Bulletin

Have You Seen This Man?

An American-born man, Barack Hussein Obama, is wanted for questioning in connection with the continuing destruction of Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Pakistan, and Somalia, and genocide in Yemen. He's regarded as extremely dangerous and is at all times accompanied by heavily armed men. He may be wearing a Nobel Peace Prize medal.

If you see him, exercise caution.

Do not call the authorities.

Put This on Your Resume, Mrs. Clinton

Can you imagine Hillary Clinton sitting in judgment over who is and is not qualified to be president? 

Ponder this: in 2011 ISIS was not in Libya, first, because Libya was not an open war zone and, second, because ISIS did not exist. Then the US, at Clinton's insistence, bombed Libya, helping to overthrow the government, while fomenting a jihadist war against the Syrian government. Today the US is fighting ISIS in Libya, Syria, Iraq, and elsewhere. 

Put that on your famous resume, Mrs. Clinton. 

Hillary Clinton: Least Fit of All

Even considering that no one is fit to be president -- in that no one should be able to command a state, which rules by threatening and committing violence against innocents -- Hillary Clinton is especially unfit. No one who has done what she has done as a government official should be rewarded with power.

TGIF: The Wickedness of Foreign Policy

If you want to see how inhumane people can be, just watch those who make and execute foreign policy. We could spend all day discussing the cruelties that politicians and bureaucrats commit against people who live inside the United States. Think how many are caged like wild animals because they manufacture, sell, or consume disapproved substances; gamble where government has forbade it; traded sexual services for money; possessed a gun they weren't "supposed" to possess; etc. ad infinitum. Naturally, America leads the world in locking up people.

Foreign Policy Failure Everywhere

If one tried to design a foreign policy to embroil Americans in endless conflicts that would otherwise be quite remote, one could hardly do better than recent presidents of the United States. What could you do that these men have not done to keep Americans mired in distant turmoil?

Read it here.

Op-ed: More U.S. Intervention in Libya?

Except for the 2012 deadly attacks on the U.S. diplomatic mission and CIA annex in Benghazi, Libya has dropped out of American news coverage since President Obama and NATO’s so-called humanitarian intervention in 2011. The American public has been led to believe that except for that terrorist outburst, things have been going pretty well in the country formerly ruled by Muammar Qaddafi.

So it might come as a surprise that Obama has sent over 200 marines along with Osprey aircraft to Sicily in case the American embassy in Tripoli has to be evacuated.

Read about it here.

Blowback in Libya

Reporter Pepe Escobar provides good perspective on the violence in Libya: "Mr Blowback rising in Benghazi."

"As We Search for Monsters, We Create Them"

When a country conducts foreign policy like the United States, you really can't be shocked when violence is directed toward its officials.

As former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia Charles W. Freeman Jr. said recently:

‎Ironically, as we "search abroad for monsters to destroy," we are creating them – transforming our foreign detractors into terrorists, multiplying their numbers, intensifying their militancy, and fortifying their hatred of us. The sons and brothers of those we have slain know where we are. They do not forget. No quarter is given in wars of religion. We are generating the very menace that entered our imaginations on 9/11.

Moon of Alabama has it right:

Those lovable rebels that heroically dragged Gaddhafi's body through the streets of Libya's are now "thugs" for doing the same to the U.S. ambassador. This is obviously a self inflicted wound. . . .

The killing of the U.S. ambassador in Libya will make further U.S. support for the insurgency in Syria, which is also supported by Al Qaeda and by Libyan Salafist fighters, more unlikely. One might even hope that this incident will lead to a complete turn around of current U.S. policies towards Syria. Hillary Clinton's and the other state department furies who had urged the U.S. to attack Libya and who are also behind the drive against Syria are now confronted with the ruins of their policies. They carry at least some blame for yesterday's deaths.

I'm reminded of the great line from the movie War Games:

The only winning move is not to play.

And guess who else got it right . . . again?

Op-ed: Libya Is Nothing for Obama to Be Proud Of

Barack Obama will no doubt list the overthrow of Muammar Qaddafi in Libya as one of his foreign-policy triumphs. But anyone paying close attention will realize that Obama should be ashamed of what he did. Indeed, Congress should be inquiring whether he committed an impeachable offense.

Read the full op-ed, "Libya Is Nothing for Obama to Be Proud Of."

Op-Ed: Obama's War Is Peace

President Obama demonstrates his utter contempt for the American people — and the law — when he says the War Powers Resolution does not apply to his intervention in Libya because, as the White House put it, “U.S. operations do not involve sustained fighting or active exchanges of fire with hostile forces, nor do they involve U.S. ground troops.”

Apparently bombing military forces and government facilities while taking sides in a foreign country’s civil war no longer constitutes participation in hostilities. Obama apparently read Orwell’s 1984 ... and learned the wrong lesson.

Read the full op-ed here.

Update: This op-ed was written before the New York Times revealed that Obama ignored the judgment of top Pentagon and Justice Department lawyers that the Libyan adventure indeed falls under the War Powers Resolution.

Killing Them Softly

The White House says the Libya intervention is not subject to the War Powers Resolution because what the U.S. government is doing there -- sending killer drones and providing intelligence for other NATO air assaults on Qaddafi's forces and residence -- doesn't constitute "hostilities."

Really. The spokesman said that. With a straight face. Read about it here.

As I've long said, if you want to make sense of government statements, keep one thing in mind: They think we are morons.

Op-ed: Obama Flouts the War Powers Resolution

NATO announced that the Libyan intervention will be extended for another three months. So what President Obama said would be a matter of days, not weeks, will in fact last many months. It’s safe to assume that Western powers will be meddling there a year from now.

One thing we know for sure, however, is that the U.S. intervention is doubly illegal. Obama had no legal authority to enter the war, and given that he entered it anyway, the 1973 War Powers Resolution required that on May 20 — 60 days after the intervention began — Obama either procure authorization from Congress or cease all operations.

Read the full op-ed here.

TGIF: Lawless Government

Everyone pays lip service to the rule of law. Indeed I’ve never heard of anyone rejecting it as undesirable. (It has been called impossible under prevailing circumstances but that is a different point.) So why is the principle so flagrantly violated with almost no public outrage?

Take President Obama’s intervention in the Libyan civil war. Even if we grant that he could legally enter that conflict by his own unilateral decision – a big if, which we’ll explore below – the War Powers Resolution of 1973 requires him after 60 days to cease operations or ask Congress for authorization to continue. One week ago today the clock ran out on the Libyan intervention, yet Obama has neither ceased operations nor asked for authorization.

He’s violated the law.

The rest of TGIF is here.

Op-Ed: Emperor Obama

We were warned. “Who can deny but the president general will be a king to all intents and purposes, and one of the most dangerous kind too; a king elected to command a standing army.... The President- general, who is to be our king after this government is established, is vested with powers exceeding those of the most despotic monarch we know of in modern times.... I challenge the politicians of the whole continent to find in any period of history a monarch more absolute....”

The rest is here.

Show Us the Evidence

President Obama says he had bomb Libya to prevent Col. Qaddafi from massacring the people of Benghazi. Really? Where's the evidence that this was in the cards? Steve Chapman says it runs against the claim. But Obama asks for trust, and his Progressive supporters are mostly willing to give it.

Read about it here.

Still Making No Sense

Barack Obama says the Libyan intervention is necessary to save innocent civilians from slaughter. He also says that since Qaddafi is the source of the threat, he has to go. But, Obama adds, the U.S. military cannot directly effect regime change (no boots on the ground) because that would "splinter" the coalition (NATO and Arab League) that he takes so much pride in.

This makes no sense. Is the coalition an end in itself? Why should the humanitarian mission that Obama says motivates the intervention take a back seat to the coalition's preservation? If keeping the coalition intact means the deaths of many civilians, what kind of humanitarian mission is this?

That Obama's case for taking sides in this civil war is riddled with such unanswerable questions is a sign that he is not leveling with the American people. The reason he cannot level with them is that he's trying to do incompatible things: serve the interests of the Empire, create a legacy as a humanitarian, and keep his Progressive base in line. (The base might go for a humanitarian mission as long as it's part of an "international" effort.)

This intervention has nothing to do with humanitarianism -- which is not to say that would justify U.S. involvement. This is about the U.S. government's claim to be the ultimate keeper of order in the world, with "order" being whatever condition serves the political-economic interests of the ruling elite.

Rizzo on Libya

Mario Rizzo's "Libya and the Rule of Law" is not to be missed.

Rizzo makes many good points, and any self-described advocate of limited government who supports Obama's Libyan intervention must answer them or shut the hell up. As Rizzo notes, the NATO treaty signed by the Senate after World War II says specific things, none of which would make NATO an all-purpose global police force at the disposal of the American president whenever the humanitarian impulse hits him. This intervention is an outrageous breach of the rule of law that everyone pays homage to, and there should be legal consequences for the perpetrator. That means impeachment.

Unsorted Thoughts on Libya

Jacob Sullum put it well when he wrote, “Obama claims 'we cannot stand idly by when a tyrant tells his people that there will be no mercy.' Yes, we can, and we often do."

I’d only add this: Some of “our” best friends have been tyrants (sometimes called prime ministers and presidents) who treat “their” people without mercy or justice. Must I really name them?

Empire apologist Jeffrey Goldberg excuse this under the label “strategic hypocrisy.” “We’re all he adults,” he says. In other words, those who demand principled consistency are immature.

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Anyone who thinks that Obama’s intervention in the Libyan civil war is motivated by humanitarianism is clearly unfamiliar with the history of U.S. foreign policy. Please do some reading. I modestly suggest that here’s a good place to start. On Libya specifically see Pepe Escobar’s analysis. There’s plenty more at Antiwar.com.

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Imagine that Abraham Lincoln were doing today what he did 150 years ago to prevent the South from breaking away from the Union. Would Obama (or another past president), as head of a hypothetical superpower, have intervened to stop him? Or would he have assisted Lincoln in his violence against the secessionists? It would have depended on the particular interests of the ruling elite.

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Why do the media insist on calling what the U.S. government has done a “no-fly zone”? It was far more than that from day one, unless Qaddafi has figured out how to make tanks and soldiers fly.

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The mildest thing you can say about the Libyan intervention is that it's unconstitutional. And the war powers act is a joke.

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Republicans lie us into wars with the word "security." Democrats lie us into war with the word "humanitarian." That’s the two-party system: a choice between two rationalizations for empire.

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A NATO war is a U.S. war. NATO has always been an American tool. The Supreme Commander, Europe, is an American admiral. This is not a handoff. It’s a smokescreen to serve Obama’s political interests.

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The Arab League is a bunch of autocratic nations led by Saudi Arabia, one of America’s staunchest client states. The League’s request for a Western-imposed no-fly zone in Libya means little. It is reasonable to suspect the request was part of a deal involving the Saudi intervention on behalf of the king of Bahrain, who is violently putting down a popular majority Shiite uprising. Besides, most Arab leaders despise Qaddafi. He has insulted them in the past. He’s called some of them “women” because of their robes.

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Pro-Obama commentators, the ones on MSNBC in particular, have disgracefully taken the easy way out. Instead of examining the issues involved in the intervention, they prefer to mock Republicans as flip-flopping hypocrites. Granted, they’re flip-flopping hypocrites (with one exception). But what about the intervention?! Rachel Maddow’s commentary was the most ridiculous. Obama is different from her predecessor, she said, because he was reluctant to intervene. How do we know? The White House keeps telling us, she said. Seriously! She also said that one of the best things Obama did was not to give solemn explanation to the American people from the Oval Office like all his predecessors did when they intervened in a foreign country. Really!

Do these people ever listen to themselves?

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Why doesn’t Obama bribe Qaddafi to move to Afghanistan and make him president?

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Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki apparently has Obama’s okay to violently put down popular protests against his regime. Democracy is in the eye of the beholder.

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Why are the Chinese rulers willing to lend the U.S. government money to intervene in Libya (and all the other countries it’s intervening in)? Please stop!

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I have an idea for a constitutional amendment. Before the U.S. government gets involved in any foreign matter, the public must vote on the name. Operation Odyssey Dawn is ridiculous. Someone said it’s the name of a stripper.

Op-Ed: Obama's Imperial Adventure

President Obama’s entry into Libya’s civil war can be criticized on many levels: The mission as explained is incoherent; Congress was not asked for a declaration of war as the Constitution requires; events in Libya do not affect the security of the American people; bombing another oil-rich Muslim country aggravates the conditions that create anti-American terrorism; killing innocent civilians is nearly inevitable; the rebels’ motives are unclear; mission creep happens; war unleashes unforeseen, uncontrollable forces; the government is already deep in debt, and more.

All these objections are valid — and any one of them should have been enough to scotch the plan.

The rest of the op-ed is here.

UN Authorizes War

"He who mounts a wild elephant goes where the wild elephant goes."

I thought of those words of Randolph Bourne, the Progressive who became disillusioned by his fellow Progressives' enthusiasm for U.S. entry into World War I, when I heard that the UN Security Council, led by the Obama administration, voted to authorize "all necessary measures" to protect civilians against Libyan Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi.

All necessary measures.

Advocates of liberty, not to mention of decency, wish the Libyan people the best in their courageous struggle against the brutal bastard Qaddafi, but that is no justification for U.S. intervention, even under UN cover. A hundred reasons could be cited, but two points should suffice: The government has no moral right to insert the American people into another Mideast war. Moreover, whatever the Obama administration does will have the foreseeable even if unintended effect of killing and maiming innocent people. When you go to war you release an evil, unpredictable genie from the bottle, and it's difficult to put him back in. In the meantime you do a lot of damage. We need no more enemies in the Muslim world. The U.S. government has wreaked enough havoc -- has spilled enough blood -- there to last a long while.

John Quincy Adams has been quoted in similar contexts countless times, but evidently not enough. America, the then-secretary of state said in 1821,

goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy.

She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all.

She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.

She will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example.

She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom.

The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force....

She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit....

If those words ever really described America, they certainly haven't for a long while. So let's work for a future in which that description applies. We must rise in protest to prevent the Nobel Peace Prize-winning president from making more war.