Mach Report This Comment
Date: March 23, 2011 05:38AM

[www.lewrockwell.com]

A Foolish and Unconstitutional War

by Patrick J. Buchanan


"The president does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation."

So said constitutional scholar and Senator Barack Obama in December 2007 – the same man who, this weekend, ordered U.S. air and missile strikes on Libya without any authorization from Congress.

Obama did win the support of Gabon in the Security Council, but failed with Germany. With a phone call to acquitted rapist Jacob Zuma, he got South Africa to sign on, but not Brazil, Russia, India or China. All four abstained.

This is not the world's war. This is Obama's war.

The U.S. Navy fired almost all the cruise missiles that hit Libya as the U.S. Air Force attacked with B-2 bombers, F-15s and F-16s.

"To be clear, this is a U.S.-led operation," said Vice Adm. William Gortney.

"In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies," said Winston Churchill. Obama is a quick study.

In his Friday ultimatum, he said, "We are not going to use force to go beyond a well-defined goal – specifically, the protection of civilians in Libya."

Why, then, did we strike Tripoli and Moammar Gadhafi's compound?

So many U.S. missiles and bombs have struck Libya that the Arab League is bailing out. League chief Amr Moussa has called an emergency meeting of the 22 Arab states to discuss attacks that have "led to the deaths and injuries of many Libyan civilians." We asked for a no-fly zone, said Moussa, not the "bombardment of civilians."

What caused Obama's about-face from the Pentagon position that imposing a no-fly zone on Libya was an unwise act of war?

According to The New York Times, National Security Council aide Samantha Power, U.N. envoy Susan Rice and Hillary Clinton flipped him. The three sisters feel guilty about us not invading Rwanda when Hutu were butchering Tutsi.

They did not want to be seen as standing by when Gadhafi took Benghazi, which he would have done, ending the war in days, had we not intervened.

While Obama is no longer saying Gadhafi must go, Hillary insists that has to be the outcome. No question who wears the pants here.

As U.S. prestige and power are committed, if Gadhafi survives, he will have defeated Obama and NATO. Hence, we must now finish him and his regime to avert a U.S. humiliation and prevent another Lockerbie.

The Arab League and African Union are denouncing us, but al-Qaida is with us. For eastern Libya provided more than its fair share of jihadists to kill U.S. soldiers in Iraq. And jihadists are prominent among the rebels we just rescued.

Yet, even as Obama was announcing U.S. intervention to prevent "unspeakable atrocities," security police of Yemen's President Saleh, using sniper rifles, massacred 45 peaceful protesters and wounded 270. Most of the dead were shot in the head or neck, the work of marksmen.

Had Mahmoud Ahmadinejad done this in Tehran, would U.S. protests have been so muted?

In Bahrain, 2,000 Saudi soldiers and troops from emirates of the Gulf have intervened to save King Khalifa, whose throne was threatened by Shia demonstrators in the Pearl roundabout in Manama. The town square was surrounded, the Shia driven out, the 300-foot Pearl monument destroyed.

This crackdown on Bahrain's Shia has been denounced by Iran and Iraq. Grand Ayatollah Sistani, most revered figure in the Shia world, ordered seminaries shut in protest. This is serious business.

Not only are the Shia dominant in Iran, and in Iraq after the Americans ousted the Sunni-dominated Baathist Party, they are heavily concentrated in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia, where the oil deposits are located.

They are a majority in Bahrain, where the U.S. Fifth Fleet is based. Shia Hezbollah is now the dominant military and political force in Lebanon.

Riyadh must have regarded the threat to Bahrain a grave one to have so exacerbated the religious divide and raised the specter of sectarian war.

Yet, again, why are we bombing Libya?

Gadhafi did not attack the West. He faced an uprising to dethrone him and rallied his troops to crush it, as any ruthless ruler would have done. We have no vital interest in who wins his civil war.

Indeed, Gadhafi has asked of Obama, "If you found them taking over American cities by force of arms, what would you do?"

Well, when the South fired on Fort Sumter, killing no one, Abraham Lincoln blockaded every Southern port, sent Gen. Sherman to burn Atlanta and pillage Georgia and South Carolina, and Gen. Sheridan to ravage the Shenandoah. He locked up editors and shut down legislatures and fought a four-year war of reconquest that killed 620,000 Americans – a few more than have died in Gadhafi's four-week war.

Good thing we didn't have an "international community" back then.

The Royal Navy would have been bombarding Lincoln's America.

quasi Report This Comment
Date: March 23, 2011 11:17PM

Barry sure is screwin' the pooch on this. At least there were perceived, plausible threats to the U.S. when we went into Afghanistan and Iraq but this is just nonsense spending hunderds of millions if not billions more on these attacks in Libya while there's a huge financial crisis at home - there's the threat to the U.S.

Mach Report This Comment
Date: March 23, 2011 11:57PM

Isn't it funny that our government goes around "helping" people of the world become more "free" while at the same time taking more and more of ours away to protect us from those other countries that don't like us there 'helping" them.... and killing their local citizens.

"At least there were perceived, plausible threats to the U.S. when we went into Afghanistan and Iraq..."

Good one, perception and plausibility, a public relations heaven. It bothers me a little how you just blow off the Iraq and Afghan confrontations that had no legitimacy and are what helped put us into our current financial ruins... if you would have listened to Dr.Paul just a few years ago you would have seen all of this bullshit we are in up to our ears in, play by play, quit living in denial

And yes, you have to look around and see what "they" are doing is not stupidity, it is an agenda, we are at a weak point, financially and socially... whipped into line... they just do as they please, even more than they use to.

quasi Report This Comment
Date: March 24, 2011 01:47AM

I said perceived and plausible, not definite.

jgoins Report This Comment
Date: March 24, 2011 11:19AM

So Mach, I guess if someone came into your home and murdered one of your kids you would not want to do anything about it and just hope the police do? You would just let anyone murder our people in the US and just want us to sit on our hands and do nothing about it. How many dead would it take before you would approve retaliation?

quasi Report This Comment
Date: March 24, 2011 12:25PM

He's more afraid of the boogieman than anything there is actual evidence of.

Mach Report This Comment
Date: March 24, 2011 04:06PM

jgroins, shut the fuck up, quit making it up as you go... I don't start fights, but, I don't take shit either.

You guys, again, are a joke and one of the reasons this government is so fucked up, a bunch of patsies.

Patriot

jgoin, why don't you ever Pray?

quasi Report This Comment
Date: March 24, 2011 04:58PM

Does little Machie feel better now that he's had his hissy fit of swearing and name calling? No wonder no one takes you seriously and that just gets you even hotter under the collar.

Mrkim Report This Comment
Date: March 24, 2011 05:07PM

I don't need to listen to anyone to come to the conclusion that gun barrel diplomacy practiced on foreign soil leads to more enemies than friends. Nor does it take much of a stretch to understand that these actions also have costs in both human life and financial impact.

The bottom line is if we choose to "defend oppressed people", where should it start and end, who determines the beginning and ending points and strategies, and what will be the determining factors in making such decisions? All in all that's way too slippery a slope to reasonably venture forth onto.

The problem is the world cop routine doesn't work, never has and never will. Unless your goal is to encourage enemies while racking up dead Americans and spending billions upon billions of dollar$ doing it, you'll never be successful.

Then again, if that type of outcome is the goal, who would actually be in support of it? The simple answer is NOT a large segment of the American populace. Sadly, our elected offials just turn a deaf ear to what the average citizen thinks, much less really cares about

Mach Report This Comment
Date: March 24, 2011 05:16PM

Wow, quasimotto, quit trying to feed yourself some points so that you don't have to pay attention to what you are actually ignoring.

Have you always wanted to be a blind follower, or is that just something that happened by accident.

jgoins Report This Comment
Date: March 25, 2011 12:16PM

Personally I have no problem with war. What I have a problem with is when we win the war we give the countries back to them instead of keeping them like in the old days. I also have no problem with exterminating vermin. Just don't go around saying the leader is not a target. Make him a target and get him quick and violent. I also have no problem with turning the entire middle east to a sheet of glass except maybe for the radiation left in the atmosphere. Mach if you will notice I never resort to calling you names even though you might deserve a few. Debate is not about name calling it is merely stating facts or even your own beliefs and defending them. If you can't defend your beliefs without getting angry and resorting to name calling then your beliefs must be indefensible.