[Peace-discuss] Obama's third war & his lies about it

[C. G. Estabrook]

Obama's third war
US President Barack Obama's promises that Libya would be a short war with 
humanitarian aims have fallen flat.
Ted Rall Last Modified: 16 Jun 2011 14:09

Republicans in the United States Senate held a hearing in early April to discuss 
the progress of what has since become the war in Libya. It was one month into 
the operation. Senator John McCain, the Arizona conservative who lost the 2008 
presidential race to Barack Obama, grilled US generals: "So, right now we are 
facing the prospect of a stalemate," McCain asked General Carter Ham, chief of 
the US' Africa Command. "I would agree with that at present," Ham replied.

How would the effort to depose Colonel Gaddafi conclude? "I think it does not 
end militarily," Ham predicted.

That was more than two months ago.

It's a familiar ritual. Once again military operation marketed as inexpensive, 
short-lived and - naturally -altruistic, is dragging on, piling up bills, with 
no end in sight. The scope of the mission, narrowly defined initially, has 
radically expanded. The Libyan stalemate is threatening to become, along with 
Iraq and especially Afghanistan, the third quagmire for the US.

Bear in mind, of course, that the US definition of a military quagmire does not 
square with the one in the dictionary, namely, a conflict from which one or both 
parties cannot disengage. The US could pull out of Libya. But it won't. Not yet.

Indeed, President Obama would improve his chances in his upcoming reelection 
campaign were he to order an immediate withdrawal from all four of America's 
"hot wars": Libya, along with Afghanistan, Iraq, and now Yemen. When US and NATO 
warplanes began dropping bombs on Libyan government troops and military targets 
in March, only 47 per cent of Americans approved - relatively low for the start 
of a military action. With US voters focused on the economy in general and 
joblessness in particular, this jingoistic nation's typical predilection for 
foreign adventurism has given way to irritation to anything that distracts from 
efforts to reduce unemployment. Now a mere 26 per cent support the war - a 
figure comparable to those for the Vietnam conflict at its nadir.

Language of war

For US citizens, "quagmire" became a term of political art after Vietnam. It 
refers not to a conflict that one cannot quit - indeed, the US has not fought a 
war where its own survival was at stake since 1815 - but one that cannot be won. 
The longer such a war drags on, with no clear conclusion at hand, the more that 
US national pride - and corporate profits - are at stake. Like a commuter 
waiting for a late bus, the more time, dead soldiers, and material has been 
squandered, the harder it is to throw up one's hands and give up. So Obama will 
not call off his dogs - his NATO allies - regardless of the polls. Like a 
gambler on a losing streak, he will keep doubling down.

US ground troops in Libya? Not yet. Probably never. But don't rule them out. 
Obama hasn't.

It is shocking, even by the standards of Pentagon warfare, how quickly "mission 
creep" has imposed itself in Libya. People in the US, at war as long as they can 
remember, recognise the signs: more than half the electorate believes that US 
forces will be engaged in combat in Libya at least through 2012.

One might rightly point out: this latest US incursion into Libya began recently, 
in March. Isn't it premature to worry about a quagmire?

Not necessarily.

"Like an unwelcome spectre from an unhappy past, the ominous word 'quagmire' has 
begun to haunt conversations among government officials and students of foreign 
policy, both here and abroad," RW Apple, Jr reported in The New York Times. He 
was talking about Afghanistan.

Apple was prescient. He wrote his story on October 31, 2001, three weeks into 
what has since become the United States' longest war.

Framing the narrative

Obama never could have convinced a war-weary public to tolerate a third war in a 
Muslim country had he not promoted the early bombing campaign as a humanitarian 
effort to protect Libya's eastern-based rebels (recast as "civilians") from 
imminent Srebrenica-esque massacre by Gaddafi's forces. "We knew that if we 
waited one more day, Benghazi - a city nearly the size of Charlotte [North 
Carolina] - could suffer a massacre that would have reverberated across the 
region and stained the conscience of the world," the president said on March 28. 
"It was not in our national interest to let that happen. I refused to let that 
happen."

Obama promised a "limited" role for the US military, which would be part of 
"broad coalition" to "protect civilians, stop an advancing army, prevent a 
massacre, and establish a no-fly zone." There would be no attempt to drive 
Gaddafi out of power. "Of course, there is no question that Libya - and the 
world - would be better off with Gaddafi out of power," he said. "I, along with 
many other world leaders, have embraced that goal, and will actively pursue it 
through non-military means. But broadening our military mission to include 
regime change would be a mistake."

"Regime change [in Iraq]," Obama reminded, "took eight years, thousands of 
American and Iraqi lives, and nearly a trillion dollars. That is not something 
we can afford to repeat in Libya."

The specifics were fuzzy, critics complained. How would Libya retain its 
territorial integrity - a stated US war aim - while allowing Gaddafi to keep 
control of the western provinces around Tripoli?

The answer, it turned out, was essentially a replay of Bill Clinton's bombing 
campaign against Serbia during the 1990s. US and NATO warplanes targeted 
Gaddafi's troops. Bombs degraded Libyan military infrastructure: bases, radar 
towers, even ships. US policymakers hoped against hope that Gaddafi's generals 
would turn against him, either assassinating him in a coup or forcing the Libyan 
strongman into exile.

If Gaddafi had disappeared, Obama's goal would have been achieved: easy in, easy 
out. With a little luck, Islamist groups such as al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb 
would have little to no influence on the incoming government to be created by 
Libyan National Transitional Council (NTC). With more good fortune, the NTC 
could even be counted upon to sign over favourable oil concessions to US and 
European energy concerns.

But Gaddafi was no Milosevic. The dictator dug in his heels. This was at least 
in part due to NATO's unwillingness or inability to offer him the dictator 
retirement plan of Swiss accounts, gym bags full of bullion, and a swanky home 
on the French Riviera.

Reaching the impasse

Stalemate was the inevitable result of America's one foot in, one foot out Libya 
war policy - an approach that continued after control of the operation was 
officially turned over to NATO, specifically Britain and France. Allied jets 
were directed to deter attacks on Benghazi and other NTC-held positions, not to 
win the revolution for them. NTC forces, untrained and poorly armed, were no 
match for Gaddafi's professional army. On the other hand, loyalist forces were 
met with heavy NATO air strikes whenever they tried to advance into rebel-held 
territory. Libya was bifurcated. With Gaddafi still alive and in charge, this 
was the only way Obama administration policy could play out.

No one knows whether Gaddafi's angry bluster - the rants that prompted Western 
officials to attack - would have materialised in the form of a massacre. It is 
clear, on the other hand, that Libyans on both sides of the front are paying a 
high price for the US-created stalemate.

At least one million among Libya's population of six million has fled the nation 
or become internally displaced. There are widespread shortages of basic goods, 
including food and fuel. According to the Pakistani newspaper Dawn, the NTC has 
pulled children out of schools in areas they administer and put them to work 
"cleaning streets, working as traffic cops and dishing up army rations to rebel 
soldiers".

NATO jets fly one sortie after another; the fact that they're running out of 
targets doesn't stop them from dropping their payloads. Each bomb risks killing 
more of the civilians they are ostensibly supposed to be protecting. Libyans 
will be living in rubble for years after the war ends.

Coalition pilots were given wide leeway in the definition of "command and 
control centres" that could be targeted; one air strike against the Libyan 
leader's home killed 29-year-old Saif al-Arab, Gaddafi's son, along with three 
of his grandchildren, said Libyan government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim. Gaddafi 
himself remained in hiding. Officially, however, NATO was not allowed to even 
think about trying to assassinate him.

Pentagon brass told Obama that more firepower was required to turn the tide in 
favour of the ragtag army of the NTC. But he couldn't do that. He was faced with 
a full-scale rebellion by a coalition of liberal antiwar Democrats and 
Republican constitutionalists in the US House of Representatives. Furious that 
the president had failed to request formal Congressional approval for the Libyan 
war within 60 days as required by the 1973 War Powers Act, they voted against a 
military appropriations bill for Libya.

The planes kept flying. But Congress' reticence now leaves one way to close the 
deal: kill Gaddafi.

As recently as May 1, after the killing of Gaddafi's son and grandchildren, NATO 
was still denying that it was trying to dispatch Gaddafi. "All NATO's targets 
are military in nature and have been clearly linked to the Gaddafi regime's 
systematic attacks on the Libyan population and populated areas. We do not 
target individuals," said Canada's Lieutenant General Charles Bouchard, 
commanding military operations in Libya.

By June 10, CNN confirmed that NATO was targeting Libya's leader for death. 
"Asked by CNN whether Gaddafi was being targeted," CNN reported, "[a 
high-ranking] NATO official declined to give a direct answer. The [UN] 
resolution applies to Gaddafi because, as head of the military, he is part of 
the control and command structure and therefore a legitimate target, the 
official said."

In other words, a resolution specifically limiting the scope of the war to 
protecting civilians and eschewing regime change was being used to justify 
regime change via political assassination.

So what happens next?

First: war comes to Washington. On June 14, the House of Representatives Speaker 
John Boehner sent Obama a rare warning letter complaining of "a refusal to 
acknowledge and respect the role of Congress" in the US war against Libya and a 
"lack of clarity" about the mission.

"It would appear that in five days, the administration will be in violation of 
the War Powers Resolution unless it asks for and receives authorisation from 
Congress or withdraws all US troops and resources from the mission [in Libya]," 
Boehner wrote. "Have you ... conducted the legal analysis to justify your 
position?" he asked. "Given the gravity of the constitutional and statutory 
questions involved, I request your answer by Friday, June 17, 2011."

Next, the stalemate/quagmire continues. Britain can keep bombing Libya "as long 
as we choose to," said General Sir David Richards, the UK Chief of Defence Staff.

One event could change everything overnight: Gaddafi's death. Until then, NATO 
and the United States must accept the moral responsibility for dragging out a 
probable aborted uprising in eastern Libya into a protracted civil war with no 
military - or, contrary to NATO pronouncements, political - solution in the 
foreseeable future. Libya is assuming many of the characteristics of a proxy war 
such as in Afghanistan during the 1980s, wherein outside powers armed warring 
factions to rough parity but not beyond, with the effect of extending the 
conflict at tremendous cost of life and treasure. This time around, only one 
side, the NTC rebels, are receiving foreign largess - but not enough to score a 
decisive victory against Gaddafi by capturing Tripoli.

Libya was Obama's first true war. He aimed to show how Democrats manage 
international military efforts differently than neo-cons like Bush. He built an 
international coalition. He made the case on humanitarian grounds. He declared a 
short time span.

In three short months, all of Obama's plans have fallen apart. NATO itself is 
fracturing. There is talk about dissolving it entirely. The Libya mission is 
stretching out into 2011 and beyond.

People all over the world are questioning US motives in Libya and criticising 
the thin veneer of legality used to justify the bombings. "We strongly believe 
that the [UN] resolution [on Libya] is being abused for regime change, political 
assassinations and foreign military occupation," South African President Jacob 
Zuma said this week, echoing criticism of the invasion of Iraq.

Somewhere in Texas, George W Bush is smirking.

Ted Rall is an American political cartoonist, columnist and author. His most 
recent book is The Anti-American Manifesto. His website is rall.com.

http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/06/20116159452522113.html