We are bombing Libya again to re-liberate the country and 'restore stability'
Remember when Hillary Clinton liberated Libya?
Remember when the former secretary of state declared back in 2011 that she was “proud to stand here on the soil of a free Libya.”
Well, guess what?
President Barack Obama says the new U.S. bombing operation in Libya is needed to drive out Islamic State group militants and restore stability to the troubled North African country.
Obama told reporters Tuesday at a White House news conference that the campaign had been requested by internationally-backed authorities in Libya and would continue for as long as necessary.
Yeppers. Like Iraq, dropping lots of high-explosives from 30,000 feet is a sure-fire way to restore stability to Libya. It worked in 2011, amirite?
The immediate aftermath of the NATO bombing of Libya was a time of high gloating. Just as Iraq War advocates pointed to the capture and killing of Saddam Hussein as proof that their war was a success, Libya war advocates pointed to the capture and brutal killing of Muammar el-Qaddafi as proof of their vindication. War advocates such as Anne-Marie Slaughter and Nicholas Kristof were writing columns celebrating their prescience and mocking war opponents as discredited, and the New York Times published a front-page article declaring: “U.S. Tactics in Libya May be a Model for Other Efforts.” It was widely expected that Hillary Clinton, one of the leading advocates for and architects of the bombing campaign, would be regarded as a Foreign Policy Visionary for the grand Libya success: “We came, we saw, he died,” Clinton sociopathically boasted about the mob rape and murder of Qaddafi while guffawing on 60 Minutes.
“We want to strike at ISIL anywhere it raises its head. Libya is one of those places.”
- Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook.
Right. Anywhere. And seemingly, anybody.
Like usual in the Obama administration’s wars, there was no congressional vote on the latest airstrikes in Libya and no declaration of war, as required by the constitution. The administration is pinning the legal authority for this military incursion on the 2001 Authorization for Military Force that was meant for Afghanistan and the perpetrators of 9/11, al-Qaida. Isis, of course, didn’t exist until years later, and the two groups are now enemies, but those technicalities don’t seem to bother the Obama administration, which is continuing to expand US military presence abroad with little to no public input.
But since no one in Washington cares, including Congress, it's almost like it isn't even happening.
Comments
We are bombing Libya again to
use up all the stored bombs before the next shipment is due to arrive. It is so hard to rotate bombs to ensure they don't pass their expiration date.
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.--Aristotle
If there is no struggle there is no progress.--Frederick Douglass
Iraq used to get rid of old ordnance?
I have a vague memory of a whole s***load of bombs being dropped during one of the Iraq wars because they were about to reach their pull date (Vietnam era, Gulf War 1?) and it was cheaper to drop them on Iraq than dispose of them in an ecologically sound manner.
I can't find anything now, though. Anyone else know what I'm talking about?
We can’t save the world by playing by the rules, because the rules have to be changed.
- Greta Thunberg
I do not know if this is what you had in mind,
but according to this discussion, you are on the right track:
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.--Aristotle
If there is no struggle there is no progress.--Frederick Douglass
Must be be Bomb rollback prices
at Walmart...
"I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones."
John Cage
This is why I will never buy the Lesser evil argument again
They're KILLING people.
And they will kill MORE people if we don't oppose them.
They don't have my consent to do this, and will never have my consent to do this. They do not speak or act in my name, no matter how much they wave the flag. I've seen first hand who suffers and what the result is.
I do not pretend I know what I do not know.
I completely agree and I'm no pacifist
Show me a real and credible existential threat and I'm happy to respond to violence with violence. But it wouldn't ever be me who was the aggressor nor would I be trumping up ridiculous threats to justify my aggression.
A lot of wanderers in the U.S. political desert recognize that all the duopoly has to offer is a choice of mirages. Come, let us trudge towards empty expanse of sand #1, littered with the bleached bones of Deaniacs and Hope and Changers.
-- lotlizard
They don't even have the consent of Congress
Congress abdicated its responsibility,
and not only in this respect. To the voters: If they won't do their job, throw the bums out!
There is no justice. There can be no peace.
Unfortunately they do it with our tax dollars
This is a big flaw of democracy. Just because a representative government is voted in by the people doesn't mean that that government or parts of that government has the right to violate moral decency.
As I become older I am more convinced that democracy, at least as we exercise it in the US, has very little to recommend it, except that it does have a higher legitimacy than non democratic governments. I don't see how it solves any other problems, in fact the most viciously warlike country in the world touts its democratic values, that would be us. I suspect that if you examine all civilizations throughout history you would find no correlation of success, as defined by stability, accomplishments and longevity, with democratic values. Yet we tout our particular deficient form of democracy with religious fervor.
I really hoped that after Vietnam that we would chart a course that would rarely turn to war as a solution; that there was a moral direction that we as a society were moving towards. Hah! What a joke!
Now we bomb everywhere in the ME with no legal or moral justification. Even folks here look for a AUMF to justify war. Just a minute folks, we have no right to justify war based on that. We're quick to condemn Russia for being aggressive, yet that case is weak as, at the same time, the case against us is iron clad. Furthermore, Congressional critters voting for an AUMF for an illegal war are committing an international crime of the highest order. But we have always reserved the right to not participate in a system of international laws, yet we as a nation would benefit the most from such a stable system.
Capitalism has always been the rule of the people by the oligarchs. You only have two choices, eliminate them or restrict their power.
Not to mention that the AUMF and the Global War OF
Terror is based on a false flag on 9/11. The "new Pearl Harbor" the neocons wrote about, wanted and got.
The elephant in the room is still there.
"The new Pearl Harbor"....
That is alarming and so very sad!
An Artist Before His Time
Few of you have ever heard of Tonio K, but this song from 1978 seems to me to fit Hillary's apparent foreign policy.
Vowing To Oppose Everything Trump Attempts.
Based upon past experience
exactly how many bombs need to be dropped in order to restore stability?
"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."
All of them.
And then some more.
"I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” —Malcolm X
Think of it as "Libya's 4th Of July"
Light em all off...
And then the "Grand Finale."
"Oh... Ah... Oh... Ah... Oh... Ah..."
They'll have a Democracy just like ours...
Rigged Primaries, and Elections, with a few idiots pushed into being frontrunners by the media...
Followed by Corruption, Scandals, Pandering to Corporations, Corporations Looting the Wealth & Natural Resources of the country, and Private Equity Firms moving in like Vultures to buy the critical infrastructure such as water supplies, roads, bridges, of the country to extract the last dollars out of the people...
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOwFVowEugQ]
I'm the only person standing between Richard Nixon and the White House."
~John F. Kennedy~
Economic: -9.13, Social: -7.28,
Time for another Hillygasm.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fgcd1ghag5Y]
God in Heaven, how could we have been so wrong?
Would the Republicans have been any better?
Life is strong. I'm weak, but Life is strong.
Both major parties have the same foreign policy
and in some cases even utilize the same people, so I doubt that there would be much difference one way or the other.
The only difference I see is that the Rs tend to crow about killing people, and the Ds tend to minimize or hide it. The actions themselves are pretty much the same.
"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."
Obama: Bombing Libya is in US interest
Duh!
Trump agrees
link