As the Libya conflict appears to settle into a potentially protracted stalemate, the memory of President Obama’s demand that Muammar Qaddafi step down from power ”“ essentially a call for regime change ”“ is feeding a debate over what the president will or should do now to influence the outcome.
A growing number of policymakers and regional experts are concluding that a drawn-out war in the midst of a turbulent Middle East would be the worst of all possibilities. And as they do, doubts are mounting over the Obama administration’s decision to take ”“ or at least try to take ”“ a back-seat role among international powers involved in Libya.
Even as Libya’s rebels retreat from gains made last week and Colonel Qaddafi shows no signs of budging from his Tripoli stronghold, a debate builds over what the US should do. One side says Obama is in tune with a majority of Americans who may support the idea of humanitarian intervention, yet who are leery of any deeper involvement of the US in Libya.
For the last four weeks or so, I have been making the same case about Libya over and over and over on this weblog:
1. An air campaign by itself cannot avert a humanitarian crisis.
2. The air campaign will radically exacerbate the humanitarian crisis by bringing about either 1) stalemate or 2) regime collapse followed by internecine civil war.
3. The growing humanitarian crisis induced by the air campaign will eventually force direct ground involvement.
Suddenly the Coalition leadership begins to realize just how much damage has been done. Good intentions mean nothing. Unfortunately, good intentions are all the Coalition brought to this fight. The countries involved wanted to fix a problem yet somehow bloodlessly and painlessly. They didn’t have the courage to get in or the wisdom to stay out. They simply wanted their sterling pure motives to carry the battle. Look what they have wrought.
carl
You don’t start a war and then say “Never mind!” and walk out. Yet Obama did this. You don’t go to war without calculating the cost and having the resolve to win it. Yet Obama did this.
Carl is right. However desirable getting rid of Gaddafi was, the means of doing it were shockingly amateurish and incompetent.
In addition, Obama’s war was illegal and unconstitutional from the standpoint of the US Constitution and law. Not only did Obama not get a declaration of war to launch a deliberate attack on a nation at peace with us, he didn’t bather to even consult the Congress or get any sort of authorizing resolution. As a practical matter, only that has the power to bind the American people to support military action and to spend their blood and treasure, particularly if the struggle is of protracted duration. Without that we are free to walk away at any time. We are not bound to see the thing through.
Obama has acted as nothing more than a tin pot dictator. And now he has walked away from what he started.
#1 Carl – it is extraordinary hearing you apparently making a case for a ground war to which it appears you are viscerally opposed.
#2 Br. Michael
[blockquote]Obama’s war was illegal and unconstitutional from the standpoint of the US Constitution and law.[/blockquote]
and
[blockquote]Obama has acted as nothing more than a tin pot dictator. And now he has walked away from what he started.[/blockquote]
Damned if he does, and damned if he doesn’t apparently.
Oh well.
But never mind, we will just get on with what we started – protecting the citizens of Benghazi as best as we are able, grateful for such assistance as the United States still feels able to offer.
There in no chance of the military situation resolving the political problem, but in the medium term, perhaps even the short term, the financial and sanctions squeeze on the Gaddaffi regime may well as those around them realise that there will be no improvement in their situation while he remains. You may well find that for all the rhetoric that Gaddaffi [who is no fool] realises that, and that is probably the reason behind the increasingly desperate pleas diplomatically including the bizarre letter to President Obama from the Libyan leader yesterday.
3, all Obama had to do was get the proper authorization. My point. And once having done that, and the country having legally decided to do this damn silly thing (Carl’s point), he should not have done in in this damn silly way. Also Carl’s point.
What you don’t do is throw a few bombs around in another country and then walk away.
#5 Br. Michael I agree with your conclusion, but given the vicious criticism he has received and the complete lack of support for the military operation domestically, notwithstanding the humanitarian imperative, I really don’t see that Obama had much option politically.
It is not just Obama who has been flaky in all this.
6, do you not see that a substantial part of Obama’s problem is that he did absolutely nothing to obtain the nation’s backing? Why should the nation back the unilateral decision of a president to attack a country that didn’t attack us? A president that unscrupulously and hypocritically attacked his predecessor for doing the same thing (except Bush did at least get Congressional authorization in advance, but not the declaration of war that he should have), that he himself is doing. In attacking his predecessor Obama articulated a standard that now he ignores.
The president is our chief executive, not our ruler or dictator.
#7 Br. Michael
Internal US matters are a matter for the US, but I do see that you criticise President Obama for ordering military action in just the same way as his predecessors have done, without declaring war. No other country has declared war when supporting the enforcement of the UNSC Resolution.
But do you not see that, the US military having been engaged along with us in enforcing the UN action, that the non stop carping and criticism such as you and carl are still engaging in, is the reason for President Obama’s decision last week to “throw a few bombs around in another country and then walk away”?
3. Pageantmaster[blockquote] it is extraordinary hearing you apparently making a case for a ground war to which it appears you are viscerally opposed.[/blockquote] I am not making the case for a ground invasion. I am making the case for a coherent policy. Full out invasion would be coherent. Staying out would be coherent. This air campaign is incoherent. The primary motivation behind its selection as a strategy is to limit the risk of engagement, but it cannot achieve the objectives that induced engagement in the first place. The Coalition is making things much worse for the Libyans in order to limit its own risk of exposure, and is paradoxically increasing its liability.
And anyways, I am not opposed to ground campaign. I am opposed to American involvement in this war. There is a huge difference. The US is already overextended. Europe is not. The US has no vital interests in Libya. Europe does. This is a European matter that should be handled by Europeans.
carl
#9 carl
[blockquote]Full out invasion would be coherent[/blockquote]
Full out invasion is not permitted by the UNSCR, and ruled out by all the Libyans, and the Arab world. Intervention along the lines of the successful UN action in Northern Iraq to protect the Kurds is permitted and like Northern Iraq might work, if prosecuted with determination and without the flakiness we have seen both from the US and NATO.
[blockquote]The US is already overextended. Europe is not.[/blockquote]
We are in a terrible state, thanks to the bailout and borrowing we had to undertake to keep our economy from collapsing from all the collected junk US mortgages our banks and financial institutions had been fraudulently sold packaged as derivative investments.
8, we have had this discussion ad nausium. The president must do things according to US law. The declaration of war means that the nation is fully behind him and he has the utmost authorization to commit acts of war. It stops all the carping and criticism ab initio.
The UN has absolutely nothing to do with this. It may keep the foreign community happy, but UN approval has nothing to do with our laws and Constitution and how this nation goes to war. You Europeans may have sold your sovereignty to the UN but we haven’t.
Is it an internal matter, you’re darned right it is and Obama is the worst sort of hypocrite.
It is actually remarkable that we have been able to get involved in this operation at all, but I think like the French and the Canadians, we felt it was important to try to save the Free Libyans in Benghazi from massacre. However the huge cutbacks we have had to make in defence spending, for the reasons mentioned in #10 above, have meant that one of our two small carriers has had to be retired, and all our Harriers. This has meant long mission journeys and expensive in flight refuelling. The Tornedos we are using for bombing artillery are earmarked for retirement as well and the new AWACS we had spent $30 bn developing, have had the wreckers ball put through them. The new Eurofighter Typhoons we have coming onstream and some of which we sent out are suitable for monitoring a no fly zone, but our two new carriers are some years from delivery, and we won’t have any aircraft to go on them for some years. Our two old carriers were only suitable for vertical takeoff aircraft, not sling assisted.
We could have bought American cheaper, but we are prepared to pay through the nose to keep our defence industry going with taxpayer money.
Had we been asked to assist in this operation in six months time the jury is out on whether we could have done what we have for Benghazi.
Interestingly the promising cooperation with the French, is something we have not really tried since Suez, the US response to which arguably laid the way for the instability in Egypt and North Africa we are now dealing with. British and French forces combined, with other coalition countries and with the US command and technical superiority in information gathering and electronic jamming was, at least at first, a powerful and effective combination and the US having launched the initial missions, within 10 days, the other coalition partners had taken over the majority of no fly and strike missions.
RE: “However the huge cutbacks we have had to make in defence spending, for the reasons mentioned in #10 above, have meant that one of our two small carriers has had to be retired, and all our Harriers.”
What a hoot — the UK has practically nil defense spending because its leaders don’t believe in defense spending, Pageantmaster, certainly not because of “junk US mortgages.” The UK is in financial trouble because its government has spent *appallingly* in every way — as has the US.
The Payday Train is coming night the station and we all will suffer the consequences of the odious spending decisions of our respective governments.
Can’t wait till 2012.
RE: “but given the vicious criticism he has received and the complete lack of support for the military operation domestically, notwithstanding the humanitarian imperative, I really don’t see that Obama had much option politically.”
Hah hah — Bush did what he thought right, despite the “vicious criticism.” Obama can do what he likes — and hopefully, as with all the other horrible decisions he has made over the past two dreadful years, he will also suffer the consequences.
#13 Sarah – just a small quibble:
[blockquote]What a hoot—the UK has practically nil defense spending because its leaders don’t believe in defense spending, Pageantmaster, certainly not because of “junk US mortgages.†[/blockquote]
We have the world’s fourth largest defense spending; and per capita match or exceed that of the United States. That is why a quarter of the troops in Helmand serving alongside the United States are British.
Oh, and we are still investing in defense for the future, including building two of these to take our replacement F-35s, but in the meantime, we have had to retire ships and aircraft early which gives us a gap for the next few years which we will struggle to deal with until the new equipment comes into service.
We spent £850bn bailing out our banks after their little number with junk US mortgage derivatives. News today that we will be spending only £4bn on bailing out Portugal. And then of course there is the continuing cost of backing US operations in the Middle East and so on….
[blockquote]We are in a terrible state, thanks to the bailout and borrowing we had to undertake to keep our economy from collapsing from all the collected junk US mortgages our banks and financial institutions had been fraudulently sold packaged as derivative investments. -#10 [/blockquote]
Um…not exactly…
[blockquote]But Europe has its own burgeoning mortgage meltdown — in Britain.
After years of watching house prices soar even faster than those in America — modest three-bedroom tract houses in the London suburbs were going for $2.2 million at one point — Britons are now weathering a sharp rise in mortgage defaults.[/blockquote]
http://articles.latimes.com/2008/feb/19/business/fi-ukmortgages19
Obama violated the U.S. Constitution by having our armed forces engage in hostilities with Libya without Congressional authorization and he has not invoked the War Power clause. A U.N. resolution does not change that. There is a draft to impeach him currently in the works and it is my fervent hope that the congress will actually fulfill their oaths to defend the Constitution from this domestic enemy, the current sitting president. Failing that, I hope that the American people will reject this violation of the supreme law of our nation and this breach of trust.
We CANNOT have a tyrant in charge of the world’s remaining military superpower. Unilateral edicts from a president to engage in hostilities with other nations cannot be tolerated. The use of U.S. military force must be accountable to the Congress and “we the people”, or else we become just another nation run by dictatorship.
President Bush asked for and received Congressional authorization for his use of force…nearly unanimous approval! This Obama wretch has not done so. This cannot stand.
#16 S&TN; UK house prices have by and large held up and domestic losses have been limited. But it was the defaults in US mortgages, and the audits of what was actually in these US derivatives we had been sold as opposed to what we were told which did for our banks, and led to the bailout. US investment has always been the graveyard for British companies – we don’t understand the system, and we get sheared depressingly regularly, as did the Church of England recently.
Talk to me next year about how well British housing prices have held on.
http://www.resistradio.com/updates/housing-crisis-as-home-loans-slump-to-new-low
I do not deny that US marketing of subprime mortgage securities have greatly contributed to the world wide financial crisis. If I were king, the people responsible would be dancing at the end of a rope from scaffolds errected on the sidewalks of Wall St. Good thing I am not king. That being said, I think Britain has its own financial house to clean (as every Western nation that adopted socialism) and we all need to get back to honest scales in the market place…starting with real money, not this fiat paper garbage. Last summer, I was buying US Silver Dollars for about $20 each. Right now, less than a year later, they are going for $39 each. The industrial demand for silver outpaces its production and has done so for a long time. This is more than a “flight to security” bubble. The national banks have been manipulating bullion prices for decades to shake the notion of hard currency…while at the same time, they have inflated away our purchasing power at an alarming rate by producing fiat currency from nothing but “confidence”. Well, everyone is seeing what the “full faith and credit” of the United States is worth when we have keynesian economists at the helm. Bretton Woods was a terrible crime against humanity.
#18
[blockquote]Last summer, I was buying US Silver Dollars for about $20 each. Right now, less than a year later, they are going for $39 each. The industrial demand for silver outpaces its production and has done so for a long time. This is more than a “flight to security†bubble.[/blockquote]
I am sure I have heard that argument before – oh yes, I remember, that’s what the Bunker-Hunts said!
Bring back precious metals to underpin our currency. That way the Russians can control our money supply and flood us with gold whenever they fancy it.
So, why are national banks buying so much gold if it is such a bad idea?
” India, China and Russia have been the biggest buyers. And more recently, the Philippines and Kazakhstan jumped into the fray with big purchases of the precious metal during the first quarter, according to data released by the World Gold Council Thursday.”
http://money.cnn.com/2010/06/17/news/economy/gold_reserves/index.htm
China and Russia have a currency agreement and are withdrawing from using the US dollar as a reserve currency. India is also buying up gold.
Hmmm…let’s see, China and India make up what percentage of the world’s population? And they don’t want our paper trash greenbacks anymore…so what do you think is going to happen? Wait till you get a look at your food and fuel bills next autumn!
By the way, Germany and France, the EU, and the IMF all have more gold reserves than Russia. The US has more than Germany, etc.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/33242464/The_World_s_Biggest_Gold_Reserves?slide=1
S&TN;
UK house prices and long term comparison for UK regions
Meanwhile‘Silver is showing all the signs of a bubble’
#18, what’s your analysis of the Cdn housing market (assuming you believe Canada has “adopted socialism”)?
Back to Libya…we were wrong to get in and it looks like we won’t be getting out anytime soon…
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,755616,00.html
I note that Britain has upped its force from 8 to 12 whole aircraft after the US stopped flying sorties. Whew! I bet the Libyan rebels are glad to have the fighting UK backing them. Those 12…count ’em…12 Tornados will surely do all that heavy lifting.
22.
Canadian bankers weren’t stupid. They did a great job of actually doing their jobs…due diligence…according to what I have read and seen. Hat’s off to Canadian banks! (We’ll see how the long term social spending will play out…eventually, you run out of other people’s money.)
[blockquote]By the way, Germany and France, the EU, and the IMF all have more gold reserves than Russia. The US has more than Germany, etc.[/blockquote]
Probably because the Russians make the stuff.
#23, other than taking a swipe at the UK, I don’t understand your comment about the British contribution. The point of a combined operation is that several nations make available forces to carry out the operation. If you think the total forces available for Operation Unified Protector are insufficient to carry out the mission, why not say so and explain your rationale? For trivia buffs, Canada has 12 aircraft and approximately 600 military personnel in theatre.
#23 S&TN;
[blockquote]I note that Britain has upped its force from 8 to 12 whole aircraft after the US stopped flying sorties. Whew! I bet the Libyan rebels are glad to have the fighting UK backing them. Those 12…count ‘em…12 Tornados will surely do all that heavy lifting.[/blockquote]
In addition to 12 Tornados, our original deployment to Gioia del Colle, Italy included 10 Typhoons [Eurofighters], together with other support aircraft like the Nimrod together with other support for the Italian base as required. We keep other aircraft available in reserve in Cyprus and Gibraltar and of course in the UK.
NATO currently has over 100 aircraft from different countries flying sorties. If they need more than the 22% of the force which as far as I know we are already supplying [in addition to our warships], I expect we will send them.
The latest report from NATO today is here
Of course, if the US fighters hadn’t had to depart in such a hurry, before President Obama turned into a pumpkin it would probably have been helpful.
Hey, I’m all in favor of the U.S. stepping back so that Europe can take the lead in Libya. In fact, I think you all should handle all of your own defense needs. We should withdraw our military forces from all of Europe immediately. If you guys want to jump into Libya’s civil war, go right ahead. You convinced me of your mighty military prowess. You never needed us in the first place. Go get ’em, you tigers!
Meanwhile, the Ivory Coast, of no significant energy reserves, undergoes thousands killed but no UN resolution there, and no humanitarian calls from the Europeans or Americans either. Gee, I wonder why? Maybe because Europe is not involved significantly with oil there. But it’s all about the humanitarian needs of the Libyans – and I have some land in Florida I’ll sell you, too.
29. Sick & Tired of Nuance
You shouldn’t despise the Brits like that. They have stood with us several times at considerable cost. They are good allies of the US. They are also one of the few countries in NATO that has a military capability worth the name. Britain has earned and deserves our respect.
I have been sparring with Pageantmaster for several weeks on this subject, and in all the time, there is one argument I have hoped he would never make. It is the one argument that would cause me considerable difficulty. “This is a vital interest to Britain, and we need the help of the US. We have been there for you. We need you to be there for us.” That is an extremely compelling and powerful argument. France could not make it. Germany could not make it. The Benelux countries could not make it. But Britain could make. And I would be hard-pressed not to listen.
Of course, Pageantmaster is not allowed to use that argument in the future … since I handed it to him on a silver platter. That would be ungentlemanly.
carl
Branford (#30), I think you should do a bit more homework on Côte d’Ivoire before you look too foolish.
Branford, maybe you’ll find this helpful:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2011/04/03/f-ivory-coast-timeline.html
(Sorry for dragging the thread off topic.)
I agree with Carl about the Brits. They’re a good sort, even though they are over-run with perfectly ghastly leaders.
They *could* still call their own country back if they would — just as we could in the US.
And the people there — they’re our kin and our allies and brave brave soldiers [I just posted a piece that commented on that].
But see, Carl — PM cannot make that argument because he’s too busy talking on — very inconsistently — about the humanitarian issues, as if that is the thing that would make US citizens happy to defy its Constitution, engage in an ill-conceived war, lavish its troops and money on people who will bomb our world trade centers 10 years later, and ignore all the other humanitarian crises that are currently littering the world in favor of this particular civil war between two warring groups of Muslims.
The British are, IMHO, wonderful people and truly fine allies. I apologize for the “swipe” at them. I cheered them on in the Faulklands and actually did a little work at RAF Weathersfield back in the now non-existent Cold War days. If they had appealed to us that this was a VITAL national interest for Britain, and the President had made that case to our Congress and if they authorized our actions…I would be in full support of this action. If the President had invoked the War Powers Clause, I would likely still support this action…although I would seriously question that application of the law in this particular case (how was Libya a threat to us?). Shoot, he could even have said something to the effect that we were retaliating against Libya for lying about Abdelbeset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, the still living Lockerbie bomber, and I would likely have gone along with it.
He didn’t do any of that. The President of the United States seized the Congressional prerogative of making war and unilaterally commenced hostilities against a sovereign nation without making a formal declaration or war (in violation of Hague 1907), without invoking the War Powers Act, and in violation of the US Constitution’s Article I, Section 8, Clause 11.
These actions rise to the level of an impeachable offense. They are also crimes against peace.
The President of the United States DOES NOT have the authority to unilaterally go to war. It’s that simple! He needs to be impeached.
Sarah [blockquote] PM cannot make that argument[/blockquote] Normally, I would agree with you, but you overlook the fact that Pageantmaster is a lawyer. His arguments are therefore not bound by consistency, or history, or even logic. I appealed to his honor as a gentleman but how far can that really go with a lawyer? Even so, one must speak the truth despite the cost.
carl
Ooh err – I think I prefer it when people are being combative with me to when they are being so nice, but thank you anyway.
I am not sure that I can make the case that Libyan intervention is vital to our interests apart from in a peripheral sort of way. Obviously it is on the far shore of the pond where we swim in the Summer, and we don’t want them dumping unpleasant stuff in our pond, but we make our own oil, and the Italians and the French are in the way of us.
I genuinely believe that the reason why all political parties here, the warring Arabs, and so many others have intervened is humanitarian. Gaddaffi is a pantomime villain and he has been beastly to his people. We didn’t want to see Libya’s second largest city, Benghazi, massacred in the way that Libya’s third largest city, Misurata, is being flattened at the moment.
That is the only reason I would commend for intervention – decency and humanity.
Just one other comment – Sarah #34:
[blockquote]people who will bomb our world trade centers 10 years later, and ignore all the other humanitarian crises that are currently littering the world in favor of this particular civil war between two warring groups of Muslims.[/blockquote]
If you haven’t noticed it, the people in the opposition areas are a ragbag of ordinary people, teachers, doctors, bin men, students and while there are indications that there may be groups who have been in Afghanistan [and that is why our government is also exercising caution and clarifying who we are dealing with] the people of those areas have been expressing their particular gratitude to the United States, a sentiment being heard in other parts of the Arab world, that you have been prepared to come to the aid of people even though they are Arabs and Muslims. I wouldn’t underestimate the power of good this has done for the United States in the Arab world and the shift in attitude going on; I am not sure the US knows how to deal with that, any more than I know how to deal with it when people start saying nice things to me about my country on this thread.
I’ll respond to Carl at #1, which is a relatively coherent post compared to some:
[blockquote] “1. An air campaign by itself cannot avert a humanitarian crisis.” [/blockquote]
I would normally have said the same, but in this case it seems to have done so, virtually by itself. Remarkable. Of course that is only the case because Qaddafi’s regime is so frightful.
With Qaddafi unable to get his hands on most of his people, and his “armed forces” (they are little more an “army” than the rebels they fight) unable to think about pogroms, Qaddafi’s usual program of mass arrests, executions and tortures seems to have been very quiet. So well done to the fly-boys.
[blockquote] “2. The air campaign will radically exacerbate the humanitarian crisis by bringing about either 1) stalemate or 2) regime collapse followed by internecine civil war.” [/blockquote]
I would be interested to see the slightest evidence to support this.
The ‘humanitarian crisis” consisted of Qaddafi’s proven capacity for a murderous and systematic campaign of executions, torturing etc. Precisely how has the air campaign made that situation one little bit worse? On the contrary, it is clear that it has already made things a whole lot better.
And the air campaign bringing about civil war? How is that possible when civil war existed before the air campaign?
[blockquote] “3. The growing humanitarian crisis induced by the air campaign will eventually force direct ground involvement.” [/blockquote]
Since the air campaign has not “induced” any humanitarian crisis at all, you need have no fear of that.
[blockquote] “Unfortunately, good intentions are all the Coalition brought to this fight. The countries involved wanted to fix a problem yet somehow bloodlessly and painlessly.” [/blockquote]
All the evidence indicates otherwise, but why let that get in the way of a good story!?
[blockquote] “They didn’t have the courage to get in or the wisdom to stay out.” [/blockquote]
No no, this is not the US military in 2003, which had no idea what it was going to do when it got to Baghdad.
[blockquote] “Look what they have wrought.” [/blockquote]
Yes, its pretty good isn’t it! Qaddafi hasn’t been able to engage in mass slaughter. Even if we go no further now, this has been worthwhile. Personally, I think we need to go a lot further, but whatever.
The news this morning indicates that NATO aircraft just knocked out Rebel tanks by accident…virtually ensuring that Gadhafi’s army will still have the upper hand. By the way…shooting tanks on the ground (among other targets)…I’ve NEVER heard of a flying tank! Must be some sort of new fangled secret weapon. Yes, sir, just a “no-fly zone” is all we’re doing and we’ll never put “boots on the ground” in this humanitarian “kinetic action” that isn’t a war…not really…never mind the bombs and missiles…pay no attention to the 2 amphibious-assault ships and 1200 US Marines that started toward Libya back in March and the CIA and Special Ops teams all around. Besides, we’re talking “days”, not weeks or months (he says half way through month 2). Nothing to see, move along.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/04/08/111825/nato-admits-deadly-airstrike-but.html
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704506004576173831133467692.html
[blockquote] “By the way…shooting tanks on the ground (among other targets)…I’ve NEVER heard of a flying tank!” [/blockquote]
Yes, more bizarre journo-speak.
On a wry note, the Soviet Army in the 1970s used to consider a combat helicopter the same as a tank from a doctrinal point of view – more mobile, less survivable, but used in the same way and requiring a similar level of support. That was the old Hind, back in the days when it had no real peers as an armoured attack helo.