Conservatives are very concerned about strengthening America’s military while reducing the debt. They are also concerned about threats of terror, sometimes when no threat exists (e.g. Iraq).

I became somewhat alarmed when it was reported that Libya has massive amount of weapons of mass destruction. This includes ten tons of mustard gas and sarin contained in thousands of canisters. Additionally it is reported that Libya has one thousand metric tons of uranium yellowcake, a stockpile of Scud B missiles and perhaps as many as a thousand shoulder-launched missiles capable of bringing down a commercial airplane.

Like Saddam Hussein, Muammar Qaddafi has been no friend of Al Qaeda. An ironic difference is that Saddam did not possess Weapons of Mass Destruction in the early 2000s; Qaddafi has considerable amounts a decade later. What happens in post-Qaddafi Libya is a mosaic of uncertainties. The best that most of us can do in determining who the rebels are is to speculate. Are they a revolutionary group hungering for a secular democracy or are they religious fanatics including members of al Qaeda?

Whoever comes to govern Libya post-Qaddafi will have three choices with the WMDs. They can do nothing, just let them sit. They can choose to use them, although it’s unclear against whom. Finally, they could sell them. Naturally they would want the best price, so a somewhat surreptitious auction would take place.

Who would be the bidders in an auction? From the point of view of the United States, the first question would be whether or not it wants to have a seat at the table and bid. The second question is whether the United States is prepared, in the words of John F. Kennedy, to “pay any price, bear any burden, and meet any hardship” to guarantee that it wins the bidding and takes possession of the WMDs.

For good reason, the United States has not always trusted other countries. Similarly, with good reasons other countries have not always trusted the United States. Whoever has possession of weapons of mass destruction possesses the double bonus of increasing its own arsenal while depriving potential foes of increasing theirs.

Never having been in the market for weapons of mass destruction, I’m not certain what the going price is on the black market. But with what Libya has, let’s suppose that the amount is $100 billion. Remember, we’re not talking about the cost of producing them, we’re talking about how much potential new owners are willing to pay in 2011.

Money would have to be authorized for the U.S. to purchase the weapons. The Obama Administration could openly inform Congress of its desire to make the purchase. If they felt uncomfortable with that approach, they could discuss the issue secretly with leaders of Congress and its committees on intelligence.

Interestingly, it would likely be the Democrats who would have no hesitation about stepping forward and protecting America’s national defense. I presume that Republicans would want to do likewise but could they do so considering the arguments that they made in the deficit debate?

Buying Libya’s WMDs would not be consistent with Republicans Holy Grail of cutting spending. It would be the anathema; increasing spending. Would the dogma of their opposition to increased spending trump their concern for national security?

In all likelihood, the Republicans would want their cake and eat it too. They would support appropriations for America to pay whatever is necessary to keep these WMDs out of the hands of opponents. But this expenditure would require that they find other spending to cut. The precedent has already been set. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor was willing to provide federal aid to tornado-ravaged Joplin, MO if expenditures were cut for clean energy research.

Does this mean that if the U.S. bids for the WMDs that Cantor suggests taking the money from earthquake or hurricane damage to his district in Virginia? I don’t think so.

The tragedies of tornados, earthquakes, and hurricanes put us through enough pain. Do we have to further suffer from the foolishness of politicians’ responses to these tragedies? I fear asking that question to Eric Cantor, so can national leaders with an ounce of compassion come forth and ensure that America takes care of its citizens in times of need, with no strings attached? If so, let’s hear from you.

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America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests.
—Henry Kissinger

Secretary Hillary Clinton is looking happy and relaxed. The man next to her is Mahmoud Jibril, acting prime minister for the National Transitional Council, the rebel government of Libya formed in opposition to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. It is July 15 in Istanbul, and Secretary Clinton has just recognized Jibril’s CIA-backed and funded, National Transitional Council as the “legitimate” authority in Libya. France and 28 other, mostly Western, nations have recognized the Council and Mr. Jibril.

War games go live
According to the Obama administration and the media, the U.S. began its military operation in northern Africa in March of this year as a “humanitarian” mission, to protect the Libyan rebels from the atrocities of dictator Gaddafi. Yet there is much evidence that the intention to invade Libya was solidified at least as early as November, 2010, when French-British war games were announced to take place in Europe March 21-25, 2011. The war games, called “Operation Mistral,” involved a fictitious dictator and a fictitious country called “Southland.” Operation Mistral never took place and “Operation Odyssey Dawn,” the name of the humanitarian mission to save Libya from Gaddafi, went live on March 19.

Military operations of the magnitude of Operation Odyssey Dawn cannot be improvised overnight, and it is likely the war on Libya and the armed rebel insurrection were planned well in advance of the first Arab Spring protests in December of 2010. The Arab Spring was an unexpected boon, providing a convenient cover for the CIA funded anti-Gaddafi rebel group. Representative Dennis Kucinich noted the coincidence between the war games and the start of Operation Odyssey Dawn in a speech he gave on the House floor on March 31.In the words of Rep. Dennis Kucinich:

“While war games are not uncommon, the similarities between “Southern Mistral” and “Operation Odyssey Dawn” highlight just how many unanswered questions remain regarding our own military planning for Libya.”

Is this a humanitarian mission or is the U.S  gunning for Gaddafi?
Of course, the Obama administration is gunning for Gaddafi. Overnight, the “humanitarian mission” became a mission for “regime change.” Libya has great quantities of light sweet crude, and sits atop the famous Nubian Sandstone Aquifer—a vast reserve of “fossil water,” that is tens of thousands of years old and most likely the purest water on Earth. And,  now that the United States has declared the new rebel government “legitimate,” it can start using tens of billions of confiscated Libyan assets to help fund the removal of Gaddafi. If you believe the U.S. media, the Libyan people have been rescued from Gaddafi and the Arab Spring has spread to yet another nation. But there is a little problem with this narrative . . .

It seems many Libyans do not appreciate our humanitarian efforts
The spontaneous and massive demonstrations by the people of Tunisia and Egypt were directed against their corrupt, U.S. backed dictators. In Libya, the biggest demonstrations are in support of the reigning dictator Gaddafi and against the United States and NATO bombings in support of the rebels. Mainstream media refuses to show these massive pro Gaddafi demonstrations against our “humanitarian” intervention.

On July 1st, more than a million Libyans were in Green Square and the surrounding streets of Tripoli, to hear Muammar Gaddafi speak and to rally against NATO. The crowd chanted over and over again “We want Gaddafi” while unveiling a green Libyan flag 6 kilometers long. Reporter Mahdi Nazemoroaya attended the event for the Canadian Centre for Research on Globalization and provided the following photos.

An Air Force press release celebrates the bombing of Libya
In the early hours of March 20, U.S. Air Force B-2 Spirits, otherwise known as “stealth bombers”, flew out of Missouri’s Whiteman Air Force Base in support of Operation Oddyssey Dawn, on a mission to bomb Libya. The B-2s returned after a more than 25-hour journey having deployed 45 guided joint direct attack munitions, each weighing 2,000 pounds, against aircraft shelters in Libya.:

It was a spectacular display of airmanship watching this coalition come together the way it did to execute the first air strikes on behalf of the Libyan people,” said Maj. Gen. Margaret H. Woodward, Operation Odyssey Dawn Joint Force Air Component Commander. “Our bombers and fighters performed magnificently and we are fully behind protecting the innocent Libyan citizens while ensuring the safety of coalition aircraft.”

Contrary to what Maj. Gen. Woodward says, as demonstrated in the above photos, a large number of Libyan citizens don’t want the “protection” of our bombs.

Rick Rozoff, reporting for Canadian Global Research estimates that 65 Libyan civilians were killed and 150 wounded on this first day of bombing. Oil depots and a medical facility were among the targets of bombing and missile attacks.

Underscoring the fraud of the US and NATO claims that the war is being fought to protect civilian lives, even the western media has been compelled to note that rebel units are indiscriminately firing rockets into Gaddafi-held towns and villages.

The greatest civilian casualties, however, are being inflicted by the bombing missions of American and European aircraft.

How our corporate owned government sells our profit driven wars
Central to an understanding how the United States government sells its wars to the American people is understanding the role of the mainstream media, which grants them legitimacy. Rather than serving the public good, corporate owned media reports the official statements of the government and the military and drives a variety of false narratives based on false premises. These statements are often quoted from “anonymous sources” within the administration. Public relations firms aid the government in shaping the messages to be provided to the media so that the justifications for war are palatable to a misinformed and gullible public. Patton Boggs, a well-known K Street lobbying firm and the Harbor Group, a well-connected DC PR firm have been hired by the U.S. backed rebel group to help sell the war in Libya to the American people.

In all false war narratives, there is usually a good versus evil dichotomy. We are going to war against “communism,” we are intervening for humanitarian reasons against an evil dictator, or fighting “terrorists,” “over there,” instead of here.  The invaded country is described as “hostile” to “American interests” or possessing “weapons of mass destruction.” The United States is portrayed as a noble victim, intervening to save the world from tyranny, as we spread our unique form of democracy and our superior way of life to the world’s grateful and suffering masses.

If someone publicly questions the motives of the United States or its adventurous wars, a pro-war, corporate owned politician or a pundit, whether Democrat or Republican, is quick to accuse him or her of siding with terrorists or dictators. Through this process of selective demonizing of national leaders of nation states that are unfriendly to corporate interests, the U.S. government manipulates its people into acquiescing to its war agenda, and into allowing the use of their tax dollars and loved ones for dubious causes.

Assessing the legitimacy of a war
The photo of the smiling Hillary Clinton and Mahmoud Jibril at the top of this post depicts a predictable step in the violent takeover of an independent nation for corporate profit—the installation of the U.S. puppet government. We have done this over and over again—in Vietnam, in Panama, in Nicaragua, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Egypt, and Indonesia—installed a corrupt dictator who makes sure the countries resources are available to U.S finance capital and corporate interests.

When you assess a war for its legitimacy, it is not necessary to identify with the government or leader in question or even approve of its policies. You may or may not like Gaddafi, and you may not have been a fan of Saddam Hussein. There may be factions within a country that would like to overturn their government for a variety of reasons, some self-serving and some altruistic.

It’s OK to oppose any war on principle, because it can kill hundreds of thousands and displace millions, because it can destroy infrastructure and poison the environment for decades to come, and because it causes massive human suffering. You can also oppose war for specific reasons, as when the United States uses the blood and treasure of this country to steal the resources of another country for the benefit of the wealthy and powerful. And, you can oppose the vampire war industry itself, which bleeds this country as much as it bleeds the countries it invades.

If we begin to listen carefully to the evening news, and question everything we are being told, we can start to challenge our government, our elected representatives, and the media’s lies that present U.S. wars as noble humanitarian undertakings. We can identify when our government is being opportunistic in supporting one faction over another in a country that has assets and resources our corporations want. By doing so, we can begin to see through the lies, and expose war as the criminal activity it is.

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“When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.”  These are famous and not unexpected words from Richard Nixon in his 1977 interview series with David Frost.   It might be the finest explanation that Nixon could have had to substantiate another of his famous quotes, “I am not a crook.”  No one is a crook if they are in a position to determine what is illegal.

President Barack Obama is not a crook, but his arguments for asserting that the War Powers Act of 1973 need not be invoked with regard to American action in Libya, seem very much like Nixon’s assertion that if the president does it, it’s okay.  The White House’s 38-page argument that the War Powers Act does not apply in Libya states:

“U.S. operations do not involve sustained fighting or active exchanges of fire with hostile forces, nor do they involve U.S. ground troops.” Still, the White House acknowledged, the operation has cost the Pentagon $716 million in its first two months and will have cost $1.1 billion by September at the current scale of operations.

The War Powers Act requires:

the President to notify Congress within 48 hours of committing armed forces to military action and forbids armed forces from remaining for more than 60 days, with a further 30 day withdrawal period, without an authorization of the use of military force or a declaration of war. The resolution was passed by two-thirds of Congress, overriding a presidential veto.

President Obama’s statement is called parsing words.  Perhaps he could win a legal argument on the technicality of American troops not having boots on the ground, but his refusal to ask Congress to authorize the military action is clearly a violation of the spirit of the War Powers Act (whose primary author was Senator Thomas Eagleton of Missouri).  It’s also possible that he could not win on a legal technicality because (a) do we really believe that there are no American troops on the ground in Libya, and (b) if we really want to parse the words, perhaps American pilots flying in Libyan air space are tantamount to armed forces being in the territory of Libya.

In some ways, my argument is less with President Obama than it is with Democratic members of Congress.  Richard Nixon is not the only president whose actions became somewhat unfathomable upon reaching the presidency.  By virtue of being president, Barack Obama is in a pressure cooker unlike any other American.  Even if we disagree with his words or actions, it is important to have empathy for the difficulty of his position and the choices he must make.  A compelling argument on how President Obama is not the same as former Senator Obama is made in a June 24 op-ed by David Fahrenthold entitled “President Obama hasn’t always agreed with Senator Obama.”

On the day of Mr. Fahrenthold’s op-ed, the House of Representatives voted 123 to 295 to limit the military operation in Libya.  Granted, many Republicans wanted to embarrass the President with what was tantamount to a vote of no confidence.  But 70 Democrats joined with the Republicans to express a dissonance with President Obama’s strategy in Libya.

When it comes to war, President Obama is in a difficult position.  Like every president, he doesn’t want to be the first to “lose a war.”  Never mind that it can easily be argued that Johnson and Nixon lost a war (Vietnam), that Reagan lost a war (Lebanon), and that Bush 43 lost two wars (Iraq and Afghanistan).  What’s important is that none of them acknowledged losing; no matter what happened they put the conclusion in the  win column.

I am naïve and/or idealistic enough to wish that President Obama would say words to the effect of, “I should have gotten out of Iraq and Afghanistan as soon as I became president.  These were losing wars and I could do the country a true service by not only saving human life and treasury, but also by setting a precedent for a president to extricate the country from a war, when victory seems either unlikely or meaningless.”

Those would be strong words for a president and, unfortunately, a likely prescription to go in the history books as a one-term president.  What President Obama needs is a little bit of help from his friends in the Congress.  Lyndon Johnson could have used the same, and George W. Bush certainly should have been thwarted by Congress.

Most Republicans are going to oppose the president because their political strategy from Day One has been to embarrass him.  However, Democrats could also be politically expedient by opposing the president.  They could give him the cover, the excuse, to put an end to the continuation of a military policy that is suspiciously similar to Bush adventurism.

Democrats supported Lyndon Johnson by approving the Gulf of Tonkin (Vietnam) Resolution in 1964.  The initial vote might be excused, since they were given faulty information.  However, subsequent Congresses had eleven years to repeal the Resolution, and none did.  Shame on the Democrats in Congress whose inaction prolonged the war.

In 2002, Congress was also given misinformation about a war, this time by George W. Bush, about so-called weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.  However, Democrats should not have been fooled, because (a) Bush had not earned the right to be trusted as honest, and (b) even if there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, there were numerous other options to deal with the situation other than invading Iraq.  Yet on October 15, 2002, when a vote was taken to authorize President Bush to use military force against Iraq, only 21 of 50 Democrats voted against the resolution.  Among those who voted to authorize the war were Senator Hillary Clinton and Senator John Edwards.  At the time, Barack Obama was in the Senate–the Illinois state senate– so he didn’t vote on it.

It can be argued that the failure of Democrats to stop President Bush in his tracks in 2002 set the stage of open-ended American presence in Iraq and Afghanistan.  How many men and women have died for these questionable efforts, and how much money has been spent that has contributed to the United States’ debt, as well as depriing vital domestic programs of necessary funding.

This is why, when in a separate vote on June 24, in which Democrats joined with Republicans to reject a measure to cut off funding for offensive operations in Libya, it was just more of the same.  Members of Congress have less of an excuse than a president to back off from a war.  Congress will never be accused of being “the first to lose a war.”  Since President Obama feels that military hawks are his primary constituency when it comes to foreign intervention, Congress needs to step in and help him out.  Let the Democrats in Congress take one for the team.  Let them also articulately explain to the American people why military adventurism is neither wise nor effective.  Let them describe to the American people why getting out of wars will help put people back to work.  They can do it.

The Gulf of Tonkin resolution was nearly fifty years ago.  Have Democrats in Congress learned anything since then?  They had, and still have, a chance to show that they have learned the lessons.  In doing so, they will do a tremendous favor for President Obama, for themselves, and most importantly for the country.

The post Democrats could give Obama cover for Libya appeared first on Occasional Planet.

One of the most crazy-making aspects of political news is having to listen to government double-speak, especially when it involves foreign policy. When the White House, or the State Department, or the military issues a foreign policy statement, I listen for the code words that are hiding the truth of what’s really going on. I listen because I know I’m not being told the truth about whose interests our government’s foreign policy agenda is serving.  The moral of the story is this:  In this age of American imperialism on steroids, when listening to the nightly news, you better be wearing your secret decoder ring.

“Stability” sounds reassuring, doesn’t it?

Terms like “humanitarian mission,”  “peace-keeping mission,” “American interests,” “national security,” or “stability” sound good. That’s because they are designed to elicit a sense of patriotism, idealism, and security for the majority of Americans. But they are sanitized terms that hide the real purpose of our hundreds of military bases around the world. This we can be sure of: those bases are not there to serve and protect you and me, or the people of our host countries. They are there to insure that corporations have access to natural resources, cheap labor, and markets. Many Americans vaguely know this, and, worse, believe that corporations having unfettered global access to what they want is good for America, but they know nothing of the ugly reality of U.S. aggression.

Young people are vulnerable to patriotic double-speak, which is used to manipulate them into joining our all volunteer army. If recruiters tell them they are needed to risk their lives to secure Wall Street profits, would they enlist?

Linguist Noam Chomsky on the code word “stability.”

Chomsky says “stability” means“conformity to American interests.” But, it helps to dig deeper. “American interests” are not your interests, or my interests, they are the interests of the upper 1%, and of Wall Street and  global mega-corporations. So, the question Chomsky urges us to ask when the word, “stability” shows up on the evening news is, stability for whom and for what purpose?

Stability is—it’s kind of like democracy. Stability means conformity to our interests. So, for example, when Iran tries to expand its influence in Afghanistan and Iraq—neighboring countries—that’s called “destabilizing.” It’s part of the threat of Iran. It’s destabilizing the region. On the other hand, when the U.S. invades those countries, occupies them, half destroys them, that’s to achieve stability. And that is very common, even to the point where it’s possible to write—[as did the] former editor of Foreign Affairs—that when the U.S. overthrew the democratic government in Chile and instituted a vicious dictatorship, that was because the U.S. had to destabilize Chile to achieve stability. That’s in one sentence, and nobody noticed it, because that’s correct, if you understand the meaning of the word “stability.” Yeah, you overthrow a parliamentary government, you install a dictatorship, you invade a country and kill 20,000 people, you invade Iraq and kill hundreds of thousands of people—that’s all bringing about stability. Instability is when anyone gets in the way.

Iraq was defined as “unstable” as is Libya today. You may think the U.S. went to war with both countries to get rid of  “unstable dictators” who posed a military threat to the United States. But that would be wrong. The United States has installed plenty of dictators to manage it’s many client states around the world. And neither Iraq or Libya posed a direct threat to the United States. What Iraq and Libya have in common is that they were/are independent nations that did not allow access to American corporations, or enough access to make the U.S. and other Western nations happy. Because they were not compliant and amenable to “American interests,” their leaders were considered unreliable “loose canons.”

Getting rid of loose canons

After the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003, leveled much of Baghdad with a bombing campaign the Pentagon called “shock and awe,” and got rid of Saddam, Gadhafi tried to ward off threatened aggression on Libya by making political and economic concessions to the U.S and other Western countries. He opened the economy to foreign banks and corporations, and he agreed to IMF demands for structural adjustment, i.e., privatizing many state-owned enterprises and cutting state subsidies on necessities like food and fuel. But in 2010, he began to be “difficult” and demanded terms that were not to the oil companies, or the IMF’s liking. The U.S. supported rebels, who oppose Gaddafi, appeared in 2011, waving the flag of the Western backed monarch he deposed in a coup in 1969.

No matter what you hear from the podiums in the White House or the State Department, we are not in Libya for humanitarian reasons. We are there to remove Gaddafi and install a reliable U.S. dictator who will give oil companies unfettered access to large proven quantities of sweet crude (the most sought after oil in the world) and to limit China’s access to Libyan oil. Also, the old Wheelus Air Force Base near Tripoli will make a handy staging point for the recently formed U.S. Africa Command, AFRICOM.

If you believe otherwise, then you really need to get a decoder ring.

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