Libya attack begins
Another day, another illegal war. Is somebody keeping track of how many predominately-Muslim countries that is now that the United States has bombed?It does not matter if the cause is just, or if the United States has the backing of the U.N. Security Council. This is another war being waged without the Constitutional authority of a Congressional declaration of war, more imperialist interference in the civil war of another nation.
The chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Mike Mullins, was on "Meet the Press" this morning claiming that the U.S. has the backing of the Arab League in their initiative. According to the head of that group Sunday, it doesn't. Amr Moussa says the Arab League called for a no-fly zone, not air strikes, that is, "the protection of civilians and not the bombardment of more civilians." When asked about civilian casualties, Mullins also had the audacity to refer repeatedly to dead civilians as "collateral damage," a shocking and unfortunate official utterance in the post-Assange world.
The attacking countries have now made it more difficult for the anti-Gaddafi revolutionaries to achieve the Tunisian or Egyptian-style path to change. They've taken an Arab/nationalist movement, like others in the region boasting a large majority of civilian support, and turned it into another colonial interventionist war. Their action threatens the backing of the Arab League, and the U.S. is already warning of a long, drawn-out conflict, a "stalemate," and outcomes in which Gaddafi is permitted to stay in power.
Here we go again acting out another dramatic script written by a paranoid schizophrenic dictator, another attack from the skies that can be advertised on the ground as the latest Western Crusade. Where's the historical record providing evidence that Western intervention in the Middle East aids the cause of humanitarianism? If Obama, Clinton, and Mullins didn't think that their so-called "limited, very focused" bombing would lead to significant civilian casualties, why did they wait until all of the Western officials and diplomats had been safely flown out of the country? Why are there no efforts to help lead Libyan refugees likewise out of the country? This is another military action fueled by Washington perceptions of the American political climate, and you heard it here first that it's going to be another clusterfuck.
Meanwhile, in Bahrain, the U.S.-backed Sunni monarchy and the Saudis turned their military forces Gaddafi-style against freedom protesters in the predominately-Shiite nation. The kingdom of Bahrain has long been host to the United States' largest Middle-Eastern naval base, and you can place a safe bet that the U.S. will not be intervening with air strikes on behalf of revolutionaries there. In fact, we've been busy training Saudi air force pilots on our own soil.
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The perjury and obstruction of justice trial of Barry Bonds begins in U.S. District Court tomorrow. Nothing to see here. Move along. Judge Susan Illston, who will oversee the trial, already admonished federal prosecutors in 2009 for even pursuing this disruptive and expensive (multimillion dollar) legal appeal, accusing them of chasing a media circus, and ruling that Fourth Amendment Constitutional rights were "callously disregard(ed)" when the government took Major League Baseball steroid test results and urine samples during a raid in 2004. The 2007 indictment against Bonds has had to be rewritten three times to get to this point in the legal proceedings.
While you're avoiding the story, make special effort to avoid ESPN's coverage. Reporter Mark Fainaru-Wada, formerly of the San Francisco Chronicle, was hired away by the "Worldwide Leader in Sports" after authoring the most-notable book on the BALCO steroid investigation, "Game of Shadows." Fainaru-Wada was the recipient of leaked testimony from the federal grand jury in this case that has been up to its ears in prosecutorial misconduct. Like Jeff Novitzy, the former FDA official who illegally took the private drug test results from the baseball players union, who threatened the wife and mother-in-law of Bonds' former trainer Greg Anderson, and who has been accused by two witnesses in the BALCO case of fabricating their testimonies, Fainaru-Wada's professional reputation is riding in large part on the trial verdict.
posted by CM @ 3:57 PM
2 Comments:
Seems like you're on the same page with the Russian leader on your branding this a crusade. Except instead of trying to spread Christianity, we are trying to spread democracy. Actually, in the case of Libya, we aren't spreading it as much as we are allowing it the chance to happen. Without NATO intervention, Gaddafi would have easily destroyed his protesters seeking a more legitimate government. I am actually disappointed it took us so long to offer support there because the revolution lost a lot of momentum in the last two weeks while he was allowed to kill his people.
Why do you show outrage at us bombing Gaddafi's forces and not show outrage at Gaddafi's forces bombing his own citizens because they have the gall to want something better?
I didn't brand it a crusade. I said this makes it easy for Gaddafi to brand it a crusade.
So by that logic, does your disappointment in our failure to act extend also to Bahrain? And Yemen? And Sudan? And Iran? And China?
The rebels in Libya are awe-inspiring. They're acting heroically in the same way that working-class protesters have been acting heroically in Cairo, Tunis, Sana'a, Manama, the West Bank, and Madison. Gaddafi is a flea whose end will soon come (if the West has the good sense to stay out of it) because he operates an authoritarian government, which is being proven again to be the most vulnerable type of government there is.
My major concern-- and that was a good question-- is with the United States of America because it's my country, it's the most powerful military power in the world, the greatest purveyor of violence in the world now dropping bombs on Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and Libya.
We have a terrifying president of our own who spies on, tortures, and orders the assassination of citizens, who thinks its unnecessary to have a public debate on bombing now a FIFTH country only half-way through his first term in office (two of them secretly), and who not only believes its unnecessary to get a declaration of war from the Congress before dropping $100 million worth of bombs in one day, but who doesn't even bother any longer to consult with its members before he does.
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