IN DIE VSA IS ELKE DAG 1 APRIL

CIA, British Special Forces Crawl Through Libya, Unable to Stop Gadhafi Military Onslaught
By: David Dayen Thursday March 31, 2011 7:20 am

This is an appropriately acerbic post from Matt Yglesias that can serve as a catch-up on events in Libya for those who missed it yesterday:

Today’s New York Times features Mark Mazzetti and Eric Schmitt reporting that America’s no boots on the ground humanitarian intervention in Libya features ground-based CIA agents (presumably wearing tennis shoes) coordinating with Libyan rebels so as to better be able to assist them with tactical air support. Chris Adams for McClatchy also has a story out headlined “Libyan rebel leader spent much of past 20 years in suburban Virginia”, which is presumably because he really liked the Tyson’s Corner mall and has nothing to do with the location of the CIA or the Pentagon.
Reuters also had it that Obama had signed a secret order to provide the Libyan rebels with weapons, but that presumably meant humanitarian weapons rather than the kind you use to kill enemy soldiers and resolve post-revolutionary political disputes with. The administration, however, denies that this decision has been made. Meanwhile, the Gaddafist state continues to disintegrate as foreign ministerMoussa Koussa defected to the United Kingdom but Gaddafi’s troops made advances on the ground.

You can read more about the clandestine assistance from the New York Times or the LA Times or theNational Journal. You’ll find that, in addition to CIA operatives, “dozens of British special forces and MI6 intelligence officers are working inside Libya.” They wear boots. And they’re on the ground.
I will say that, in that blogger call with deputy national security advisor Ben Rhodes, he stated firmly, in response to my question, that one reason you cannot say that the coalition has become the air force for the Libyan opposition is that we weren’t coordinating anything on the ground with them. That was two days ago, and it’s entirely possible, I suppose, that Rhodes was kept in the dark about the actual coordination on the ground between the rebels and the CIA. It’s just not very likely that national security reporters know more than the deputy national security advisor. There’s also this from the LAT:

In Libya, the U.S. has been leading an international effort to protect civilians by enforcing a no-fly zone and bombing Libya’s military forces, but the coalition says it has not been coordinating with the rebels seeking to oust Kadafi’s government. Rebel leaders, however, have said they are in contact with allied military representatives in Europe to help commanders identify targets for the air assault.

So I’m going to chalk that up to a point-blank lie. And a pretty obvious one; the fact that three days ago,nine loud explosions rocked Sirte, a city held by pro-Gadhafi forces, right as the rebels were seeking to breach the walls and take it over speaks to the close coordination here.
And yet, it hasn’t been enough. The CIA presence hasn’t been enough. The close air support, including attack helicopters, hasn’t been enough. The defection of key officials hasn’t been enough. There’s obviously a ways to go here, but the trajectory is not what the coalition would hope. And before too long, someone in one of these planning rooms is going to say that the rebels need more firepower. And someone else will say that they need trainers to whip their ragtag army into shape. And maybe some Special Forces guys, some actual fighters, ringers if you will. And maybe a battalion. But just one battalion. After all, Gadhafi’s a murderous despot…
Turd sandwich, indeed.

IN AUSTRALIË ÍS DIT AL 1 APRIL

The reluctant warrior

By Craig McMurtrie

Updated Tue Mar 29, 2011 3:29pm AEDT

The abiding impression has been of a president being dragged into a fight against his better judgement. (The White House: Pete Souza)

What do you call it when you have a "kinetic military activity" or a "military operation with multiple partners" or even a "time-limited, scope-limited military action"?

You have Libya.

As the White House tells it, you certainly don't have a war.

The Obama administration has turned itself inside out to avoid using the nasty 'w' word, even as it launched sea and air-based strikes on Libyan air defence systems and forces loyal to Moamar Gaddafi, firing over $100 million worth of missiles on the first day alone.

And while the White House says Gaddafi should go that isn't what the United Nations (UN) Security Council has authorised. The UN says the military intervention can only protect civilian life.

For American defence hawks this is confounding.

The prestige of the United States is being used to bomb Gaddafi's forces, but they can't take out the man himself, they don't know how long it will last and now to add insult to injury - NATO is in charge?

In the Neocon days (remember them?) George W Bush announced his wars on camera. In 2003 he even showed up on the deck of an aircraft carrier to declare major combat operations ended in Iraq. Years later - he was right.

This guy is something else.

When the first missiles were launched, Barack Obama was on an official visit to Brazil. Then he went to Chile and El Salvador. There were pictures of him in a 'secure' tent talking to his national security team over the phone and calling world leaders from Air Force One. At the eleventh hour it was announced that he was cutting the five-day trip short (by two hours) to get back to DC. A planned Mayan ruins sightseeing trip was cancelled.

The abiding impression has been of a president being dragged into a fight against his better judgement.

According to administration leaks it was the senior women, including UN ambassador Susan Rice and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who persuaded him to override the concerns of the Pentagon, to avert a potential humanitarian catastrophe.

Hillary Clinton has publicly acknowledged the scalding impact of Rwanda in 1994, when her husband's administration didn't act and hundreds of thousands died.

But that hasn't stopped veteran US broadcast journalist Ted Koppel asking why Libya was singled out to win "the humanitarian defence sweepstakes of 2011" and not other countries?

Defence secretary Robert Gates acknowledges that the US doesn't have a vital interest in the outcome in Libya. The candid Republican, who will be sorely missed when he decides to retire, also says no-one knows how long the Libyan intervention could go on for.

That's bad news for a president anxious to extricate himself from Iraq and Afghanistan ahead of a re-election year. This Commander-in-Chief isn't about to wrap himself up in the flag and sound the charge on Libya.

In fact NBC White House reporter Savannah Guthrie told her viewers that sources had heard the president label the military action in Libya a "turd sandwich" in a closed-door meeting.

Now that doesn't fit with his icy-cool public demeanour.

So as his critics were lining up demanding explanations, the administration went into overdrive to cede leadership to NATO. Suddenly Sarkozy grabbed the limelight (and didn't he love it) and there was an all-in brawl in Brussels, before eventual agreement.

That only further inflamed some American opinion makers, Rush Limbaugh fuming "this ain't nowhere near what NATO's supposed to do," calling the Obama strategy the "most muddled policy ever" and lamenting to his millions of listeners "we're not a super power any more".

He also claimed that NATO Secretary General (Anders Fogh Rasmussen) reminds him of a James Bond villain, but we don't need to go there.

Over a week after the first missiles were launched the White House website posted a taped message from the president "this is how the international community should work - more nations, not just the United States, bearing the responsibility and cost of upholding peace and security," he said.

Still the reluctant warrior, on the 10th day, when he decided it was time to explain his strategy in a live television address, Barack Obama invited the cameras to a speech at the National Defense University and not into the Oval Office.

Some presidents positively yearn for their chance to make history. On top of the aftermath of a global financial meltdown and the two wars he inherited, this one is now navigating an unprecedented series of uprisings across the Arab world.

Watergate journalist Bob Woodward calls it Obama's 9/11.

Libya could be a watershed moment in world affairs. If Gaddafi goes quickly the intervention might turn out to be a masterstroke, but the veteran newsman also cautions that it's hard "to turn the off switch on war".

JAN ABSOLUUT

My Favorite Animal

Our teacher asked us what our favorite animal was, and I said, "Fried chicken." 


She said I wasn't funny, but she couldn't have been right, because 
everyone else in the class laughed.


My parents told me to always be truthful and honest, and I am. 
Fried chicken is my favorite animal. 
I told my dad what happened, and he said my teacher was probably a member of PETA.  He said they love animals very much.


I do, too. Especially chicken, pork and beef. Anyway, my teacher sent me to the principal's office. I told him what happened, and he laughed, too. 
Then he told me not to do it again.


The next day in class my teacher asked me what my favorite live 
animal was. 
I told her it was chicken. She asked me why, just like she'd asked 
the other children.
So I told her it was because you could make them into fried 
chicken.


She sent me back to the principal's office again. He laughed, and 
told me not to do it again. 
I don't understand. 


My parents taught me to be honest, but my teacher doesn't like it when I am.


Today, my teacher asked us to tell her what famous person we admire most.
I told her, "Colonel Sanders." 


Guess where the f#ck I am...???

LANCASTER HOUSE + RHODESIË = ZIMBABWE

London Conference Plots Imperialist Carve-Up of Libya by Barry Grey
	March 30, 2011

The conference on Libya held Tuesday at London's Lancaster House was a repulsive exercise in hypocrisy and cynicism. In the name of liberating the Libyan people, the United States and Britain brought together foreign ministers from 40 countries and dignitaries from international organizations such as the United Nations, NATO and the Arab League to sanction an escalation of the air war against the former colony and set the stage for the installation of a stooge regime.

As American, British and French missiles and bombs continued to rain down on Libyan government troops and civilian populations in cities such as Tripoli and Sirte, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and British Prime Minister David Cameron declared that the military assault would continue indefinitely. Clinton spoke of further economic and political sanctions against the regime of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi and indicated that Washington was moving toward arming the so-called "rebel" forces.

The conference followed President Barack Obama's televised speech Monday night, in which he not only justified the aggression in Libya, but argued that the president had a right to launch military attacks and wars anywhere in the world to defend American "values" and "interests" and maintain "the flow of commerce." This is an open-ended brief for imperialist war that even goes beyond the scope of the Bush administration's doctrine of preventive war.

It increases the short-term potential for US intervention in a number of countries in the Middle East, including Syria and Iran, and, longer-term, for war against more formidable rivals such as China.

Interviewed on the "NBC Nightly News" program Monday evening, Obama reiterated Clinton's statements at the London conference opening the door to deeper US involvement in the war, including the arming of the opposition forces led by the Benghazi-based Interim Transitional National Council.

This expansion of US militarism is backed with particular enthusiasm by the liberal and pseudo-left advocates of "humanitarian" imperialism, who cut their teeth by lining up behind American bombs and bullets in the Balkan wars of the 1990s. Expressing the contemptuous attitude of these forces for fundamental democratic principals, the New York Times published an editorial Tuesday praising Obama's speech on Libya, while chiding him for violating basic democratic and constitutional norms.

After declaring that "the rebels will likely need air support for quite some time," the newspaper wrote: "The president made the right choice to act, but this is a war of choice, not necessity. Presidents should not commit the country to battle without consulting Congress and explaining their reasons to the American people."

Having registered its disapproval for the record, the Times immediately brushed aside the illegality of the war, noting, "Fortunately, initial coalition military operations have gone well."

Opening the London conference, British Prime Minister David Cameron declared, “We are all here in one united purpose, that is to help the Libyan people in their hour of need.” He denounced Gaddafi for continuing to resist militarily against the US-NATO-backed rebel forces, saying the Libyan leader was thereby in “flagrant breach of the UN Security Council resolution” that sanctioned the military intervention. The air war would continue, he said, until the regime was in full compliance with the resolution—something that could be realized only by the fall of Gaddafi from power.

As the Guardian noted, Cameron and Clinton were careful in their remarks at the conference to refrain from directly repeating their demand that Gaddafi step down, because among the governments represented at the conference there are differences over openly making regime-change an aim of the war.

“Cameron did not repeat his demand for Gaddafi to stand down immediately and to face justice at the International Criminal Court,” the Guardian noted. “The conference is attended by Ahmet Davutoglu, the Turkish foreign minister, who is hoping to broker a ceasefire between Gaddafi and the rebel forces. Franco Frattini, the foreign minister of Libya’s former imperial ruler, Italy, who has raised the prospect of spiriting Gaddafi to exile, is also attending.”

Behind the façade of unity there are bitter conflicts within the war camp. The US no doubt encouraged Britain to hold the conference in order to reign in France, which led the initial drive for war in Libya, and to use the British as a cat's paw to assert American hegemony in a post-Gaddafi Libya.

Many divisions were evident. The African Union, whose efforts to broker a ceasefire and negotiations between Gaddafi and the rebels were blocked by the launching of military action, boycotted the conference. Likewise Russia, which the previous day had denounced the war coalition for exceeding the "humanitarian" terms of the UN resolution.

Egypt, along with some other Arab countries, also refused to attend. The military rulers of Egypt likely felt it unwise to risk the wrath of a restive population by openly joining in the colonial-style carve-up of neighboring Libya.

There are also differences over relations with the Interim Transitional National Council. To date, only France and Qatar have formally recognized the self-appointed anti-Gaddafi leadership. One of the aims of Washington and London in holding the conference was to legitimize the "democratic" opposition leadership, but differences within the war coalition prevented them from allowing the Transitional National Council delegates in attendance to formally participate in the deliberations.

As a result, a conference advertised as enabling the Libyan people to determine their own future had no Libyan participants. Cameron nevertheless went out of his way to promote the Transitional National Council, meeting with its chairman, Mahmoud Jabril, at 10 Downing Street, naming it as the axis of a new government in his initial remarks, and opening up the Foreign Office's main briefing room for a press conference by Jabril's fellow rebel delegates.

Clinton also ostentatiously held a meeting with Jabril, allowing the two of them to be photographed together in order to underscore American support for the council. US officials announced that Washington was sending a special envoy to deepen its relations with the opposition leadership.

The right-wing, pro-imperialist character of the council is embodied in the delegates who represented it in London. Jabril taught for many years in the US after obtaining a PhD at the University of Pittsburgh. From 2007, he headed Gaddafi's National Economic Development Board, which spearheaded the introduction of capitalist market relations and the opening of Libya to foreign investment.

The two senior opposition figures who gave the press conference were Guma El-Gamaty, the council’s coordinator in Britain, and Mahmoud Shammam, the council’s head of media, who is based in Washington.

Shammam is managing editor of Foreign Policy magazine and has previously served as editor of Arab Newsweek. He is also a member of the advisory board on the Middle East at the Carnegie Endowment for Peace. At the press conference, he appealed for the US and its allies to begin arming the opposition forces.

El-Gamaty is a Libyan writer and political commentator. He has been living in the UK for more than 30 years and was active with the Libyan opposition movement abroad in the 1980s. For the past few years, he has worked as a researcher at the University of Westminster.

All of these figures have close ties with American and European corporate, political and, it can be safely presumed, intelligence organizations.

Clinton’s press conference following the meeting exposed the fraud of America’s supposed struggle against Al Qaeda and the “war on terror” as a whole. The US Secretary of State made clear that Washington had not ruled out arming the so-called “rebels” and asserted that such action would be permitted under UN Security Council Resolution 1973, which authorized the military intervention in Libya.

A Reuters reporter questioned Clinton on possible US arms for the opposition, citing the remarks that day of US Adm. James Stavridis, who told a Senate committee that there were “flickers” of US intelligence on links between the Interim Transitional National Council and Al Qaeda and Hezbollah.

“How great a concern is that?” the reporter asked. “And is that part of the US debate over any potential arms transfers to the transitional council?”

Clinton brushed aside the danger of funneling US arms to Al Qaeda via the Libyan opposition, saying, “We do not have any specific information about specific individuals from any organization who are part of this, but, of course, we’re still getting to know those who are leading the Transitional National Council.”

The next questioner, from the Times of London, called it “quite striking” that “none of the names” of the rebel leaders were public, “apart from three or four of the 30-odd of them.” He continued: “Do you think they should be more transparent in terms of declaring who they are, where they’re from, what kind of groupings they come from, and how they’re using the money?”

Clinton merely replied that “we’re picking up information,” adding that “this is a work in progress.”

Just two days before, Clinton had appeared with US Defense Secretary Robert Gates on several Sunday interview programs, during which they insisted that the US had to continue to support Yemeni dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh, despite his deadly attacks on demonstrators, because of the threat represented by the presence of Al Qaeda in Yemen.

The dismissal by the Obama administration—as well as the media—of possible links between the Libyan opposition and Al Qaeda makes fairly clear that the relationship between the United States and Al Qaeda is complex and intimate. After all, the top figures in the terrorist network, including Osama bin Laden, got their start as assets of the CIA in the US-backed mujahedin guerilla war of the 1980s against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.

This double standard in relation to the supposed central enemy in the “war on terror” is but one of many contradictions that expose the imperialist and neo-colonial character of the US-led war in Libya.

REBELSE LIBIESE MULTITAKERS

Wow That Was Fast! Libyan Rebels Have Already Established A New Central Bank Of Libya 

The rebels in Libya are in the middle of a life or death civil war and Moammar Gadhafi is still in power and yet somehow the Libyan rebels have had enough time to establish a new Central Bank of Libya and form a new national oil company.  Perhaps when this conflict is over those rebels can become time management consultants.  They sure do get a lot done.  What a skilled bunch of rebels - they can fight a war during the day and draw up a new central bank and a new national oil company at night without any outside help whatsoever.  If only the rest of us were so versatile!  But isn't forming a central bank something that could be done afterthe civil war is over?  According to Bloomberg, the Transitional National Council has "designated the Central Bank of Benghazi as a monetary authority competent in monetary policies in Libya and the appointment of a governor to the Central Bank of Libya, with a temporary headquarters in Benghazi."  Apparently someone felt that it was very important to get pesky matters such as control of the banks and control of the money supply out of the way even before a new government is formed.

Of course it is probably safe to assume that the new Central Bank of Libya will be 100% owned and 100% controlled by the newly liberated people of Libya, isn't it?

Most people don't realize that the previous Central Bank of Libya was 100% state owned. The following is an excerpt from Wikipedia's article on the former Central Bank of Libya....

The Central Bank of Libya (CBL) is 100% state owned and represents the monetary authority in The Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya and enjoys the status of autonomous corporate body. The law establishing the CBL stipulates that the objectives of the central bank shall be to maintain monetary stability in Libya , and to promote the sustained growth of the economy in accordance with the general economic policy of the state.

Since the old Central Bank of Libya was state owned, it was essentially under the control of Moammar Gadhafi.

But now that Libya is going to be "free", the new Central Bank of Libya will be run by Libyans and solely for the benefit of Libyans, right?

Of course it is probably safe to assume that will be the case with the new national oil company as well, isn't it?

Over the past couple of years, Moammar Gadhafi had threatened to nationalize the oil industry in Libya and kick western oil companies out of the country, but now that Libya will be "free" the people of Libya will be able to work hand in hand with "big oil" and this will create a better Libya for everyone.

Right?

Of course oil had absolutely nothing to do with why the U.S. "inva---" (scratch that) "initiated a kinetic humanitarian liberty action" in Libya.

When Barack Obama looked straight into the camera and told the American people that the war in Libya is in the "strategic interest" of the United States, surely he was not referring to oil.

After all, war for oil was a "Bush thing", right?  The Democrats voted for Obama to end wars like this, right?  Surely no prominent Democrats will publicly support this war in Libya, right?

Surely Barack Obama will end the bombing of Libya if the international community begins to object, right?

Obama won a Nobel Peace Prize.  He wouldn't deeply upset the other major powers on the globe and bring us closer to World War III, would he?

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has loudly denounced "coalition strikes on columns of Gaddafi's forces" and he believes that the U.S. has badly violated the terms of the UN Security Council resolution....

"We consider that intervention by the coalition in what is essentially an internal civil war is not sanctioned by the U.N. Security Council resolution."

So to cool off rising tensions with the rest of the world, Obama is going to call off the air strikes, right?

Well, considering the fact that Obama has such vast foreign policy experience we should all be able to rest easy knowing that Obama will understand exactly what to do.

Meanwhile, the rebels seem to be getting the hang of international trade already.

They have even signed an oil deal with Qatar!

Rebel "spokesman" Ali Tarhouni has announced that oil exports to Qatar will begin in "less than a week".

Who knew that the rag tag group of rebels in Libya were also masters of banking and international trade?

We sure do live in a strange world.

Tonight, Barack Obama told the American people the following....

"Some nations may be able to turn a blind eye to atrocities in other countries. The United States of America is different."

So now we are going to police all of the atrocities in all of the other countries around the globe?

The last time I checked, the government was gunning down protesters in Syria.

Is it time to start warming up the Tomahawks?

Or do we reserve "humanitarian interventions" only for those nations that have a lot of oil?

In fact, atrocities are currently being committed all over Africa and in about a dozen different nations in the Middle East.

Should we institute a draft so that we will have enough young men and women to police the world with?

We all have to be ready to serve our country, right?

The world is becoming a smaller place every day, and you never know where U.S. "strategic interests" are going to be threatened next.

The rest of the world understands that we know best, right?

Of course the rest of the world can surely see our good intentions in Libya, can't they?

Tensions with Russia, China and the rest of the Arab world are certainly going to subside after they all see how selfless our "humanitarian intervention" has been in Libya, don't you think?

In all seriousness, we now live in a world where nothing is stable anymore.  Wars and revolutions are breaking out all over the globe, unprecedented natural disasters are happening with alarming frequency and the global economy is on the verge of total collapse.

By interfering in Libya, we are just making things worse.  Gadhafi is certainly a horrible dictator, but this was a fight for the Libyan people to sort out.

We promised the rest of the world that we were only going to be setting up a "no fly zone".  By violating the terms of the UN Security Council resolution, we have shown other nations that we cannot be trusted and by our actions we have increased tensions all over the globe.

So what do all of you think about what is going on in Libya?  Please feel free to leave a comment with your opinion below....

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/wow-that-was-fast-libyan-rebels-have-already-established-a-new-central-bank-of-libya/comment-page-1#comments

ANGELTJES STEEK RAAK

In onze brievenbus : het duo Pal & Jas

Die twee tjevensmoelentrekkers hebben mekaar goed gevonden. Allebei rad van tong met veel geblaat maar weinig wol. Ook Miet Smet hare  kebber (mannentjesduif) Huilefriet Martens kon het zo goed uitleggen, dat niemand het begreep, om van Zean-Luc nog maar te zwijgen. Piet Krol is fier als een gieter dat hij commentaar mag geven bij de raids van onze jongens in hun vliegmachien. Doodo, hartstikke kapot, op sterven na bijna dood waren ze na het droppen van hun vuurwerk op de stellingen van "onzen vijand in den vreemde".  Het moet inderdaad zwaar labeur zijn om hoog in de lucht op een knopje te drukken,  zodat de raket kan vallen. Ook die andere scheve lavabo van buiza is een kei in het spelen van komedie om indruk te maken en te tonen dat ze bij de marathon lopers van club Nonkel Kruk goed bezig zijn. Gauw, gauw efkens op en af naar Tunesiê vliegen om ons te laten zien dat ze ginder op de goeie weg zijn, want er zijnreeds graffitispuiters aan het werk, wat onder het bewind van Ali Baba of zoiets volstrekt verboden was. Verder konden we zien dat de terrasjes bevolkt worden met jongeren die normaal op dat tijdstip aan het werk moeten zijn. Blijkbaar is dat laatste nog niet doorgedrongen,  of is het al misschien te warm ?  Veel tijd om te gsm'en hebben ze blijkbaar wel. Volgens de buiza-rakker,  moeten we het land van vijgen en dadels flink bijstaan met raad en daad opdat we er later ook kunnen van, en ik citeer zijn woorden, "profiteren". Wat er te profiteren valt,  is me niet zo direkt duidelijk. Misschien woestijnzand invoeren om ons Noordzeestrand op te hogen ? Enfin,die twee figuren uit de Muppet show, Pal & Jas hebben hun ding weer kunnen doen. We zijn een pak wetenswaardigheden rijker. Ben benieuwd naar hun volgende aflevering van "Wettenawatte?" Psst :  In Lampedusa zijn er momenteel meer allochtonen dan autochtonen. De vissers aldaar zijn nu op jacht naar bootjes met binnensluipers om hen te verjagen. Inmiddels hebben ze ook in Malta het spek aan hun been. Daar is een boot aangekomen met 550 van die gasten uit Libië. Binnenkort komen ze rechtstreeks naar Zeebrugge. Mvg - senior

HULLE MOES VR 1973 MAAR GEVETO HET...

...it's no use crying over spilt blood...

GALLOWAY OOR GADAFFI

ANIMAL FARM = ANIMAL FARM

Obama's Doctrine of Preemptive War

The "anti-war candidate" puts some multilateral lipstick on George W. Bush's war pig

Matt Welch | March 29, 2011

Anyone who was expecting the "anti-war" presidential candidate Barack Obama to be anything like an anti-war president was simply not paying sufficient attention to how he campaigned. It wasn't just the daily vows to escalate in Afghanistan, or the repeated promises to act "unilaterally" if need be. It was, as then-ReasonAssociate Editor David Weigel reported in 2008, that "he has called for, or retroactively endorsed, interventions in Zimbabwe, Pakistan, and Sudan."

So we knew that President Obama would not be anti-war, but rather anti-dumb-war, however defined by his braintrust. And we further knew that said braintrust would largely be copacetic with the post-Munich, post-Bosnia worldview of Madeleine Albright, Samantha Power, and a generation of foreign policy minds flexible enough to oppose the war in Iraq almost at least half as vociferously as they endorsed war in Kosovo.

But what we didn't know was, where do they draw the all-important line of whether and when the United States should use deadly force? Until last night, that is.

"We knew that...if we waited one more day, Benghazi, a city nearly the size of Charlotte, could suffer a massacre that would have reverberated across the region and stained the conscience of the world," the president said last night. "It was not in our national interest to let that happen. I refused to let that happen....Some nations may be able to turn a blind eye to atrocities in other countries. The United States of America is different. And as president, I refused to wait for the images of slaughter and mass graves before taking action."

Do you remember when Democrats recoiled at the doctrine of preemptive war? Last night was the final reminder that, with the exception of some diehards like Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), Democrats when wielding power are only against Republican preemptive war. If anything, they are more promiscuous in choosing conflicts than their warmaking brethren on the other side of the aisle; just less likely to go all-in with ground troops. Does it satisfy the consciences of Bush-hating interventionists merely that Obama made more nice-sounding comments about subsuming America's lead role within a United Nations-blessed coalition? And have they thought through even for one moment the kind of bar-lowering precedent they're setting for the next Republican president to send ground troops into wherever the hell?

This latter question is not rhetorical, and the answer to it is occasion for despair. Here's what Deputy National Security Adviser Denis McDonough told the Associated Press in an article published yesterday: "[W]e don't get very hung up on this question of precedent because we don't make decisions about questions like intervention based on consistency or precedent. We base them on how we can best advance our interests in the region."

Set aside the administration's ever-elastic definition of "interests," and instead grok this: The Democratic foreign policy best and brightest have admittedly adopted as their causus belli for dropping bombs on a sovereign country the same test that former Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart used for pornography: They know it when they see it. As for the rest of us taxpaying, war-weary plebes, we'll receive an "update" from the president now and then to let us know where his own eyes have taken him next.

So what's the danger of selectively and opportunistically preventing massacres? In Obama's relentless Third Way or Goldilocks-style interventionism—in which he's constantly taking some mythical middle road between the never-existing option of "turn[ing] away from the world" and a more plausible John McCain-style unrestrained war—there are always the dangers of an undefined mission, a fraying coalition, and a potential stalemate that exposes the faultline between a U.S.-led military action that falls short of beheading Libya's leader and an official U.S. policy that aims to accomplish precisely that task through some kind of non-military means.

But those are short-term concerns that may all turn out as well as can be expected. The medium-term issue is whether Washington has now irreversibly thumbed the scale on Arab Spring, making a complicated, sometimes thrilling and sometimes harrowing story of cross-border liberation into a conventional up-down question of America's will and blatant inconsistency on human rights. You could see that mission creep last night in Obama's own remarks, when he said things like, "I made it clear that Qaddafi had lost the confidence of his people and the legitimacy to lead, and I said that he needed to step down from power." And you could especially see it when he gave a stirring and inaccurate Bush-like boast that "wherever people long to be free, they will find a friend in the United States." (Tell it to the poor saps who live in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, Mr. President.)

The Arab Spring, if the history of post-communist Europe is any guide (and it may not be!), will be successful in proportion to the ownership that the post-totalitarian countries have of their own revolutions and transitions. Injecting the overwhelming force of America into that process will, I think, delay, and not speed up, the eventual and hopefully inevitable Liberation Day.

And for those Democrats who are either cheering on or grimly supporting the president's actions, just remember this: Unless a Ron Paul-type miraculously emerges from the GOP field, the next Republican president now has an even lower bar than before when it comes to launching a preemptive war. There's a reason why the biggest fans of last night's speech were hawks like William Kristol: If you didn't like Iraq, you really won't like Iran. And when that day comes, please don't debase yourselves by crying crocodile tears over the Constitution, or pretending for even one second you are anti-war. 

SLAPPERIG, MAAR KÁN NOG

Completely Surreal Hague Press Stunt

by craig on Mar 29th in Uncategorized

William Hague just gave a press conference on the big Libya conflab in London at which he obviously thought it would look good to be flanked by an Arab. So he sat next to the Prime Minister of Qatar, who solemnly told us that the Libyan people have the right to choose their own leadership. Fucking QATAR! An absolute monarchy.

This is from the State Department’s annual Human Rights Report 2009:

The emir exercises full executive power. The 2005 constitution provides for continued hereditary rule by the emir’s male branch of the Al-Thani family. Shari’a (Islamic law) is the main source of legislation. The emir approves or rejects legislation after consultation with the appointed 35-member Advisory Council and cabinet. There are no elections for national leadership, and the law forbids political parties

Rather amusingly, but completely wrongly, the State Department call this unmitigated hereditary autocracy a “constitutional monarchy”. It is also worth noting that the State Department has listed Qatar as a Tier 3 – ie absolutely terrible – country for human trafficking in bonded domestic servants. Homosexuality is illegal as are Christian religious symbols, even in churches.

Of course the chief decision of the London conference was that Qatar will take over Libya’s oil resources. I am still astounded that anybody can still be taken in by all the bullshit about democracy and human rights, with Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other human rights abusers in the thick of the politicking.

Finally, hours of broadcast coverage have been given to the poor woman who says she was raped by Gadaffi’s militia. I am inclinded to believe her, but it sticks in my throat that it is paraded everywhere as a justification for war. As detailed inMurder in Samarkand, rape by the security forces is a constant occurrence in our ally Karimov’s Uzbekistan, and neither these outraged western journalists nor western governments have ever said a single word about it.