The illegal war in Libya

[Thanas]

Source

Back in January, 2006, the Bush Justice Department released a 42-page memo arguing that the President had the power to ignore Congressional restrictions on domestic eavesdropping, such as those imposed by FISA (the 30-year-old law that made it a felony to do exactly what Bush got caught doing: eavesdropping on the communications of Americans without warrants). That occurred roughly 3 months after I began blogging, and -- to my embarrassment now -- I was actually shocked by the brazen radicalism and extremism expressed in that Memo. It literally argued that Congress had no power to constrain the President in any way when it came to national security matters and protecting the nation.

To advance this defense, Bush lawyers hailed what they called "the President's role as sole organ for the Nation in foreign affairs"; said the President’s war power inherently as "Commander-in-Chief" under Article II "includes all that is necessary and proper for carrying these powers into execution"; favorably cited an argument made by Attorney General Black during the Civil War that statutes restricting the President's actions relating to war "could probably be read as simply providing 'a recommendation' that the President could decline to follow at his discretion"; and, as a result of all that, Congress "was pressing or even exceeding constitutional limits" when it attempted to regulate how the President could eavesdrop on Americans. As a result, the Bush memo argued, the President had the power to ignore the law because FISA, to the extent it purported to restrict the President's war powers, "would be unconstitutional as applied in the context of this Congressionally authorized armed conflict."

That claim -- that the President and he alone possesses all powers relating to war under the "Commander-in-Chief" clause of Article II -- became the cornerstone of Bush's "ideology of lawlessness." In a post that same month defining that ideology, I argued that this lawlessness was grounded in the September 25, 2001, War Powers memo by John Yoo, which infamously concluded as follows:

In both the War Powers Resolution and the Joint Resolution, Congress has recognized the President's authority to use force in circumstances such as those created by the September 11 incidents. Neither statute, however, can place any limits on the President's determinations as to any terrorist threat, the amount of military force to be used in response, or the method, timing, and nature of the response. These decisions, under our Constitution, are for the President alone to make.

That was the heart and soul of Bush lawlessness: no "statute can place any limits on the President's determinations" as "these decisions, under our Constitution, are for the President alone to make."

Yesterday, Hillary Clinton told the House of Representatives that "the White House would forge ahead with military action in Libya even if Congress passed a resolution constraining the mission." As TPM put it: "the administration would ignore any and all attempts by Congress to shackle President Obama's power as commander in chief to make military and wartime decisions," as such attempts would constitute "an unconstitutional encroachment on executive power." As Democratic Rep. Brad Sherman noted, Clinton was not relying on the War Powers Resolution of 1973 (WPR); to the contrary, her position is that the Obama administration has the power to wage war in violation even of the permissive dictates of that Resolution. And, of course, the Obama administration has indeed involved the U.S. in a major, risky war, in a country that has neither attacked us nor threatened to, without even a pretense of Congressional approval or any form of democratic consent. Whether the U.S. should go to war is a decision, they obviously believe, "for the President alone to make."

Initially, I defy anyone to identify any differences between the administration's view of its own authority -- that it has the right to ignore Congressional restrictions on its war powers -- and the crux of Bush radicalism as expressed in the once-controversial memos by John Yoo and the Bush DOJ. There is none. That's why Yoo went to The Wall Street Journal to lavish praise on Obama's new war power theory: because it's Yoo's theory (as I was finishing this post, I saw that Adam Serwer makes a similar point today). If anything, one could argue that Yoo's theory of unilateral war-making was more reasonable, as it was at least tied to an actual attack on the U.S.: the 9/11 attacks. Here, the Obama administration is arrogating unto the President the unilateral, unrestrained right to start wars in all circumstances, whether or not the U.S. is attacked.

But what Clinton's stated view really harkens back to is the Iran-contra scandal, when the Reagan administration funded the Nicaraguan contras despite an express Congressional prohibition on doing so, and then took the position -- when exposed -- that Congress has no power to restrict its national security decisions. That position was pioneered in 1987 by then GOP Rep. Dick Cheney and his longtime aide David Addington, who wrote a dissenting report to the finding of the Iran-contra committee that the administration's funding of the contras violated the law. As Charlie Savage detailed in his book, Takeover, Cheney insisted that Congress lacked the power to restrict the President's national security power in any way -- i.e., that the prohibition on funding the contras was constitutionally null and void -- and it was this theory of Presidential Omnipotence which laid the groundwork for Bush 43's imperial presidency:

Cheney has been on a thirty-year quest to implement his views of unfettered executive power For example, when it was revealed in 2005 that the Bush administration had been illegally spying on Americans, Cheney responded: "If you want to understand why this program is legal…go back and read my Iran-Contra report." In that report -- authored in 1987 -- Cheney and aide David Addington defended President Reagan by claiming it was "unconstitutional for Congress to pass laws intruding" on the "commander in chief."

Isn't that bolded part -- the self-proclaimed crux of Cheneyite executive power radicalism -- exactly what Hillary Clinton asserted yesterday on behalf of the Obama administration to justify the unauthorized war in Libya? Yes, it is.

The arguments raised to justify the Obama view of his own powers are every bit as frivolous as they were during the Bush years. Many claim that the War Powers Resolution of 1973 allows a President to fight wars for 60 days without Congressional approval, but (a) the Obama administration is taking the position that not even the WPR can constrain the President, and (b) 1541(c) of that Resolution explicitly states that the war-making rights conferred by the statute apply only to a declaration of war, specific statutory authority, or "a national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces." Plainly, none of those circumstances prevail here. That's why the Obama administration has to argue that it is empowered to ignore the WPR: because nothing in it permits the commencement of a war without Congressional approval in these circumstances; to the contrary, it makes clear that he has no such authority in this case (just read 1541(c) if you have any doubts about that).

Then there's the notion that Presidents in the past have started similar wars without Congressional approval. That's certainly true, but so what? The fact that an act is commonplace isn't a defense or justification. That "defense" was also a common refrain of Bush followers to justify their leader's chronic unconstitutional acts and other forms of law-breaking: Lincoln suspended habeas corpus and FDR interned Japanese-Americans, so why are you upset that Bush is acting outside the law? The pervasiveness of this form of thought underscores the dangers of learned acquiescence: once a government engages long enough or pervasively enough in a certain form of criminality or corruption, the citizenry is trained to accept it and collectively ceases to resist it, even learns to embrace it. What Obama is doing in Libya is either lawful or it isn't on its own terms; whether other Presidents in the past have acted similarly (and they have) is irrelevant.

Then there's the claim that the President, as "Commander-in-Chief" under Article II, is vested by the Constitution with the unilateral power to make decisions about America's national security. Leave aside the fact that this premise was the crux of the Bush/Cheney worldview, one which every Good Democrat and Liberal vehemently condemned until recently. Further leave aside the fact that both Obama and Clinton as Senators and presidential candidates insisted exactly the opposite when they specifically argued that Congress could legally require Bush to obtain Congressional approval before bombing Iran and generally that Presidents have no power to start wars without a vote from Congress. It was true during the Bush years and it is true now that this is an absolute distortion of the "Commander-in-Chief" power of Article II.

To say that the President is "Commander-in-Chief" is not to say that he has the power to start wars. That power is expressly assigned to Congress under Article I, Section 8. The "Commander-in-Chief" power means nothing more than, once a war starts, the President is the top General with the power to decide how it is tactically prosecuted. I made this argument over and over during the Bush years because this warped Article II view was the principal Bush/Cheney argument for justifying almost everything they did, and to rebut it, I invariably cited the dissent written by Antonin Scalia -- and joined by John Paul Stevens -- in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, in which the Surpeme Court ruled that the President, as "Commander-in-Chief," has the power to detain even American citizens as "enemy combatants."

Both Scalia and Stevens insisted that any such attempt was plainly unconstitutional, and emphatically rejected the Bush/Cheney (now-Obama/Clinton) view that Presidents have unconstrained national security power under Article II. They explained just how limited of a power the "Commander-in-Chief" clause vests, and that the expansive Bush/Cheney view would replicate the worst excesses of the British King:

"The proposition that the Executive lacks indefinite wartime detention authority over citizens is consistent with the Founders' general mistrust of military power permanently at the Executive’s disposal. . . . No fewer than 10 issues of the Federalist were devoted in whole or part to allaying fears of oppression from the proposed Constitution’s authorization of standing armies in peacetime. Many safeguards in the Constitution reflect these concerns. Congress's authority "[t]o raise and support Armies" was hedged with the proviso that "no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years." U.S. Const., Art. 1, §8, cl. 12. Except for the actual command of military forces, all authorization for their maintenance and all explicit authorization for their use is placed in the control of Congress under Article I, rather than the President under Article II. As Hamilton explained, the President's military authority would be "much inferior" to that of the British King:

"[The Commander-in-Chief power] would amount to nothing more than the supreme command and direction of the military and naval forces, as first general and admiral of the confederacy: while that of the British king extends to the declaring of war, and to the raising and regulating of fleets and armies; all which, by the constitution under consideration, would appertain to the legislature." The Federalist No. 69, p. 357.

A view of the Constitution that gives the Executive authority to use military force rather than the force of law against citizens on American soil flies in the face of the mistrust that engendered these provisions."

That bolded section -- quoting Alexander Hamilton, the founder most enthusiastic of executive power -- is dispositive. The British King could start wars on his own; the American President cannot, as that power is reserved exclusively for Congress. The Bush/Cheney "Commander-in-Chief" view suffered a death blow two years later, in 2006, when the Supreme Court, in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, rejected the claim that the Commander-in-Chief has the unconstrained power to decide how prisoners will be detained during wartime. The Court emphasized "the powers granted jointly to the President and Congress in time of war," and -- citing Youngstown, which rejected Harry Truman's efforts to seize steel mills to support the Koren War in the absence of Congressional authorization -- explicitly held that the President "may not disregard limitations that Congress has, in proper exercise of its own war powers, placed on his powers." The notion that Presidents have unconstrained war powers is an obsolete, discredited relic of the Bush years, no matter how much Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton attempt to revitalize it in pursuit of their own Freedom-Spreading War.

One's views on the desirability of the Libya war have absolutely nothing to do with whether Obama has acted legally and/or whether his theories of presidential power are valid. This, too, should have been decisively settled during the Bush years, when Bush followers invariably argued that Bush was justified in eavesdropping without warrants or torturing because of the good outcomes it produced (Keeping Us Safe) -- as though Presidents have the power to violate laws or transgress Constitutional limits provided they can prove that doing so produces good results. The one and only safeguard against tyranny is that political leaders are subjected to the constraints of the Constitution and law (we're a nation of laws or a nation of men, said Adams: you must choose). To argue that you're supportive of or indifferent to lawless acts because of the good results they produce is simply another way of yearning for a benevolent tyrant (and is another way of replicating the mindset of the Bush follower).

Matt Yglesias is absolutely right when he points out that, in reality, Congress is happy to have the President usurp its powers in these cases because it alleviates them of responsibility to act. But the same was true of the Democratic Congress under Bush, and that didn't justify anything Bush did; it just meant that Congress shared the blame for acquiescing to it. It may be common, and it may produce good outcomes, and it may be a longstanding problem, but there's no question that Obama's commencement of this war without Congressional approval, and especially Hillary Clinton's announcement that Congress has no power to restrict the President in any way, are acts of pure imperial lawlessness. Daniel Larison put it best:

This is an outrageous statement, but it’s entirely consistent with what the administration has been illegally doing for the last 12 days. They seem to believe quite seriously that, as long as they don’t call it a war, it doesn’t fall under any laws regulating war powers or the Constitution. The sliver of good news in all of this is that Obama and his officials are showing such contempt for American law and institutions that they are exposing themselves to a serious political backlash. War supporters won’t be able to hide behind the conceit that the war is legal. As far as U.S. law is concerned, it has never been legal, and only people making the most maximalist claims of inherent executive power can believe otherwise. Anyone who continues to support the war from this point on will be revealed as being either a blind Obama loyalist, an ideological liberal interventionist, or a devotee of the cult of the Presidency.

Most Democrats, liberals, and even traditional conservatives and libertarians purported to find such lawlessness outrageous and dangerous during the Bush years. It isn't any less so now.

[PainRack]

This brings up an interesting matter. Are operations other than war, even if they do involve hostile action now wars as traditionally defined?

[Guardsman Bass]

To be fair to Obama, pretty much every US President from Nixon onward has disputed and ignored the War Powers Resolution of 1973, arguing that it's a violation of the Separation of Powers. The Supreme Court has largely steered clear from ruling on it too.

[Vaporous]

The point is that under the War Powers Act, this is still illegal. And even without the War Powers Act, this would be illegal.

[TheHammer]

The point is that under the War Powers Act, this is still illegal. And even without the War Powers Act, this would be illegal.

The argument is that the Constitution trumps the War Powers Act. Until the Supreme Court takes up the issue, that argument has yet to be tested.

The power of Congress has always been the power of the purse though. If they want military action to stop, they simply stop funding for it.

As an aside, quite frankly to wait for this congress to do anything - we'd probably have to throw in more tax cuts for the rich, and then strip away some more EPA regulations to get anything done. So then it would be debated and filibustered for another few months before finally it gets done.

[Falkenhayn]

Should it be found that the war is illegal, what happens to the commanders? Will they be tried for execution of unlawful orders?

[TheHammer]

Should it be found that the war is illegal, what happens to the commanders? Will they be tried for execution of unlawful orders?

That will never happen. Either part.

[Highlord Laan]

I thought that since this is a NATO operation, the US was obligated to be involved?

[Skylon]

I thought that since this is a NATO operation, the US was obligated to be involved?

Obliged according to what? By letter of treaty, yeah. However, if you are a firm believer in the War Powers Act, and Congress' ability as the sole government entity to be bale to declare war, than it doesn't matter what a treaty says until Congress grants the President the authorization to take military action.

[lance]

I thought that since this is a NATO operation, the US was obligated to be involved?

Obliged according to what? By letter of treaty, yeah. However, if you are a firm believer in the War Powers Act, and Congress' ability as the sole government entity to be bale to declare war, than it doesn't matter what a treaty says until Congress grants the President the authorization to take military action.

Congress gave consent when the ratified the treaty?

[Master of Ossus]

Should it be found that the war is illegal, what happens to the commanders? Will they be tried for execution of unlawful orders?

No. Since they're all federal employees, they'd be entitled to sovereign immunity since they satisfy the requisite test: (1) a reasonable employee in their position would not have known that their actions were clearly illegal, and (2) they acted in good faith and without actual knowledge that their actions were illegal.

[Master of Ossus]

I thought that since this is a NATO operation, the US was obligated to be involved?

Obliged according to what? By letter of treaty, yeah. However, if you are a firm believer in the War Powers Act, and Congress' ability as the sole government entity to be bale to declare war, than it doesn't matter what a treaty says until Congress grants the President the authorization to take military action.

Treaties that are ratified by Congress are co-equal with laws that are passed by Congress, and so they follow the rule that later-in-date statutes or treaties always trump ones that arose before. I believe that the US ratified the NATO treaty in 1949, and the War Powers Act was in 1973, so the War Powers Act would triumph in a challenge against the NATO Treaty (the assumption being that Congress realizes that the treaty and the law conflict, and that it wants the second-in-time to control because it isn't satisfied with the status quo).

However, the argument that the War Powers Act is unconstitutional in its requirement that the President can only commit US Armed Forces abroad with the consent of Congress is extremely powerful. I rather suspect that the Supreme Court would rule that several of its provisions are unconstitutional, if it were ever challenged.

[Skylon]

Treaties that are ratified by Congress are co-equal with laws that are passed by Congress, and so they follow the rule that later-in-date statutes or treaties always trump ones that arose before. I believe that the US ratified the NATO treaty in 1949, and the War Powers Act was in 1973, so the War Powers Act would triumph in a challenge against the NATO Treaty (the assumption being that Congress realizes that the treaty and the law conflict, and that it wants the second-in-time to control because it isn't satisfied with the status quo).

However, the argument that the War Powers Act is unconstitutional in its requirement that the President can only commit US Armed Forces abroad with the consent of Congress is extremely powerful. I rather suspect that the Supreme Court would rule that several of its provisions are unconstitutional, if it were ever challenged.

Agreed. I'm not sure where I sit on this. Is there any evidence that when the War Powers Act was passed that the drafters of that legislation had any inclination to apply it towards NATO and the UN? Their primary concern I thought was to prevent another Vietnam. It's still a conundrum, regardless of intent. I agree if the War Powers Act ever hit the Supreme Court it would be a very interesting day.

This backlash of applying it towards NATO and UN action seems to be a a byproduct of everyone who disagrees with this Obama's actions in Libya (especially right wingers) complaining about "Hurr....we're getting dragged into war, and we'll be under European leadership!" and perhaps rightfully, pissed off members of the left who weren't consulted. I just doubt they'd be having this reaction if this was 30 years ago, under Jimmy Carter and the USSR started rolling tanks into West Germany.

[Zinegata]

Wasn't the Libyan war legitimized by the UN resolution (not that NATO is involved) - which says it supports any means necessary to protect civilians on the ground?

[Thanas]

Agreed. I'm not sure where I sit on this. Is there any evidence that when the War Powers Act was passed that the drafters of that legislation had any inclination to apply it towards NATO and the UN? Their primary concern I thought was to prevent another Vietnam. It's still a conundrum, regardless of intent. I agree if the War Powers Act ever hit the Supreme Court it would be a very interesting day.

Well, considering that there seems to be no clear end in sight and no real political goal as for what happens after Ghaddafi, then I'd suspect getting dragged by presidential fiat into such a war would be covered under it.

I just doubt they'd be having this reaction if this was 30 years ago, under Jimmy Carter and the USSR started rolling tanks into West Germany.

That would have been an attack by the Soviet Union and a whole different matter. This is a (UN authorised) war of aggression against Libya.

[Slacker]

You know, not for nothing, this is an operation that's been going on for, what, like, two weeks? The entire Libyan Civil War has been going on for less than two months? I'd really think the hyperbole of "No end of sight" and both the Iraq War and Vietnam war comparisons are completely off-base when neither are accurate. I mean, does anyone here actually in Europe (really, Germany) think Ghaddafi was a nice guy or not butchering his citizens. I get the reasons Russia and China are opposing action there-realpolitik. I don't get German opposition to the operation there.

[Thanas]

You know, not for nothing, this is an operation that's been going on for, what, like, two weeks? The entire Libyan Civil War has been going on for less than two months? I'd really think the hyperbole of "No end of sight" and both the Iraq War and Vietnam war comparisons are completely off-base when neither are accurate.

Way to miss the point. Nobody knows when starting a war how long it will take. Which is why the war powers act exist.

I don't get German opposition to the operation there.

Germany just does not want to get involved in any foreign wars. That is about it. Whether it is done out of cowardice or because they feel the risk does not justify the rewards is a whole other matter and depends on whether you trust the Government or not. Nobody thinks Gaddafi is a nice guy.

[Simon_Jester]

Treaties that are ratified by Congress are co-equal with laws that are passed by Congress, and so they follow the rule that later-in-date statutes or treaties always trump ones that arose before. I believe that the US ratified the NATO treaty in 1949, and the War Powers Act was in 1973, so the War Powers Act would triumph in a challenge against the NATO Treaty (the assumption being that Congress realizes that the treaty and the law conflict, and that it wants the second-in-time to control because it isn't satisfied with the status quo).

However, the argument that the War Powers Act is unconstitutional in its requirement that the President can only commit US Armed Forces abroad with the consent of Congress is extremely powerful. I rather suspect that the Supreme Court would rule that several of its provisions are unconstitutional, if it were ever challenged.

Agreed. I'm not sure where I sit on this. Is there any evidence that when the War Powers Act was passed that the drafters of that legislation had any inclination to apply it towards NATO and the UN? Their primary concern I thought was to prevent another Vietnam. It's still a conundrum, regardless of intent. I agree if the War Powers Act ever hit the Supreme Court it would be a very interesting day.

Honestly, I don't think it should apply to NATO in its original intended role (mutual defense treaty). Or the UN in its original intended role (organization devoted to preventing wars of aggression and/or atrocities, based on the desire to avert anything like the rise of the WWII dictators).

In those cases, Congress has authorized the use of military force in a specific context established by a treaty framework, for fairly well-defined reasons. The authorization is open-ended, which isn't how the Founding Fathers envisioned it, but "this isn't how George Washington would have wanted it" isn't much of an argument: the Founders didn't foresee a time when the US would be powerful enough to pick and choose its involvement in foreign affairs. They were running a nation which was badly outclassed militarily by most other nations it interacted with. That has changed dramatically, and it's unreasonable for the US to behave as if it hasn't, any more than any other major nation with a powerful military ever did.

And even then, there were very early precedents for Congress authorizing the use of armed force outside the specific framework of declarations of war: various actions against native tribes, the naval wars with the Barbary corsairs, and so on.

So I don't think there's anything wrong with treating congressional ratification of treaties as congressional authorization (or even instruction to wage war when the treaty requires it. It would make signing mutual defense pacts with us rather pointless if the pact didn't commit us to fight when it said we'd fight, after all.


So I think the real question is whether the NATO/UN framework is satisfied: is this a justifiable war given the extent of NATO and the UN's mandates?

[Thanas]

The authorization is open-ended, which isn't how the Founding Fathers envisioned it, but "this isn't how George Washington would have wanted it" isn't much of an argument: the Founders didn't foresee a time when the US would be powerful enough to pick and choose its involvement in foreign affairs. They were running a nation which was badly outclassed militarily by most other nations it interacted with. That has changed dramatically, and it's unreasonable for the US to behave as if it hasn't, any more than any other major nation with a powerful military ever did.

That is an extremely bad argument in light of the fact that the entire political campaigns of Jefferson and Adams consisted of whether to support France or Britain and to what extent. The entire history of the US is a history of if and how much involvement there should be in foreign affairs.

[Simon_Jester]

The authorization is open-ended, which isn't how the Founding Fathers envisioned it, but "this isn't how George Washington would have wanted it" isn't much of an argument: the Founders didn't foresee a time when the US would be powerful enough to pick and choose its involvement in foreign affairs. They were running a nation which was badly outclassed militarily by most other nations it interacted with. That has changed dramatically, and it's unreasonable for the US to behave as if it hasn't, any more than any other major nation with a powerful military ever did.

That is an extremely bad argument in light of the fact that the entire political campaigns of Jefferson and Adams consisted of whether to support France or Britain and to what extent. The entire history of the US is a history of if and how much involvement there should be in foreign affairs.

I disagree about whether that invalidates the point I'm making.

I'd argue that the US didn't have much choice but to get caught up in the Napoleonic Wars. The naval war in the Atlantic directly affected the US merchant marine and there were occasional active military campaigns going on involving the belligerents going on in the Caribbean. In that situation you do have to raise policy questions of the form "how much should we become involved? Should we maintain the strictest neutrality possible, or throw our lot in with one side or the other in hopes of profiting from the effect of the war on the French or British position in North America?"

The US simply did not have the option of ignoring the Napoleonic Wars; they had to have some policy on the subject. But that was because the war had gotten large enough to spread to their doorstep; for almost the entirety of the rest of the 19th century the US generally stayed well out of European conflicts and the wars of imperialism waged in Africa and Asia*. They did so for the good and simple reason that it wasn't their fight, and they had neither means nor motive to intervene in remote foreign countries. It was largely irrelevant to the US who controlled places like Egypt, Constantinople, and assorted bits of Africa, and it would have been impossible for the US to have much effect on the outcome in places like that.

That is what I'm getting at: that the 18th and 19th-century US government did not enter into open-ended treaties binding it to wage war on other continents, signed with people outside the hemisphere. They had a very good reason for not doing so; they'd get squashed, or at least humiliated by their inability to accomplish anything.

I very much doubt that anyone alive in the 1700s could have anticipated a day when it would be viable for the US to do this, as has been done repeatedly in the 20th century. Open-ended commitments to use armed force in remote territories not threatening the US was, I suspect, not considered by the Founders because the idea of the 1800-era US government signing such commitments would be absurd. In and of itself, this does not mean Congress cannot authorize such agreements, which was my point- that open-ended mutual defense pacts and the like are a legitimate use of Congress's war powers.

*Yes, I know this changed in the 1890s with the Spanish-American War, and other events around that time. I said "almost" for a reason.

[Thanas]

I disagree with your assesment, but I do not think I'll convince you of it, and I do not have the time to transcribe the letters of Jefferson at the moment. However, I'll just note that the constitution is one of enumerated powers. If waging war is reserved only for congress, then that is the way it was intended. If you want to change that, there is the option of a consitutional amendment.

Also, your point about defence pacts is completely removed from the actual situation in Libya.

EDIT: Especially with the administration lauding Syria and Saudi-Arabia, you know those nations that too are currently massacring people.

[Big Orange]

EDIT: Especially with the administration lauding Syria and Saudi-Arabia, you know those nations that too are currently massacring people.

The Obama Administration turned a blind eye to House of Saud squashing the Bahrain rebellions since they've supposedly cut a deal with each other, at least according to Asia Times:

Exposed: The US-Saudi Libya deal

You invade Bahrain. We take out Muammar Gaddafi in Libya. This, in short, is the essence of a deal struck between the Barack Obama administration and the House of Saud. Two diplomatic sources at the United Nations independently confirmed that Washington, via Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, gave the go-ahead for Saudi Arabia to invade Bahrain and crush the pro-democracy movement in their neighbor in exchange for a "yes"

vote by the Arab League for a no-fly zone over Libya - the main rationale that led to United Nations Security Council resolution 1973.

The revelation came from two different diplomats, a European and a member of the BRIC group, and was made separately to a US scholar and Asia Times Online. According to diplomatic protocol, their names cannot be disclosed. One of the diplomats said, "This is the reason why we could not support resolution 1973. We were arguing that Libya, Bahrain and Yemen were similar cases, and calling for a fact-finding mission. We maintain our official position that the resolution is not clear, and may be interpreted in a belligerent manner."

As Asia Times Online has reported, a full Arab League endorsement of a no-fly zone is a myth. Of the 22 full members, only 11 were present at the voting. Six of them were Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) members, the US-supported club of Gulf kingdoms/sheikhdoms, of which Saudi Arabia is the top dog. Syria and Algeria were against it. Saudi Arabia only had to "seduce" three other members to get the vote.

Translation: only nine out of 22 members of the Arab League voted for the no-fly zone. The vote was essentially a House of Saud-led operation, with Arab League secretary general Amr Moussa keen to polish his CV with Washington with an eye to become the next Egyptian President.

Thus, in the beginning, there was the great 2011 Arab revolt. Then, inexorably, came the US-Saudi counter-revolution.

Profiteers rejoice
Humanitarian imperialists will spin en masse this is a "conspiracy", as they have been spinning the bombing of Libya prevented a hypothetical massacre in Benghazi. They will be defending the House of Saud - saying it acted to squash Iranian subversion in the Gulf; obviously R2P - "responsibility to protect" does not apply to people in Bahrain. They will be heavily promoting post-Gaddafi Libya as a new - oily - human rights Mecca, complete with US intelligence assets, black ops, special forces and dodgy contractors.

Whatever they say won't alter the facts on the ground - the graphic results of the US-Saudi dirty dancing. Asia Times Online has already reported on who profits from the foreign intervention in Libya (see There's no business like war business, March 30). Players include the Pentagon (via Africom), the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Saudi Arabia, the Arab League's Moussa, and Qatar. Add to the list the al-Khalifa dynasty in Bahrain, assorted weapons contractors, and the usual neo-liberal suspects eager to privatize everything in sight in the new Libya - even the water. And we're not even talking about the Western vultures hovering over the Libyan oil and gas industry.

Exposed, above all, is the astonishing hypocrisy of the Obama administration, selling a crass geopolitical coup involving northern Africa and the Persian Gulf as a humanitarian operation. As for the fact of another US war on a Muslim nation, that's just a "kinetic military action".

There's been wide speculation in both the US and across the Middle East that considering the military stalemate - and short of the "coalition of the willing" bombing the Gaddafi family to oblivion - Washington, London and Paris might settle for the control of eastern Libya; a northern African version of an oil-rich Gulf Emirate. Gaddafi would be left with a starving North Korea-style Tripolitania.

But considering the latest high-value defections from the regime, plus the desired endgame ("Gaddafi must go", in President Obama's own words), Washington, London, Paris and Riyadh won't settle for nothing but the whole kebab. Including a strategic base for both Africom and NATO.

Round up the unusual suspects
One of the side effects of the dirty US-Saudi deal is that the White House is doing all it can to make sure the Bahrain drama is buried by US media. BBC America news anchor Katty Kay at least had the decency to stress, "they would like that one [Bahrain] to go away because there's no real upside for them in supporting the rebellion by the Shi'ites."

For his part the emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al Thani, showed up on al-Jazeera and said that action was needed because the Libyan people were attacked by Gaddafi. The otherwise excellent al-Jazeera journalists could have politely asked the emir whether he would send his Mirages to protect the people of Palestine from Israel, or his neighbors in Bahrain from Saudi Arabia.

The al-Khalifa dynasty in Bahrain is essentially a bunch of Sunni settlers who took over 230 years ago. For a great deal of the 20th century they were obliging slaves of the British empire. Modern Bahrain does not live under the specter of a push from Iran; that's an al-Khalifa (and House of Saud) myth.

Bahrainis, historically, have always rejected being part of a sort of Shi'ite nation led by Iran. The protests come a long way, and are part of a true national movement - way beyond sectarianism. No wonder the slogan in the iconic Pearl roundabout - smashed by the fearful al-Khalifa police state - was "neither Sunni nor Shi'ite; Bahraini".

What the protesters wanted was essentially a constitutional monarchy; a legitimate parliament; free and fair elections; and no more corruption. What they got instead was "bullet-friendly Bahrain" replacing "business-friendly Bahrain", and an invasion sponsored by the House of Saud.

And the repression goes on - invisible to US corporate media. Tweeters scream that everybody and his neighbor are being arrested. According to Nabeel Rajab, president of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, over 400 people are either missing or in custody, some of them "arrested at checkpoints controlled by thugs brought in from other Arab and Asian countries - they wear black masks in the streets." Even blogger Mahmood Al Yousif was arrested at 3 am, leading to fears that the same will happen to any Bahraini who has blogged, tweeted, or posted Facebook messages in favor of reform.

Globocop is on a roll
Odyssey Dawn is now over. Enter Unified Protector - led by Canadian Charles Bouchard. Translation: the Pentagon (as in Africom) transfers the "kinetic military action " to itself (as in NATO, which is nothing but the Pentagon ruling over Europe). Africom and NATO are now one.

The NATO show will include air and cruise missile strikes; a naval blockade of Libya; and shady, unspecified ground operations to help the "rebels". Hardcore helicopter gunship raids a la AfPak - with attached "collateral damage" - should be expected.

A curious development is already visible. NATO is deliberately allowing Gaddafi forces to advance along the Mediterranean coast and repel the "rebels". There have been no surgical air strikes for quite a while.

The objective is possibly to extract political and economic concessions from the defector and Libyan exile-infested Interim National Council (INC) - a dodgy cast of characters including former Justice minister Mustafa Abdel Jalil, US-educated former secretary of planning Mahmoud Jibril, and former Virginia resident, new "military commander" and CIA asset Khalifa Hifter. The laudable, indigenous February 17 Youth movement - which was in the forefront of the Benghazi uprising - has been completely sidelined.

This is NATO's first African war, as Afghanistan is NATO's first Central/South Asian war. Now firmly configured as the UN's weaponized arm, Globocop NATO is on a roll implementing its "strategic concept" approved at the Lisbon summit last November (see Welcome to NATOstan, Asia Times Online, November 20, 2010).

Gaddafi's Libya must be taken out so the Mediterranean - the mare nostrum of ancient Rome - becomes a NATO lake. Libya is the only nation in northern Africa not subordinated to Africom or Centcom or any one of the myriad NATO "partnerships". The other non-NATO-related African nations are Eritrea, Sawahiri Arab Democratic Republic, Sudan and Zimbabwe.

Moreover, two members of NATO's "Istanbul Cooperation Initiative" - Qatar and the United Arab Emirates - are now fighting alongside Africom/NATO for the fist time. Translation: NATO and Persian Gulf partners are fighting a war in Africa. Europe? That's too provincial. Globocop is the way to go.

According to the Obama administration's own official doublespeak, dictators who are eligible for "US outreach" - such as in Bahrain and Yemen - may relax, and get away with virtually anything. As for those eligible for "regime alteration", from Africa to the Middle East and Asia, watch out. Globocop NATO is coming to get you. With or without dirty deals.

Asia Times

I do not sympathise with Gaddafi at all mind you and he's had a long history of belligerence with the Anglo-Americans; the popular uprising within Gaddafi's country has been a better excuse than Saddam's imaginary WMDs to topple him, but letting Bahrain be could backfire in the long run with the heavily armed but inexperienced Saudi military perhaps dealing with years of insurgency after mowing down the street protestors.

[Sea Skimmer]

Of course they've cut a deal, but it was just accepting the reality that Bahrain has been little more then a Saudi protectorate for a very long time. Also remember in Bahrain the protests were not calling for the removal of government initially, and even after killings shifted a fair number of them to that goal, it wasn’t a universal demand. That really tied the hands of the US in the first place.So far we are talking about 1,500 foreign troops in Bahrain, which already had a military that was heavily mercenary equipped. The Gulf Cooperation Council would also be treaty mandated to oppose any US action and the mere threat of this would logically had led to deployment of the entire Peninsula shield force to Bahrain, plus eviction of the US from some of its most important bases. I can't see US pressure breeding anything but hostility unless we committed to a general war with the mid east to knock out Arab royalty once at for all.

Gaddafi was and is, Muammar Gaddafi. I don't see a lot of reason why policy towards Muammar Gaddafi needs to be cloned in deals with other countries or dictatorships. If Muammar Gaddafi escapes from Libya and takes control of Bahrain then the bombing can follow him.

[K. A. Pital]

Gaddafi was and is, Muammar Gaddafi. I don't see a lot of reason why policy towards Muammar Gaddafi needs to be cloned in deals with other countries or dictatorships. If Muammar Gaddafi escapes from Libya and takes control of Bahrain then the bombing can follow him.

How is Gaddafi different from Mubarak, Ben Ali or any other Middle Eastern ruler, anyway? Is it just the name, or the fact that he killed Westerners (well, not he, but his special services anyway)?

Besides, Saudi Arabia to me is fucking ten times more repugnant than Libya. The latter at least has a semblance of female rights and a greater degree of secularization than many other African nations. The former is just horrific as a concept. If Iran is horrible, then so is Saudi Arabia.

It's just the same old tune: the West is right no matter what it does. The West is always right. The excuses can be long-winded, they can be smart or stupid, but there is no essential difference between them. If the West supports dictators, it's right. If it topples dictators, it's right. Also, there are good dictators and bad dictators. The bad ones are those the West decides or wants to remove. The good ones are those which the West doesn't want to remove.

Gaddafi is Gaddafi. The House of Saud is actually almost the same as Gaddafi, if not worse.

[Sea Skimmer]

How is Gaddafi different from Mubarak, Ben Ali or any other Middle Eastern ruler, anyway? Is it just the name, or the fact that he killed Westerners (well, not he, but his special services anyway)?

I guess you missed how Mubarak and Ben Ali didn’t massacre as many people as possible? Nor was either of them openly a raving lunatic while and both left relatively quickly. Yeah that looks like a difference to me. Killing a bunch of US and British citizens is certainly part of it, and reopening relations with Qaddafi was never exactly popular with the US or British population at large either, but as I have said before, rebuffing his offer to abandon chemical weapons would have been just stupid, and the US has been long criticized for long embargoes. I guess being consistent in a policy is bad too hun?

Besides, Saudi Arabia to me is fucking ten times more repugnant than Libya. The latter at least has a semblance of female rights and a greater degree of secularization than many other African nations.

Yes it does, of course it does so in large part because Qaddafi has been paranoid about radical Islam threatening his regime. But that very fact that Libya is established somewhere is what makes intervention useful. Libya doesn’t need nation building, or civilizing, it just needs Qaddafi gone.

The former is just horrific as a concept. If Iran is horrible, then so is Saudi Arabia.

My main problem with Iran has always been that they have similar irrational characters at the top. Take them away and I think the rest of society would eventually sort itself out, certainly it would have an increased ability to try.

Saudi is horrible, but if the people are going along with it to the extent that they do, then not much anyone can do about it rationally. Last I checked people really hated how the US acted in Iraq when the opposition had already been murdered into subjugation leaving no strong group to take charge, and Iraq at least had the Kurds already in open arms.

Now they complain that the US is not taking on three times as many people in a whole array of countries over protests that may or may not call for a government change in one of them… yeah that’s rational all right.

It's just the same old tune: the West is right no matter what it does. The West is always right. The excuses can be long-winded, they can be smart or stupid, but there is no essential difference between them. If the West supports dictators, it's right. If it topples dictators, it's right. Also, there are good dictators and bad dictators. The bad ones are those the West decides or wants to remove. The good ones are those which the West doesn't want to remove.

Saying the west is wrong no matter what it does is just as meaningless a statement as saying it is always right. In fact we all damn well know that people will bitch no matter what the west does, including doing nothing, and that the people who bitch about this bitch because they want that power for themselves. Like say Russia certainly wants power like that back, why else would it be going so far as to buy amphibious assault ships from France for billions of dollars?

But it is amusing to see the complaining go on unchecked when everything is UN approved. Maybe if so much of the world wasn’t completely crippled by internal corruption things would be different and leaving crap to the locals would work. But you all wonder why most of us in the US don’t give a damn what anyone else says? It’s because no matter what we do someone claims it wasn’t 100% idealized and thus wrong. People have been complaining a lot recent that the US wasn’t doing anything in Ivory Coast, acting like the UN didn’t already have a major force in the country with its own air support, its galling how stupid this gets.

Anyway current events still don’t match the questionability of the UN Congo Intervention in 1960, which I might add was carried out almost completely by non western troops and followed on Soviet intervention.

Gaddafi is Gaddafi. The House of Saud is actually almost the same as Gaddafi, if not worse.

The house of Saudi is far more politically astute, and repressive as it is the opposition simply never gains any traction. Saudi has not had a major internal rebellion since the 1970s and even that was localized as I recall. None of the leaders are raving lunatics. I’d love to see them toppled myself but the opportunity has never arisen. I'd also like to see the UN abandon or totally reformed to get away from this absurd era of unworkable international legalism and back to something far more clear cut, but that wont happen. I'd love to go after more dictators, but the opportunities are limited.