bombing libya.. impeachable offense?

tinkerbell

You are forgetting that this is not actually about the US vs. Libya. It is about the world stepping in when innocent people need help. Sure there are other parts of the world that should also be receiving such help, but that does not retract from the human rights of the Libyians.

gimmesometruth27

so what does 120 cruise missles cost? what about all of that jetfuel? where are we going to get the money for this? everyone wants to cut spending but we can always afford to blow shit up somewhere....

CH156378

gimmesometruth27 wrote:

so what does 120 cruise missles cost? what about all of that jetfuel? where are we going to get the money for this? everyone wants to cut spending but we can always afford to blow shit up somewhere....

those bombe would have became rusty if we didn't use them up. besides we'll just have china pay for it and then later the american middle class and teachers from wisconsin can pay them back. maybe obama can charge it on his players card. you know,"charge it to the game." I think Master P said that.

gimmesometruth27

where are the republicans and tea partiers who are so concerned about spending on this? :?:

they are actually criticizing obama for acting too slowly and not jumping into this sooner.

so let me get this straight, don't spend money on government employees and the middle class and entitlement programs, but spend limitless amounts delivering freedom to other people? how can they reconcile this?

and i will say it again. if he broke the law and committed an impeachable offense, then man up and begin the proceedings now.

CH156378

President Joe Biden?

fuck

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn ... index.html

Advocating for the U.S.'s military action in Libya, The New Republic's John Judis lays out the argument which many of his fellow war advocates are making: that those who oppose the intervention are guilty of indifference to the plight of the rebels and to Gadaffi's tyranny:

So I ask myself, would these opponents of U.S. intervention (as part of U.N. Security Council approved action), have preferred:

(1) That gangs of mercenaries, financed by the country’s oil wealth, conduct a bloodbath against Muammar Qaddafi’s many opponents?

(2) That Qaddafi himself, wounded, enraged, embittered, and still in power, retain control of an important source of the world’s oil supply, particularly for Europe, and be able to spend the wealth he derives from it to sow discord in the region?

(3) And that the movement toward democratization in the Arab world -- which has spread from Tunisia to Bahrain, and now includes such unlikely locales as Syria -- be dealt an enormous setback through the survival of one of region's most notorious autocrats?

If you answer "Who cares?" to each of these, I have no counter-arguments to offer, but if you worry about two or three of these prospects, then I think you have to reconsider whether Barack Obama did the right thing in lending American support to this intervention.

Note how, in Judis' moral world, there are only two possibilities: one can either support the American military action in Libya or be guilty of a "who cares?" attitude toward Gadaffi's butchery. At least as far as this specific line of pro-war argumentation goes, this is just 2003 all over again. Back then, those opposed to the war in Iraq were deemed pro-Saddam: indifferent to the repression and brutalities suffered by the Iraqi people at his hands and willing to protect his power. Now, those opposed to U.S. involvement in the civil war in Libya are deemed indifferent to the repression and brutalities suffered by the Libyan people from Gadaffi and willing to protect his power. This rationale is as flawed logically as it is morally.

Why didn't this same moral calculus justify the attack on Iraq? Saddam Hussein really was a murderous, repressive monster: at least Gadaffi's equal when it came to psychotic blood-spilling. Those who favored regime change there made exactly the same arguments as Judis (and many others) make now for Libya: it's humane and noble to topple a brutal dictator; using force is the only way to protect parts of the population from slaughter (in Iraq, the Kurds and Shiites; in Libya, the rebels); it's not in America's interests to allow a deranged despot (or his deranged sons) to control a vital oil-rich nation; and removing the tyrant will aid the spread of freedom and democracy in the Middle East. Why does that reasoning justify war in Libya but not Iraq?

In Foreign Policy, Stephen Walt argues that "liberal interventionists" and neocons share most of the same premises about America's foreign policy and its role in the world, with the sole exception being that the former seek to act through international institutions to legitimize their military actions while the latter don't. Strongly bolstering Walt's view is this morning's pro-war New York Times Editorial, which ends this way:

Libya is a specific case: Muammar el-Qaddafi is erratic, widely reviled, armed with mustard gas and has a history of supporting terrorism. If he is allowed to crush the opposition, it would chill pro-democracy movements across the Arab world.

Wasn't all of that at least as true of Saddam Hussein? Wasn't that exactly the "humanitarian" case made to justify that invasion? And wasn't that exactly the basis for the accusation against Iraq war opponents that they were indifferent to Saddam's tyranny -- i.e., if you oppose the war to remove Saddam, it means you are ensuring that he and his sons will stay in power, which in turn means you are indifferent to his rape rooms and mass graves and are willing to stand by while the Iraqi people suffer under his despotism? How can the "indifference-to-suffering" accusation be fair when made against opponents of the Libya war but not when made against Iraq war opponents?

But my real question for Judis (and those who voice the same accusations against Libya intervention opponents) is this: do you support military intervention to protect protesters in Yemen, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and other U.S. allies from suppression, or to stop the still-horrendous suffering in the Sudan, or to prevent the worsening humanitarian crisis in the Ivory Coast? Did you advocate military intervention to protect protesters in Iran and Egypt, or to stop the Israeli slaughter of hundreds of trapped innocent civilians in Gaza and Lebanon or its brutal and growing occupation of the West Bank?

If not, doesn't that necessarily mean -- using this same reasoning -- that you're indifferent to the suffering of all of those people, willing to stand idly by while innocents are slaughtered, to leave in place brutal tyrants who terrorize their own population or those in neighboring countries? Or, in those instances where you oppose military intervention despite widespread suffering, do you grant yourself the prerogative of weighing other factors: such as the finitude of resources, doubt about whether U.S. military action will hurt rather than help the situation, cynicism about the true motives of the U.S. government in intervening, how intervention will affect other priorities, the civilian deaths that will inevitably occur at our hands, the precedents that such intervention will set for future crises, and the moral justification of invading foreign countries? For those places where you know there is widespread violence and suffering yet do not advocate for U.S. military action to stop it, is it fair to assume that you are simply indifferent to the suffering you refuse to act to prevent, or do you recognize there might be other reasons why you oppose the intervention?

In the very same Editorial where it advocates for the Libya intervention on the grounds of stopping government violence and tyranny, The New York Times acknowledges about its pro-intervention view: "not in Bahrain or Yemen, even though we condemn the violence against protesters in both countries." Are those who merely "condemn" the violence by those two U.S. allies but who do not want to intervene to stop it guilty of indifference to the killings there? What rationale is there for intervening in Libya but not in those places? In a very well-argued column, The Washington Post's Eugene Robinson today provides the only plausible answer:

Anyone looking for principle and logic in the attack on Moammar Gaddafi's tyrannical regime will be disappointed. . . . Why is Libya so different? Basically, because the dictators of Yemen, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia -- also Jordan and the Persian Gulf sheikdoms, for that matter -- are friendly, cooperative and useful. Gaddafi is not. . . .

Gaddafi is crazy and evil; obviously, he wasn’t going to listen to our advice about democracy. The world would be fortunate to be rid of him. But war in Libya is justifiable only if we are going to hold compliant dictators to the same standard we set for defiant ones. If not, then please spare us all the homilies about universal rights and freedoms. We'll know this isn’t about justice, it's about power.

I understand -- and absolutely believe -- that many people who support the intervention in Libya are doing so for good and noble reasons: disgust at standing by and watching Gadaffi murder hundreds or thousands of rebels. I also believe that some people who supported the attack on Iraq did so out of disgust for Saddam Hussein and a desire to see him removed from power. It's commendable to oppose that type of despotism, and I understand -- and share -- the impulse.

But what I cannot understand at all is how people are willing to believe that the U.S. Government is deploying its military and fighting this war because, out of abundant humanitarianism, it simply cannot abide internal repression, tyranny and violence against one's own citizens. This is the same government that enthusiastically supports and props up regimes around the world that do exactly that, and that have done exactly that for decades.

By all accounts, one of the prime administration advocates for this war was Hillary Clinton; she's the same person who, just two years ago, said this about the torture-loving Egyptian dictator: "I really consider President and Mrs. Mubarak to be friends of my family." They're the same people overseeing multiple wars that routinely result in all sorts of atrocities. They are winking and nodding to their Yemeni, Bahrani and Saudi friends who are doing very similar things to what Gadaffi is doing, albeit (for now) on a smaller scale. They just all suddenly woke up one day and decided to wage war in an oil-rich Muslim nation because they just can't stand idly by and tolerate internal repression and violence against civilians? Please.

For the reasons I identified the other day, there are major differences between the military actions in Iraq and Libya. But what is true of both -- as is true for most wars -- is that each will spawn suffering for some people even if they alleviate it for others. Dropping lots of American bombs on a country tends to kill a lot of innocent people. For that reason, indifference to suffering is often what war proponents -- not war opponents -- are guilty of. But whatever else is true, the notion that opposing a war is evidence of indifference to tyranny and suffering is equally simple-minded, propagandistic, manipulative and intellectually bankrupt in both the Iraq and Libya contexts. And, in particular, those who opposed or still oppose intervention in Bahrain, Yemen, Egypt, Iraq, the Sudan, against Israel, in the Ivory Coast -- and/or any other similar places where there is widespread human-caused suffering -- have no business advancing that argument.

marcos

It doesn't feel like Iraq, but I suppose it's the same, oil is oil.

fuck

"There's one other difference between Iraq and Libya worth noting: at least with the former, there was a sustained, intense P.R. campaign to persuade the public to support it, followed by a cursory Congressional vote (agreed to by the Bush White House only once approval was guaranteed in advance). By contrast, the intervention in Libya was presidentially decreed with virtually no public debate or discussion; it's just amazing how little public opinion or the consent of the citizenry matters when it comes to involving the country in a new war. That objection can and should be obviated if Obama seeks Congressional approval before deploying the U.S. military. On some level, it would be just a formality -- it's hard to imagine the Congress ever impeding a war the President wants to fight -- but at least some pretense of democratic and Constitutional adherence should be maintained."

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn ... index.html

markin ball

"The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.
As Commander-in-Chief, the President does have a duty to protect and defend the United States. In instances of self-defense, the President would be within his constitutional authority to act before advising Congress or seeking its consent. History has shown us time and again, however, that military action is most successful when it is authorized and supported by the Legislative branch. It is always preferable to have the informed consent of Congress prior to any military action."

-Barack Obama 2007

tinkerbell

Question:
If the US was not involved would you all be questioning the motives of the international world? If it was the UK & France instead would you have issues with this defence of HUMAN lives? I really don't give a rats ass about the American politics, human live is more important than politics and money.

gimmesometruth27

tinkerbell wrote:

Question:
If the US was not involved would you all be questioning the motives of the international world? If it was the UK & France instead would you have issues with this defence of HUMAN lives? I really don't give a rats ass about the American politics, human live is more important than politics and money.

how can you defend human lives by taking other human lives? if all lives are equal who is right and who is wrong? who is to decide who is threatened and who is not, who is just and who is unjust?

the libyan rebels knew what they were risking when they started this uprising. if they were strong enough to overthorw ghadaffi and take control of things themselves then let them. if they are not strong enough to do so then they will face the consequences for their actions. not that i agree with those consequences, but if i am going to start a revolutionary war i am going to make damn sure i have the ability to win it without getting international help, because my country will be owing favors to those other countries for the next century...

i am just sick to death of my country getting it's nose in the business of other countries. especially when it is my country investing it's resources, money, and blood. we are not the world cop, and our military might is to be used for defensive purposes. we are not supposed to be blowing people up in countries that are no threat to us, but we have been doing just that for 30 years. we have let genocides go in other parts of africa and europe, so why libya? why now?

the uk and france were pushing for this, why not let them take care of it? they do not need the US to hold their hands. they are not involved in 2 active wars already. why is it we have to get involved in everything?

and american politics is a MAJOR issue in this offensive, so you can not dismiss that out of hand.

Black73

DPrival78 wrote:

that sounds nice, but i don't think libya is the only country with a ruthless tyrant. i think the fact that they are sitting atop a whole lotta oil may have something to do with it.

I can't believe I'm defending Obama...but in this cat's case, it has NOTHING to do with oil. You'd be correct in that assumption if we were still under the "protection" of our last Liar in Chief. I remember ultra-conservatives saying that if Obama were to be elected, he'd remove the troops from Afghanistan/Saudi Arabia before the mission was completed. Now he acts on a terrorist threat, and those same conservatives say he acted too slowly? And, you say he should be impeached for his actions? Out of curiousity, how'd you vote in 2004? You didn't happen to knowingly re-elect a public liar, did you?

DPrival78 wrote:

...if we're doing it to help people, why aren't we bombing half of africa?

You realize that Libya's in Africa, right?

DPrival78

what biden thinks.. or thought..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Adpa5kYUhCA

markin ball

Tinkerbell,

The question of the original post was basically "is this legal?". Whether or not it was the "right" thing to do ain't the point, which is a whole other topic. The president does not have the power under the constitution to authorize an unprovoked attack on a foreign country no matter if it is morally good or bad. We have rules and the whole idea of this country is that no one is above the rules.

DPrival78

Black73 wrote:

I can't believe I'm defending Obama...but in this cat's case, it has NOTHING to do with oil. You'd be correct in that assumption if we were still under the "protection" of our last Liar in Chief. I remember ultra-conservatives saying that if Obama were to be elected, he'd remove the troops from Afghanistan/Saudi Arabia before the mission was completed. Now he acts on a terrorist threat, and those same conservatives say he acted too slowly? And, you say he should be impeached for his actions? Out of curiousity, how'd you vote in 2004? You didn't happen to knowingly re-elect a public liar, did you?

i'm not a conserative, if that's what you're getting at. and it doesn't matter who you, i, or anyone voted for. whoever gets to play the role of the POTUS is working for interests other than ours. but that's another discussion.

DPrival78 wrote:

...if we're doing it to help people, why aren't we bombing half of africa?

Black73 wrote:

You realize that Libya's in Africa, right?

sure do.. what's your point?

tunisia's also in africa. why aren't we bombing them? or any of the other brutal dictatorships all over that continent?

CH156378

markin ball wrote:

Tinkerbell,

The question of the original post was basically "is this legal?". Whether or not it was the "right" thing to do ain't the point, which is a whole other topic. The president does not have the power under the constitution to authorize an unprovoked attack on a foreign country no matter if it is morally good or bad. We have rules and the whole idea of this country is that no one is above the rules.

this is killing me. i don't understand obama anymore. i have really tried to defend him but you guys make it impossible.

JR8805

Nothing is an impeachable offensive, as Bush II proved.

DPrival78

markin ball wrote:

Tinkerbell,

The question of the original post was basically "is this legal?". Whether or not it was the "right" thing to do ain't the point, which is a whole other topic. The president does not have the power under the constitution to authorize an unprovoked attack on a foreign country no matter if it is morally good or bad. We have rules and the whole idea of this country is that no one is above the rules.

* unless you're a banker or a politician

markin ball

DPrival78 wrote:

markin ball wrote:

Tinkerbell,

The question of the original post was basically "is this legal?". Whether or not it was the "right" thing to do ain't the point, which is a whole other topic. The president does not have the power under the constitution to authorize an unprovoked attack on a foreign country no matter if it is morally good or bad. We have rules and the whole idea of this country is that no one is above the rules.

* unless you're a banker or a politician

Amen, brother.

VINNY GOOMBA

Yes, it is an impeachable offense, and he should be impeached. As should have Bush, Clinton, and just about every president this country has ever had. They've all violated the Constitution in some way or another, some worse than others. Shit, if every president this country ever had was allowed one "mulligan" to not be impeached for an impeachable offense, 100% of them still deserved impeachment, because they've all probably had at least 2 breaches of The Supreme Law of the Land. And here I am, forced to pay tickets for not wearing my fuckin seatbelt. I do believe that part of the resurgence in the interest in the Constitution is exactly for that reason... Not my seatbelt ( ), but the fact that "the little people" are held to the black and white of the law EVERYDAY to the fullest extent, while politicians and the banksters have either ignored laws that if broken are considered treasonous offenses (politicians), or have legalized fraud for themselves and themselves only (banksters). What IF our elected officials were held accountable to the strictest interpretations of The Constitution? I believe the world would be a much better place, and we would all be a lot freer and happier.

The US has no business being in Libya. Anyone who thinks this isn't going to turn into a complete clusterfuck and create more resentment towards the US and the western world in general is overly optimistic and horribly kidding themselves. Even if the intentions of this country were 100% noble, at this point given our recent history of military interventionism for control and profiteering, it will not be viewed that way.
Once Gaddafi is gone, who is going to replace him? Whoever THE UNITED STATES chooses. True or false, that is going to be the resounding belief in Africa and the Middle East whether it is the decision of the UN or not.

Just because the UN decided this is the right move, doesn't mean America has to get involved. How many wars has the world seen since the creation of the UN anyway? Bang up job they're doing.

One thing that bothers me as I read through this thread-- why must so many people insist on voting against their own sovereignty? Why leave decisions about the internal affairs of a nations to be decided through the force of an unelected global bureaucracy? If you, on your own personal level feel the need to support one side of a conflict in a country thousands of miles away from you of no immediate threat to you or your family-- bust out your checkbook! Take up arms and get over there! Go fight the cause that YOU feel so strongly about, while not involving your neighbor. Now, THAT'S freedom. For every forced outside government intervention you think is necessary, there will surely be 25 others that you probably disagree with, and that is going to drain YOU of your own livelihood in the process. If you support this global police system for one conflict, you end up supporting all of the unnecessary interventions, which likely yields serious errors and omissions of dictatorships far more worthy of global "police" intervention.

States bordering internal conflicts such as those bordering Libya may have reasons to intervene for their own self-defense reasons-- but either way, if it's not my country, it's not my decision.

And as far as the reasons for requiring a Congressional declaration of war: This was designed in such a way that war wasn't done so hastily, and the framers of the Constitution spent loads of time dealing with the portion of the document dealing with war. Unlike most of our politicians today, those guys just got done fighting a war themselves, some of them on the front lines. Declaring war involves a debate process, time to present the facts and make the people aware of any threat and gives the people a chance to contact their representatives in favor of, or against going to war, so that Congress can then represent the true beliefs of the people, and it still requires an overwhelming majority to make it happen! It was designed in such a way that war is NOT the favorable outcome, only an absolutely necessary one. If decided in favor of war, there is a process to make sure the war is fought quickly, efficiently, and is properly funded.

GOING TO WAR, OR GIVING WAR ANY OTHER CUTE LITTLE PSEUDONYM SUCH AS "ENFORCEMENT OF A NO-FLY ZONE," WHERE VIOLENT MILITARY FORCE IS CLEARLY BEING EXECUTED, IS NOT TO BE DECIDED ON THE WHIMS OF ANY PRESIDENT, NOR IS IT TO BE DICTATED BY ANY OTHER OUTSIDE "GOVERNMENT" ORGANIZATION, ESPECIALLY IN THE NAME OF FREEDOM AND / OR DEMOCRACY. BY GIVING INTO THAT SYSTEM AND PHILOSOPHY, "DEMOCRACY" IS USURPED BY ALL GOVERNMENTS INVOLVED FROM THEIR OWN NON-CONSENTING INDIVIDUALS OF WHICH THEIR GOVERNMENT IS SUPPOSED TO REPRESENT.

It's hypocritcal, immoral, and against the law.