PROCÈS-VERBAL

During the ramp up, the rhetoric surrounding Qadhafi and his violent crackdown on protesters was bad enough. While I’m not even thinking about defending some of his actions, the rhetoric was demonic. Qadhafi is no worse than the al-Khalifa royal family in Bahrain, the al-Sauds, Bashar al-Assad in Syria or the regime in Khartoum. Unfortunately for him, Qadhafi had Lockerbie in his past and that sealed his fate.

While I reading that more and more Americans are having trouble with the White House’s actions regarding Libya, and while I have definite opinions about the War Powers Resolution (which I’ve been fairly strident about), this post is about the diplomatic and human fallout.
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Well. I hate love to say I told you so, but yes, this is what I predicted over a month ago.

Today, Colum Lynch reports on the UN Security Council’s attitude toward Syria, and they aren’t in the mood to listen to the interventionist bloc at the moment:

The current dispute over Syria “is the hang over from Libya,” one council diplomat told Turtle Bay. “China and Russia feel a bit betrayed because the coalition went further than what was in the resolution. It diminished the possibility of replicating the Libya model in Yemen and Syria,” where Russia and China have blocked action.

(Emphasis mine)

Not that I’m calling for another bombing campaign, I’m most definitely not, but this is real fallout for overreaching in Libya. The mission approved by the Security Council was civilian protection, as established by international norm. Regime change was unilateral.
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Well, if you didn’t believe me when I posted Regime Change is the Official Coalition Goal, here you go. The road we started down when we first decided to intervene has now reached it’s logical conclusion.

Well. It was inevitable, wasn’t it? Does anyone remember when this was billed to us, the UN and the world as a no-fly zone?

Published in three newspapers, Presidents Obama, Sarkozy and Prime Minister Cameron have now publicly admit what many believed (me included) was always their agenda.

Actually, there was no “road” as I’ve described it here. We arrived at this destination in the first two weeks of March, and this is where we’ve remained ever since.
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One step forward, one step back. It seems that reports that the Supreme Military Council in Egypt was as eager to crush the peaceful protests in Tahrir Square could very well been true, that the thugs are still hard at work suppressing dissent.

Freedom House reports that Maikel Nabil Sanad, and Egyptian blogger has been arrested:

by Egyptian military police on March 28 on charges that he allegedly defamed the armed forces

To the generals running Egypt: civil societies are NOT subject to military discipline. Military enrollment is a contract under which an enlistee agrees to accept such discipline. Civilians, by definition, have not agreed to accept being treated like raw recruits. That’s their job.

One wonders when they’ll get that. One also wonders when our own officials will understand that expanding military and police powers does exactly the same damned thing.
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Former Pennsylvania congressman Curt Weldon (R-PA) leads a small, private delegation to meet with Moammar Gadhafi. Politico reports that congressman Weldon will urge Gadhafi to step down:

“We must engage face-to-face with Colonel Qaddafi and persuade him to leave, as my delegation hopes to do,” writes Weldon, who says he is in Libya at the invitation of Qadhafi’s chief of staff.

“I’ve met him enough times to know that it will be very hard to simply bomb him into submission,” he writes. Weldon first met with Qadhafi as part of a 2004 congressional delegation and has visited Libya twice since then before this visit.

The Obama administration and members of Congress from both parties, he writes, have “knowledge” of the mission. The State Department did not immediately respond to POLITICO’s request for comment.

Also reported on CNN and Jordan Fabian, blogging for The Hill.
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Pastor Terry Jones’ desecration of a holy text and the violent reaction it spawned are but some of the long series of acts of violence and hatred which have been acted out worldwide. The recent history of US military and diplomatic choices in the past twenty years have in no way accomplished any purpose but has ensured that the incidence of violence worldwide will continue to rise for at least twenty more years, and more likely thirty or forty, and quite possibly indefinitely.

With our voluntary involvement in the internal affairs of Libya, it is time to take note of the consequences of our decisions and our actions. To bring them right to the front of the discussion. Indeed, from my perspective, continuing along our current trajectory while knowing what we now know is as criminal as any outrages committed by any authoritarian ruler.

The time to choose a different road is now.

Just to make myself clear, I’m going to refrain from getting into a “who started it” discussion and won’t acknowledge comments attempting to make this kind of point. With the stakes being what they are, I think we all need to restrain ourselves from assigning guilt and seeking retribution.

All that is moot at this point.
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Reported in the NYT: C.I.A. in Libya Aiding Rebels, U.S. Officials Say:

The Central Intelligence Agency has inserted clandestine operatives into Libya to gather intelligence for military airstrikes and make contacts with rebels battling Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s forces, according to American officials.

While President Obama has insisted that no American ground troops join in the Libyan campaign, small groups of C.I.A. operatives have been working in Libya for several weeks and are part of a shadow force of Westerners that the Obama administration hopes can help set back Colonel Qaddafi’s military, the officials said.

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I’ve heard lots of conflicting claims made here about what the president did or didn’t do concerning Congress’ and the President’s prerogatives and responsibilities when it comes to sending US military forces into harm’s way.

I’ve seen many comments and a few diaries concerning Dennis Kucinich and his claim that Congress needs to be brought in when the White House and Pentagon deploys forces.

My view is that he has a valid point. History shows us that like the concept of humanitarian intervention, like the War Powers Resolution of 1973, is ripe for abuse, and has in fact been abused this way more often than not. Again, exactly in the same way that humanitarian concerns are cited in every public ramp up prior to going to war.

I’m not so eager to give the President the benefit of the doubt here. Politics should stop at the water’s edge and frankly, people’s lives are put at risk. Not only our own military personnel, but the lives of innocent Libyans. This is a time to stick to the facts as best we know them, revise our conclusions as new facts become known, and judge accordingly.

Regardless of my disappointments on the President’s performance and choices, I’m prepared to give him credit for helping save lives in Benghazi, and for going about it in the manner this administration accomplished this: giving the requirements of diplomacy and international law their just due.

However the constitution is silent on whether congress has the power to delegate it’s responsibilities as the WPR implies or whether the President’s authority over the armed forces and their deployments is absolute. The WPR was an attempt to define this more clearly, but as I will illustrate, is far from perfect.
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“Farmers in Meru had prospered from the production of coffee. With the proceeds they had earned, some had invested in cattle. many had financed the education of their children, some of whom attended elementary school in the village, others secondary school in town, and some universities abroad.

Many of these who secured an education then taken jobs in the cities, maintaining ties with their families at home, they funneled a portion of their earnings back to the farms and shops at Meru. Even during a drought in 1985—the year I worked in the district—Meru, its farmers, and its towns radiated a sheen of prosperity and well-being that reflected the successful response of its peasants to the opportunities presented by the export of coffee.

Departing the farms at the foot of Mount Kenya, I then journeyed farther inland and crossed into Bugisu, a coffee-producing region lying on the slopes of Mount Elgon in Uganda. There too farmers had invested in the production of coffee, and towns had sprung up to provide them the means to ship their crop, to collect payment, and to make purchases for their farms and families. But prosperity and tranquility, I soon learned, lay in Bugisu’s past; stagnation and fear characterized its present. Unlike the streets and towns of Meru, those in Bugisu were not crowded with farmers hurriedly making purchases or leisurely enjoying the pleasure of town; rather, they were occupied by soldiers, while farmers fearfully huddled on their homesteads in the forests. Youths did not stroll about in school uniforms, as they had in Meru, in Bugisu, they instead marched, lockstep, in military garb, lashed by the voices—and the belts—of their commanders. On the farms, the coffee bearing trees remained unpruned; diseases ran unchecked from plant to plant and farm to farm; stocks accumulated, for want of the ability of merchants to finance the purchase of the crop or its transport to the coast.

By venturing from the coast inland, I was therefore forcefully introduced to the link between prosperity and violence. In the central harbor, force was not absent; rather, it was structured and organized.”¹

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The Arabic speaking world has again become politically articulate, and it is exhilarating to behold.

First of all, let me offer my congratulations to the protesters, my thanks to the Egyptian Army for the way it fulfilled its role thus far (regardless of the indifferent period when the NDP’s thugs were unleashed on the protesters) and my appreciation to Al Jazeera, who, more than any other news outlet, refused to let this protest be crushed in secret.

All of you have good reason to recall your roles in these events with a well earned pride for the rest of your lives. Your grandchildren will have reason to brag about what you’ve done in the last 17 days.

Keep it up. The hard part is about to begin, and Egypt doesn’t have a democracy quite yet. The police and SSI are still employed.

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