Stephen Lendman

Obama's March 28 television address wreaked of hypocrisy, lies and disdain for basic democratic values, making an indefensible case for naked aggression against a non-belligerent country. America's media approved.

On March 28, New York Times writer Helene Cooper headlined, "Obama Cites Limits of US Role in Libya," saying:

Obama "defended the American-led military assault in Libya on Monday, saying it was in the national interest of the United States to stop a potential massacre that would have 'stained the conscience of the world,' " even though no threat existed until:

● Washington showed up with co-belligerents France and Britain;
● beginning in 2010, armed and funded so-called "rebels" who, in fact, are cutthroat killers, rapists and marauders, terrorizing every area they control, including their Benghazi stronghold; and
● support them with daily "shock and awe" terror attacks, causing increasing numbers of deaths and injuries, as well as destruction and contamination of all areas struck by depleted uranium bombs, missiles and shells, spreading radiation over wide areas.

Despite Pentagon denials, conservative estimates put civilian deaths at over 100, besides combatants killed and unknown numbers murdered by rebel allies. Since March 19 air attacks began, nearly 1,500 sorties have been flown, that number to rise exponentially as daily strikes continue under US command, running all NATO operations under AFRICOM's General Carter Ham. Alleged new commander, Canada's Lt. Gen. Charles Bouchard, is his subordinate, a Pentagon figurehead.

The alleged handover is fabricated. NATO is code language for America/the Pentagon. Obama lied announcing otherwise, saying Washington's role will be limited to stop potential "slaughter and mass graves" in Benghazi. In fact, he supports and/or ignores rebel terror killings against defenseless civilians, making him complicit in their crimes, besides widespread ones caused by NATO, America's missile. US attacks, in fact, will continue throughout the campaign, perhaps lasting months at an enormous cost, besides hundreds of billions annually in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Making an indefensible case, Obama said, "For more than four decades, the Libyan people have been ruled by a tyrant - Muammar Gaddafi," ignoring the numerous regional and global ones America supports, including rogue Israeli regimes, lawlessly terrorizing Palestinians for over six decades with generous US support and funding.

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Charles E. Carlson
WHTT

America is a war-based economy, this is fundamental. Note that the stock market has gone up every day but one since President Obama announced the USA would bomb Libya. Please, do not take your eyes off the fact that primary Beltway support for new bomb dumping adventures come from interests that benefit from wars. We need to understand how these Warmakers sell us consumers on accepting new invasions where we pay them for killing other people's children.

Republican chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, Peter King, vowed to continue to hold hearings on "Radicalization of American Muslims." On March 10, King's star witness against Islam was professing Muslim medical doctor Zuhdi Jasser. While these hearings were going on, James Clapper, the director of US National Intelligence, told the Senate Armed Services Committee “the Gadaffi regime will prevail” and the rebels do not have the power to resist. Concurrently, the State Department announced that the US lacks "legal authority" to act against Libya. All of these parties acted in concert to sell out the Libyan revolution.

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Benjamin H. Friedman
The National Interest

American wars require salesmanship, even when Congress surrenders its power to authorize them. Hawks collect justifications, which need not match their motivations. The Obama administration’s case for the war under way in Libya fits this model, except that this time the bombing preceded the PR.

The primary reason we are in Libya is to help replace an especially noxious dictator with something democratic. Though it requires heroic assumptions about the rebels’ liberalism, the apparent ease of this revolution is what excited interventionists.

Certainly humanitarian concerns influenced some Libya hawks, including the President and his advisors. But that rationale is more selling point than motivation. Libya’s is a not particularly brutal civil war compared to others we ignore.

Nor is it clear that bombing Libya serves humanitarian ends. True, absent outside intervention, the Libyan government would likely have reasserted its authority in the east, killing rebellious civilians. But the civil war that intervention prolonged will probably kill more. In his March 18 speech justifying war on humanitarian grounds, Obama quoted Qaddafi’s promise to show “no mercy and no pity,” but failed to note that the dictator was threatening rebel fighters, not civilians, and explicitly excluded rebels that surrendered. The point is not that we should bank on such promises but that the path to minimizing violence is uncertain.

Another of the president’s reasons for war is that Qaddafi “lost legitimacy” to rule. Luckily we have George Will to skewer that nonsense:

Such meretricious boilerplate seems designed to anesthetize thought. When did Gadhafi lose his people's confidence? When did he have legitimacy? American doctrine — check the Declaration of Independence — is that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. So there are always many illegitimate governments. When is it America's duty to scrub away these blemishes on the planet? Is there a limiting principle of humanitarian interventionism? If so, would Obama take a stab at stating it?

The latest White House justification for war is credibility or demonstration effects. The idea is that attacking Qaddafi shows willingness to do so elsewhere, encouraging protesters and pushing dictators to capitulate to them. Hillary Clinton and Susan Rice apparently pushed this line in White House meetings, even including Iran in the list of regimes that would be deterred. Wilsonian pundits of both the neoconservative and liberal internationalist varieties agree.

Credibility arguments attach peripheral concerns to more important ones—hence the term “domino theory.” The Johnson administration claimed that leaving Vietnam would embolden Communists globally, undermining U.S. defense commitments. We bombed Serbia in 1999 partially in the name of bucking up NATO’s credibility for other wars. The Bush administration argued that deposing Saddam Hussein would deter other dictators from seeking nuclear and biological weapons or otherwise defying American and U.N. directives. Opponents of ending the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan often argue that leaving would damage our reputation for resolve and invite trouble elsewhere.

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Patrick O’Connor
WSWS

A NATO helicopter strike in the southern Afghanistan province of Helmand last Friday killed seven civilians, including three children. The atrocity is the latest in a series of recent US-led bombing operations that have inflicted mass civilian casualties.

Nine children collecting firewood were killed on March 1 in an airstrike in northeastern Kunar province. This prompted desperate apologies from President Barack Obama and General David Petraeus, aimed at placating enormous anger among ordinary Afghans. On March 14 another two children, 10- and 15-year-old brothers, were killed in Kunar. One government official said the boys were carrying shovels on their shoulders that may have been mistaken for weapons. On March 23, a NATO airstrike in eastern Khost province reportedly killed three civilians, including one child. These incidents followed last month’s war crime in the Ghaziabad district of Kunar province, where helicopter strikes killed 65 civilians, including 22 women, and 40 children under the age of 13, according to an Afghan government investigation.

Details of the latest incident remain scant. The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) ordered an air strike on two vehicles travelling through Helmand’s Now Zad district. According to ISAF, the vehicles were believed to be occupied by a “Taliban leader and his associates”. A statement acknowledged, without providing details, “Afghan civilians were accidentally killed and wounded in Now Zad district, Helmand province”. ISAF added that an investigation was underway.

Two men, two women, and three children were killed, according to Afghan officials in Helmand. Another three children and two adults were reportedly wounded. According to the Associated Press, provincial authorities said the civilians killed and injured had been in a car near the targeted vehicles. ISAF spokesman Major Tim James said he could not confirm that the Taliban leader had been present.

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