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Published on Saturday, March 19, 2011 by Salon.com<br>
Libya and the Familiar Patterns of War<br>
by Glenn Greenwald<br>
<br>
<br>
<u><i>The Los Angeles Times</i>, March 18, 2003</u>:<br>
<br>
<blockquote><b>U.S. Raises Terrorism Alert Amid Concerns of
Retaliation</b><br>
<br>
Bracing for a backlash from impending war with Iraq, the Bush
administration put the nation on high alert for a terrorist attack
and announced that it was redoubling efforts to enhance security
at home.<br>
<br>
The decision to raise the terrorism threat level from yellow to
orange, the third such move in the last six months, followed
several months worth of intelligence reports indicating a strong
likelihood of some type of terrorist attack or retaliation if the
U.S. went to war with Iraq. Those strikes, officials said, could
come from organized Al Qaeda cells or groups sent here by Iraqi
President Saddam Hussein, or from individuals or small groups who
sympathize with them.<br>
</blockquote>
<u><br>
<i>The New York Times</i>, today</u>:<br>
<br>
<blockquote><b>American Official Warns That Qaddafi May Lash Out
With New Terrorist Attacks</b><br>
<br>
The United States is bracing for possible Libyan-backed terrorist
attacks, President Obama’s top counterterrorism official said on
Friday.<br>
<br>
The official, John O. Brennan, said that the military attacks on
civilians ordered in recent days by Libya’s leader, Col. Muammar
el-Qaddafi, coupled with his track record as a sponsor of
terrorism, had heightened worries within the administration as an
international coalition threatens military action against Libya.<br>
<br>
Asked if American officials feared whether Colonel Qaddafi could
open a new terrorism front, Mr. Brennan said: "Qaddafi has the
penchant to do things of a very concerning nature. We have to
anticipate and be prepared for things he might try to do to flout
the will of the international community."<br>
<br>
Among the threats the United States is focusing on is Libya’s
stockpile of deadly mustard gas, he said.<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
The attack on Iraq and the intervention in Libya are, in critical
ways, vastly different, and glib comparisons should be avoided.
Fear-mongering was the primary means of selling the Iraq war to the
public, whereas purported humanitarian goals have taken center stage
now (though humanitarian appeals -- <i>rape rooms, mass graves,
chemical attacks on his own people, and sadistic sons!!</i> --
were also prominently featured in 2003 and in virtually every other
war ever started). That the Arab League advocated the Libya
intervention, and it now has U.N. endorsement, lend a perceived
international legitimacy to it that Iraq so disastrously lacked.
Because both political parties' leaders are even more supportive of
this military action than they were for Iraq, the domestic debate
will be much less contentious. At least for now, Obama is
substantially more cautious than Bush ever was in limiting the U.S.
commitment. And given that the Libya intervention has not even
begun, no comparisons can be made between its execution and the
brutal, inhumane slaughter and destruction that characterized the
eight-year assault on Iraq; it's possible (though far from
guaranteed) that this intervention could be short, relatively
bloodless and successful.<br>
<br>
All that said, it is striking how wars -- no matter how they're
packaged -- ultimately breed the same patterns. With public opinion
split or even against the war in Libya (at least for now) -- and
with questions naturally arising about why we're intervening here to
stop the violence but ignoring the growing violence from our good
friends in Yemen, Bahrain and elsewhere -- the administration
obviously knows that some good, old-fashioned fear-mongering and
unique demonization <i>(Gadaffi is a Terrorist with "deadly mustard
gas" who might attack us!!)</i> can only help. Then there's the
fact that the same faction of war-loving-from-a-safe-distance
"hawks" that took the lead in cheering for the attack on Iraq --
neocons on the Right and their "liberal interventionist"
counterparts in The New Republic/Brookings/Democratic Party
officialdom world -- are playing the same role here. And many of
the same manipulative rhetorical tactics are now wielded against war
opponents: the Libyan rebels are the new Kurds <i>(they want us to
act to protect them!)</i>, and just as those who opposed the
attack on Iraq were routinely accused of indifference toward if not
support for Saddam's tyranny, those who oppose this intervention are
now accused of indifference to Gadaffi's butchery (as always: are
those refraining from advocating for military intervention in Yemen
or Saudi Arabia or Bahrain or the Sudan or dozens of other places
indifferent to the violence and other forms of suffering there?).<br>
<br>
Foreign Policy's Josh Rogin reports that Obama just this week
changed his mind on Libya from opposing to supporting intervention
because he became convinced that this would change America's posture
in the region by placing us on the side of freedom and democracy.
But would it really do that? As our Saudi, Yemeni, Bahraini,
Jordanian, Kuwaiti, Egyptian and Iraqi close friends continue to
impose varying degrees of domestic oppression and violence, is yet
another military intervention in an oil-rich Muslim nation really
going to transform rather than bolster how we're perceived in that
region? This claim -- we'll be viewed as strong and magnanimous in
the Muslim world -- was also, of course, a featured claim justifying
the attack on Iraq. And just as was true for Iraq, how this ends up
being perceived, and what it turns out to be in fact, depends on a
whole slew of unknowable factors, including what we end up doing
there, how long it takes, and whom we end up supporting. <br>
<br>
As for Brennan's warning that this action may trigger Terrorist
attacks on the U.S., I suppose -- just as was true for the similar
2003 warnings -- that this is a possible repercussion of our
intervention. But doesn't that really underscore the key point? If
we really want to transform how we're perceived in that part of the
world, and if we really want to reduce the Terrorist threat, isn't
the obvious solution to stop sending our fighter jets and bombs and
armies to that part of the world rather than finding a new Muslim
country to target for war on a seemingly annual basis? I have no
doubt that some citizens who support the intervention in Libya are
doing so for purely humanitarian and noble reasons, just as was true
for some supporters of the effort to remove the truly despicable
Saddam Hussein. But the intentions of those who support the war
shed little light on the motives of those who prosecute the war and
even less light on what its ultimate outcomes will be.<br>
<br>
* * * * *<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
© 2011 Salon.com<br>
<br>
Glenn Greenwald was previously a constitutional law and civil rights
litigator in New York. He is the author of the New York Times
Bestselling book "How Would a Patriot Act?," a critique of the Bush
administration's use of executive power, released in May 2006. His
second book, "A Tragic Legacy", examines the Bush legacy. His next
book is titled "With Liberty and Justice for Some: How the Law Is
Used to Destroy Equality and Protect the Powerful."
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