Taki's Mag

It looks as if Washington has fallen into another trap with Obama’s move on Libya. Yes, the Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi is a nutcase and a bloodstained dictator who deserves a merciless kick in the pants and to be bastinadoed within an inch of his life. But the important question remains: Does the Washington-enabled armed intervention into Libya make sense? Patrick Buchanan has argued from the start that military intervention would be a bad idea. Buchanan is unfortunately correct—unfortunate because it would be nice to see Washington honestly come to the rescue of innocent people who need a helping hand.

In the popular imagination, humanitarian intervention motivates the affair. Obama has used it exclusively to justify his policy. Upon his return from South America, he addressed the issue at the National Defense University on March 28:

“...at this particular moment, we were faced with the prospect of violence on a horrific scale. We had a unique ability to stop that violence: an international mandate for action…the support of Arab countries, and a plea for help from the Libyan people themselves….I refused to wait for the images of slaughter and mass graves before taking action.”

We are supposed to buy that at face value.

Prior to leaving for South America, Obama proclaimed strong endorsement for UN Security Council Resolution 1973 and then issued an ultimatum:

“The resolution that passed lays out very clear conditions…these terms are not negotiable….If Gaddafi does not comply with the resolution…the resolution will be enforced through military action.”

Armed with the UNSC resolution, Obama went to war and departed for South America. That was that.

Team Obama saw no requirement to get congressional authorization of any kind before attacking another country. This should not be surprising at this late date. It reflects the reality of the Imperial Presidency. Obama’s nonchalance irks paleoconservative Patrick Buchanan, progressive Congressman Dennis Kucinich, and libertarian Congressman Ron Paul. But if you think it is an impeachable offense, you are living in a dream world.

This sort of cavalier, unilateral action by the White House has been around for a long time and is therefore condoned. It started with the Spanish-American War of 1898, if not before. The 20th century’s two World Wars were presidential wars, driven by a private White House agenda kept hidden from Congress and the American people. Declarations of war in 1917 and 1941 by the Congress were legal afterthoughts. By design and incendiary policies, Presidents Wilson and Roosevelt made war inevitable. In FDR’s case, he deliberately provoked it.

The phenomenon has come to be called “liberal interventionism” which predates the neocons, and it is taken for granted by the Washington establishment. We have to improve the world and make it over in our own image. All of this would be wonderful were it not so hypocritical and ridiculous. At the same time Obama expresses humanitarian concern for Libyan civilians, he has presided over a greatly expanded campaign of drone attacks in the wilds of Pakistan, outdoing anything perpetrated by Dick Cheney and his sidekick, G. W. Bush. These attacks have resulted in the massacre of hundreds, if not thousands, of defenseless civilians. It is called collateral damage. It has made a lot of enemies for America in that part of the world. It has helped destabilize Pakistan and radicalize a sizable portion of its population.

This is something that evolved from the 9/11 attacks, like artificially low interest rates and the resultant 2008 Wall Street financial crisis. Tellingly, Peace Prize Obama made an effort to explain the background and legal justification for his AfPak war policy in his West Point speech of December 1st, 2009: “Just days after 9/11, Congress authorized the use of force against al-Qaeda and those who harbored them—an authorization that continues to this day.” In other words, the authorization for war in the Middle East is open-ended, to be determined and interpreted by the White House as it sees fit. This includes US air attacks in Pakistan or anywhere else. No further authorization is needed.

With Libya, the White House has gone one step beyond. Obama is utilizing the fig leaf of a non-unanimous UN resolution. He bypasses the US Congress entirely. This is a further precedent for future wars of choice by the executive branch with no oversight whatsoever. Anything goes. My guess is that the White House, having been blindsided by events in Egypt, Tunisia, and Bahrain, wants to co-opt the so-called “Arab Spring” going forward. Washington wants to take credit for this spontaneous movement, to channel and control it. Washington gave Mubarak and Gaddafi wholehearted support for years; the former because he was in bed with Israel, the latter because he sat on an ocean of oil. Now they are expendable simply because they have outlived their usefulness or viability.

As a counter-policy, let’s first stop telling lies and do no harm to the people on the ground. Veteran foreign policy observer William Pfaff prudently warned of the Libyan ramifications on March 8, prior to events careening out of control:

“...military intervention is highly destructive. A no-fly zone sounds sensible and prudent, but the U.S….does not intervene anywhere without first suppressing all possible defensive threats…. Hence, a NATO or U.S. no-fly zone would be preceded by days if not weeks of systematic bombardment…with much ‘collateral damage’ and many civilian casualties. It is not a humanitarian policy.”

To date, there has already been substantial destruction of infrastructure and adverse consequences for civilians due to the fighting and bombing. The Libyan economy is in shambles. Foreign corporations and workers have rushed to the exits. Food and medicine are in short supply. We may be on the threshold of a humanitarian disaster. What is the plan in the event Gaddafi, his family, and their tribe hunker down? Conservative MP Rory Stewart offers further insights and warnings—”Here we go again”—in the current issue of the London Review of Books.

This past weekend produced an informative article in The New York Times concerning French President Nick Sarkozy and the boulevardier “philosopher” Bernard-Henri Lévy. According to this report, it was these two social climbers’ joint leadership which brought about the Western intervention in Libya. Although Monsieur BHL is considered to be a charlatan and a jackass by some, that does not rule out the possibility that he could be right on this issue. The article tells a credible story, not denied by the principals, that it was the grandstanding Lévy who persuaded the hyperactive Sarkozy who persuaded the smooth-talking Obama to jump into Libya. At bottom, this was a French démarche, with Obama providing the necessary military firepower and the UNSC enabling.

If so, I’m all for it. I mean, I would have been all in favor of letting the French, the Brits, and the Italians take care of this matter. They have enough firepower, at least when it comes to Libya. The Mediterranean should be considered a European lake, and Libya is a former Italian colony. My guess is that Hillary and Obama could not stand the idea. The notion of Europe actually doing something on its own for a change was anathema and a threat to the Washington foreign-policy establishment. Team Obama had to get involved. Their egos demanded it. So here we are, for better or worse.