the currently state-owned oil fields? And why in hell are the regional monarchies suddenly so upset with Gadaffi, more than forty years after he "set a bad example" for prospective anti-monarchists in their own countries?

Whatever the truth of the situation in Libya may be, it's pretty clear it's not being shared with anybody outside the governing elites. Where is Private Bradley Manning when we really need him? (Oh, right, he's in solitary confinement undergoing psychological torture.)

Democracy my ass!

No-fly or not no-fly

It seems there is a good deal of soul searching regarding whether or not the US (sometimes known as "NATO") should try to create a "no-fly zone" over Libya, in defense of "Libyan rebels" (whoever they are.) In the region, there have been requests for us to do so from some "Libyan rebel leaders" and from the Arab League. At home, the call has come from legislators who say we should be supporting the "brave freedom fighters" struggling (unsuccessfully) to seize control from long-time boogey man Muammar Gadaffi.

Before we start waving our little flags and throwing big bucks at Libya, though, we really need more information. First of all, just who are the Libyan rebels? Nobody seems willing to tell us where they come from, what they stand for (except ousting Gadaffi), how they happened to assert leadership over what has been portrayed as a "spontaneous uprising," or what they are likely to do if they gain power. There's no sense in poking our noses into a tribal war or an attempt to replace the Gadaffi family and its allies with a new set of self-aggrandizing autocrats.

In case you haven't noticed, the closest thing to democracy we've ever seen in the Arab world was the election of Hamas in Gaza, back in 2006. We have some promises from the Egyptian military, but I wouldn't hold my breath. Neither Iraq nor Afghanistan — where we've been trying to "build democracy" for most of the past decade — has yet managed to pull off an election not totally rife with corruption. Elections just don't work in tribal cultures, where the idea of the nation state still hasn't taken hold.

Then again, if the Arab League really wants a no-fly zone that badly, why don't they ask the Saudis to do it instead of the US and Europe? The Saudis certainly can afford to take action, and thanks to US and UK arms sales, they have the equipment as well:

The last thing in the world the US needs right now is another war in the Middle East. As Secretary Robert Gates has told us, imposing a no-fly zone is an act of war. How long would it be before "military advisers" and "strategic support services" were tramping around the North African desert?