[Peace-discuss] Liberals March to War

[C. G. Estabrook]

Liberals March to War

"Humanitarian" interventionists salute their commander-in-chief

by Justin Raimondo <http://original.antiwar.com/author/justin/>, March 23, 2011

<http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2011/03/22/liberals-march-to-war/emailpopup/><http://antiwar-talk.com> 


Well, that didn't take long.

Now that President Barack Obama has intervened 
<http://news.antiwar.com/2011/03/22/us-troops-shoot-six-libyan-civilians-during-rescue-mission/> 
in Libya, his army of apologists is mobilizing to defend his "humanitarianism," 
declaring that /his/ war isn't at /all/ 
<http://articles.cnn.com/2011-03-20/opinion/bergen.libya.us_1_arab-league-obama-administration-libyan-intervention?_s=PM:OPINION> 
like Bush's wars. It's something new, and different -- and admirable 
<http://crookedtimber.org/2011/03/22/libya-the-case-for-intervention/>.

I'm not at all surprised. Are you? The anti-interventionist veneer of most 
American liberals and assorted "progressives" peels off quite readily when a 
little "humanitarian 
<http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/sc-dc-0302-gates-libya-20110301,0,1323291.story>" 
lotion is applied -- especially if it's poured on thick by a liberal Democratic 
President with a domestic agenda they can endorse.

/Mother Jones/ magazine, to cite one exemplar of this chameleon-like 
transformation, is no stranger to cheerleading the dark side of Obama's 
presidency. You'll recall that the magazine launched a scurrilous 
<http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2010/04/13/liberals-smear-wikileaks/> attack 
on Julian Assange, in which the author compiled 
<http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2010/04/13/liberals-smear-wikileaks/> a lot 
of quotes from self-described "experts" to the effect that WikiLeaks suffers 
from a lack of "transparency" -- to the US government, no less! -- and, 
alternatively, is a CIA "front." That didn't sit too well with their readers, as 
a look 
<http://motherjones.com/politics/2010/04/wikileaks-julian-assange-iraq-video?page=1> 
at the comments appended to that article attests, but a shill for power's gotta 
do what a shill is born to do, and that is "spin" every event to make the team 
--Team Obama, in this case -- look good. And certainly David Corn is up to the 
task <http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/03/libya-obama-anti-bush-doctrine>.

"A ghost hung over President Barack Obama," writes Corn, "as he stood at a 
podium in the East Room of the White House on Friday afternoon to talk about 
Libya: the ghost of George W. Bush."

Well, not really: that was the ghost of Woodrow Wilson 
<http://antiwar.com/horton/?articleid=5711>. Bush, I would remind Corn, isn't 
dead yet. But such details don't bother a progressive on his way into battle. 
The latest US attack on a Muslim country in the Middle East may /seem/ very 
similar to Bush's wars -- "absent references to WMD" -- what with the rhetoric 
(He's killing his own people! He's a tyrant! He's a terrorist!) and the stern 
Bushian mien. But that just shows how much /you/ know ....

Because, you see, according to Corn, the President "in the second half of his 
remarks departed from the Bush-like script." He then cites a single sentence in 
which the President refers to the "international coalition" arrayed against 
Gadhafi -- one smaller than Bush 
<http://factreal.wordpress.com/2011/03/22/war-obama-libyan-coalition-smaller-than-bush-iraq-coalition/>'s, 
by the way -- and includes some reassuring phrases about how, this time, we're 
"shaping the conditions for the international community to act together."

There -- feel better now? Take two bromides that Bush himself could -- and did 
<http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/09/12/national/main521781.shtml> -- utter, 
and call me in the morning.

Here is Corn's translation of this vague happy-talk:

/"That is, we're not cowboys. This will be, Obama suggested, true 
multilateralism---one including Arab nations. His administration and the 
governments of France and Britain had quickly guided a forceful resolution 
through the Security Council (with China and Russia abstaining), and the United 
States, Obama noted, would be 'enabling our European allies and Arab partners to 
effectively enforce a no-fly zone.' US leadership, yet European and Arab action. 
He added, 'The United States is not going to deploy ground troops into Libya.'"/

/"Noting that 'our British and French allies, and members of the Arab League' 
will take a lead role in enforcing the resolution, Obama declared, 'This is 
precisely how the international community should work, as more nations bear both 
the responsibility and the cost of enforcing international law.' That is 
precisely the opposite of how the neocons of the Bush-Cheney crowd viewed the 
world. They were not interested in tying their strategic desires to 
international law or in developing a global order in which the United States 
would not be the top-dog decider and enforcer."/

We're not cowboys: we're /social workers/, the kind with mean 
<http://d.yimg.com/a/p/ap/20110315/capt.747f4f6c85744308bda907dd5b03c968-747f4f6c85744308bda907dd5b03c968-0.jpg>, 
pinched <http://images.rcp.realclearpolitics.com/66753_5_.jpg> faces and a 
moralizing, condescending air -- armed with fighter jets 
<http://www.hdnewsroom.com/coalition-forces-strike-ghadafi-rebels-push-forward/0143>, 
guided missiles 
<http://abcnews.go.com/International/libya-international-military-coalition-launch-assault-gadhafi-forces/story?id=13174246>, 
and nuclear weapons <http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Usa/Weapons/Allbombs.html>, 
and determined to Do Good.

Now that the United States has bankrupted itself 
<http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1368942/Libya-war-Federal-Reserve-officials-fear-missiles-cost-100m-1-day.html?ito=feeds-newsxml> 
by spending more 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures> on 
"defense" than the rest of the world combined, the "multilateralists" take up 
the task of convincing the American people they've got to pursue the dream of 
empire to the very end. Oh no, they say, we're good "liberals," /we /don't dream 
of empire -- only of "international law" and a "global order." Top dog? Not us! 
We'll leave that onerous job to the UN Security Council.

Yes, and you'll note 
<http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/8390035/Libya-Live.html> 
the Obama-ites went to the Council, not the Congress, to ask permission to 
strike: and just to show we're /not / the Top Dog, they let the Brits and the 
Frenchies take the lead. What generosity.

The "argument" presented here is the one progressives have salved their 
perpetually guilty consciences with ever since this manifestly unqualified 
ex-"community organizer" took up residence in the White House: he's /not Bush/! 
That's why they remained silent when he extended 
<http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/21/world/asia/21intel.html> our perpetual "war 
on terrorism" into Pakistan, why they kept mum as the PATRIOT Act was 
reauthorized 
<http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/02/09/obama-seeks-longer-patriot-act-extension-republicans/> 
at the behest of the administration, and why they put the covers over their 
heads and stuck their fingers in their ears as George Bush's torture regime 
continued 
<http://pubrecord.org/torture/7806/obama-doing-bagram-part-one-torture/>, 
unabated and even expanded 
<http://news.change.org/stories/it-gets-worse-the-ongoing-torture-of-bradley-manning>, 
under Obama. It's why they ignored our failure to withdraw 
<http://www.denverpost.com/nationworld/ci_17655488> from Iraq, as promised by 
candidate Obama, and why they smiled politely and changed the subject whenever 
anyone had the poor taste to mention these unpleasant subjects.

Corn supplements the Not Bush argument with a new variation, an ideological 
rationale for knee-jerk defenders of the Obama regime: the we're-not-neocons 
meme. Obama's war in Libya is an example of what Corn actually dubs "the 
Anti-Bush Doctrine," which is "precisely the opposite of how the neocons of the 
Bush-Cheney crowd viewed the world."

The Anti-Bush Doctrine -- and let's call it that, because it reflects the 
partisan nonsense that passes for informed debate in Washington /and / in the 
San Francisco offices of /Mother/ /Jones/ -- is merely the Bush Doctrine turned 
inside out, and left side up.

Mandated with a "responsibility to protect," our self-appointed World Saviors 
and Bearers of Good Governance in the Obama White House are pledged to police 
the world in a multi-cultural and politically correct manner, kind of like the 
Federation on /Star Trek/, minus that bothersome Prime Directive 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_Directive> they hobbled Captain Kirk with. 
Think of the vision of futurity in /Things to Come/ 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Things_to_Come>, that fictional rendition of a 
parlor pink's wet dream, where the Airmen 
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NS3fQtHoaNA> take control after a world war, and 
patrol the earth disabling petty warlords and ragged barbarians with "peace gas 
<http://www.orwelltoday.com/wellspeacegas.shtml>."

This very same "peace gas" is now being emitted by the likes of Corn and /Mother 
Jones/, in defense of the Big O's very own war of "liberation." This is the same 
crowd that cheered the Clintons' war in the Balkans, where American fighter jets 
bombed some of the oldest cities in Europe at 20,000 ft. The Kosovo of 
organ-harvester Hashim Thaci <http://www.slate.com/id/2278048/>, a state run by 
outright gangsters, is their monument. The gods only know what they'll do to 
Libya. By the time they get through with the place, every Libyan will have 
guaranteed state-run healthcare -- and a family member dead or missing.

Consider our Libyan war as a Keynesian exercise 
<http://www.lewrockwell.com/higgs/higgs101.html> in "stimulus" spending: 
liberals who might otherwise object can take solace in the fact that Operation 
"Odyssey Dawn" has so far cost us the equivalent of the Republicans' entire 
proposed budget cut. Every missile we send sailing into Gadhafi's bunker costs 
anywhere from $600,000 
<http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/03/20/explosions-gunfire-heard-tripoli-allies-continue-military-strikes-libya/> 
to over a million. And by going to war with Libya we won't just be selfishly 
stimulating our own economy, we'll also be helping the Libyans even as we 
unleash destruction from the skies -- at least, that's the sort of Bizarro-logic 
employed by champions of the "broken window" fallacy 
<http://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/08/broken-window-fallacy.asp>, such as 
Paul Krugman 
<http://krugman-in-wonderland.blogspot.com/2011/03/krugman-joins-broken-window-fallacy.html>. 


As to the name given this operation by the Psyops department over at the 
Pentagon, "Odyssey Dawn 
<http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Military/2011/0319/US-leads-Odyssey-Dawn-initial-attack-on-Libya>," 
it sounds like a women's perfume, which brings to mind the true authors of this 
war, the three Amazons of the State Department: Hillary Clinton, Susan Rice, and 
Samantha Power 
<http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2011-03-20/libya-airstrikes-hillary-clinton-and-the-women-who-called-for-war/>. 
These busy gals are the real powers-behind-the-throne, who reportedly nagged 
Obama until he reluctantly agreed to intervene. It's what you might call an 
ultra-feminist foreign policy: we're taking the whole world to America's 
maternal breast. With these Amazons at the helm -- acting in concert with its 
European allies, and whichever Third World despots know what's good for them -- 
the US will act on its "responsibility to protect" -- what? Whom? Whatever 
victim group can be sufficiently valorized to play the lead in a familiar 
narrative, one that always ends with sending in the Marines 
<http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5i9CypuyfNQ4wKoTA6mNaeQcRf2fQ?docId=0ef6ba3b61df41b1bc2bc0b8be3a4c49>. 


It just so happens Libya is an oil-rich 
<http://www.businessinsider.com/map-of-the-day-libyan-oil-infrastructure-2011-3> 
prize, with the eastern part of the country -- now detached from the rest by the 
"no fly, no go" zone --especially favored. It also just so happens 
<http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/02/chart-top-importers-of-libyan-oil/71619/> 
to be the energy-hungry Brits and the equally voracious French who are taking 
the lead -- at Obama's insistence -- in the allied war effort. You'd have to be 
one of those dreaded "conspiracy theorists" to think there's some connection 
between oil and this war, in which case Cass Sunstein 
<http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/01/15/sunstein> -- 
Samantha's hubby -- would like to give you a good talking-to.

"The United States will join in a multilateral fight for democracy and 
humanitarian aims when it is in the nation's interest /and/ when the locals are 
involved and desire US participation." This is Corn's reading of the Anti-Bush 
Doctrine: yet, how, exactly, is this any different that its alleged antipode? 
Going into Iraq, Bush, too, boasted of the number of his alleged allies, the 
famous "coalition of the willing." But so what: is a gang rape better than a 
one-on-one deal? Not in my book.

Bush, too, assured us "the locals" would be supportive: remember how we were 
supposed to be greeted as "liberators," and showered with rose petals? Except it 
didn't quite work out that way 
<http://www.amazon.com/America-Lost-Iraq-Aaron-Glantz/dp/1585424870/antiwarbookstore>.

As for the "humanitarian" nature of this intervention, I have my doubts. Obama's 
rationale for military action is that

/"Left unchecked, we have every reason to believe that Qaddafi / */would commit 
/*/atrocities against his people. Many thousands / */could /*/die. A 
humanitarian crisis / */would /*/ensue. The entire region / */could 
be/*/destabilized, endangering many of our allies and partners. The calls of the 
Libyan people for help would go unanswered. The democratic values that we stand 
for would be overrun. Moreover, the words of the international community would 
be rendered hollow."/

The emphasis is mine, and it illustrates just how completely enslaved to the 
Bush Doctrine the current administration really is. For the essence of the Bush 
Doctrine was and is the principle of preemption 
<http://www.antiwar.com/orig/kennedy1.html>: for the first time, the United 
States was saying to the world that it would not only respond to actual threats 
but to any potential threat anywhere in the world. The Obama Doctrine takes this 
one step further, and says that we have a responsibility to protect not only our 
own alleged interests, but also the interests of peoples vulnerable to 
/potential/ violence directed at them by their own governments. Bush told us 
Saddam was "killing his own people," and now Obama is telling us Gadhafi /could/ 
possibly kill "many thousands" of Libyans.

Emblematic of the liberal collapse before the onslaught of the Obama cult is 
Juan Cole 
<http://www.juancole.com/2011/03/top-ten-ways-that-libya-2011-is-not-iraq-2003.html>, 
whose pathetic performance <http://antiwar.com/radio/2011/03/20/juan-cole-20/> 
on Scott Horton's radio program, defending the intervention, is an embarrassment 
he will not soon live down.

Cole's "argument" boiled down to a catchphrase that surely has been uttered by 
every warmongering neocon who ever walked the earth: pressed by Scott to justify 
his stance in support of the 'no fly" zone, he declared "I'm not an 
isolationist!" The 'i'-word is what every interventionist drags out when 
cornered: it is a meaningless 
<http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/isolationism.html>, content-less coined word, 
what Ayn Rand would call an anti-concept 
<http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/anti-concepts.html> -- like "extremist 
<http://aynrandlexicon.com/ayn-rand-works/enemies-of-extremism.html>" -- which 
is meant to end the discussion rather than enable it.

It's downhill from there: "What's to stop [Gadhafi] from making a move on 
Tunisia?" he asks. This is precisely the same argument Bush posed to Iraq war 
opponents: Saddam, we were told, was a threat to his neighbors 
<http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2003/3/17/215133.shtml> -- 
although it seems the Libyan despot has his hands full just keeping control of 
his own country. Professor Cole then goes on to aver, like any neocon 
<http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8153555086218873684#> circa 2003, that 
our chosen Enemy of the Moment is "a terrorist," and "an element of instability 
in the region," one who, left in power, will "go on to play a sinister role."

This last point is curiously circular, because if we hadn't intervened then 
presumably Gadhafi wouldn't play such a sinister role -- indeed, he would have 
played the same role he played when Tony Blair went to visit him 
<http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2011/02/lockerbie-update-201102>, 
and the two signed a security agreement. The role he played ever since he came 
in from the cold, made his peace with the US and its European allies, and 
donated a lot of money to the London School of Economics and (so I hear 
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/16/sarkozy-election-campaign-libya-claim>) 
the election campaign of Nicolas Sarkozy.

The capitulation of the "liberals" to the War Party comes as no surprise: we saw 
this during the Clinton years, and we're seeing it again. This time around, 
however, the War Party is even stronger. Although Corn is eager to persuade the 
readership of /Mother Jones/ that the administration has not been taken over by 
the neocons, the truth is that the "humanitarians" are in bed with the neocons 
<http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/03/21/what_intervention_in_libya_tells_us_about_the_neocon_liberal_alliance> 
on this one, just as they were in the run up to the Kosovo war. Back in the 
1990s, the neocons lent their names to innumerable "open letters 
<http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1830887/posts>" urging Bill Clinton to 
strike at the Serbs, with prominent progressives such as Susan Sontag leading 
the charge <http://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/Sontag.html>. George Soros 
financed a "grassroots" pro-war campaign, and the neocons were more than happy 
to jump on board the bandwagon -- just as they are today.

Pushed into war by a coven of relentlessly nagging neo-liberal Amazons, and a 
cabal of round-shouldered flabby-faced neocons, President Obama has been 
captured by ideologues just as surely as was his predecessor -- and, I'll 
predict right here and now, with equally disastrous results.

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