PROCÈS-VERBAL

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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No, not me. I’m well posted today.

I’m talking about 1,100 missing children from the Second World War. The US Holocaust Memorial Museum has posted 1,100 photos of children taken by relief workers after the war in the hope someone would recognize them and facilitate reuniting them with their families:

By publicizing these 1,100 photographs, the Museum hopes to identify these children, piece together information about their wartime and postwar experiences, and facilitate renewed connections among these young survivors, their families, and other individuals who were involved in their care during and after the war.

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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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One thing I can depend on is the ICG Crisis Watch Report dropping in my inbox on a timely basis. A thumbnail guide to world conflict, it is designed to reach policy makers and journalists so that another impending humanitarian crisis never goes unnoticed again.

I read one comment here on DK which rather dismissively described the ICG as another of George Soros’ creations, and I want to deal with this later on because I think it both over-simplifies and is a bit disingenuous.

Kossacks are generally better than this.
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Julie Water’s point about the terms we use to describe what Terry Jones did provides me with a wonderful opportunity to illustrate why we need to be crystal clear about which context we’re talking about when dealing differing societies having different norms.

Julie Waters: Do we not understand the difference between incitement and offense?

It also provides me with an opportunity to point out that after an intervention (in this case, and invasion), trying to impose a democratic regime on a society may be a fools errand.

What was originally going to be a lengthy reply seems better as a short, concise diary.
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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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Joshua Keating and David Bosco at Passport report:

“The fissure in the UN between a Western-led interventionist group and a “sovereignty bloc” led by Moscow and Beijing, but with real appeal to key emerging powers like Brazil, South Africa and India… may be one of the most critical dynamics at the UN. For the moment, the West still has the pull to carry the day. Whether that will be true a decade from now is anyone’s guess.”

Which brings up some real questions about the future.
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