Obama’s War in Libya

Editorial comment:

The continuity between the Bush and Obama administration’s is now complete. Almost exactly eight years after Bush invaded Iraq, Obama’s Euro-American military alliance swooped down on Libya to enforce a western world order. “Obama definitely took a page out of the Bush administration recipe book,” including “peddling scary stories of poison gas stockpiled at a remote desert location.” All this may serve Obama well in domestic opinion polls, since “American blood lust is always just below the surface.”

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Obama’s War in Libya

by Margaret Kimberley, Black Agenda Report, 23 March 2011


“The United States is in the beginning of a full-fledged intervention and plan to carve up Libya and take its oil.”

Operation Odyssey Dawn sounds like the title of a bad novel or an action movie. It is actually the name given to a plan to kill many people and partition their county for the use of others. Congratulations to Barack Obama. He now has a war to call his own and rhetorical flourish to go along with it. No longer is he a mere poseur, forced to justify his murderous action by saying that he inherited “dumb wars” from George W. Bush. Now it is official. Obama is a true American president, killing people at will under the pretext of saving them from an oppressive dictator, in this case Muammar Gaddafi.

The lie of the much vaunted “no fly zone” was made clear almost immediately. “No fly” sounds so antiseptic, so safe. The mean, villainous dictator Gaddafi wouldn’t be allowed to fly his planes where he wanted. No harm, no foul.

The term “no fly” was used to help make the case to not very well informed yet still skittish Americans, but the words don’t fool anyone that is paying attention. The United States is in the beginning of a full-fledged intervention and plan to carve up Libya and take its oil, and that doesn’t sound very nice at all.

No fly zones are easy to sell, especially if the Arab League says it is all just fine. Of course, it is now a bit inconvenient when the same group publicly says the indiscriminate killing is not exactly what they had in mind. "What happened differs from the no-fly zone objectives. What we want is civilians' protection not shelling more civilians."

“Nothing makes the approval rating soar for a president like a good dose of death and destruction meted out against some swarthy foreigners.”

It isn’t clear what caused such naiveté on the part of the League of Arab States. They should have known better than to give the United States carte blanche to use its military might.

The Nobel peace prize winning American president will, like his predecessors before him, get unqualified support from his people precisely because he is killing people and claiming it is all for their own good. Nothing makes the approval rating soar for a president like a good dose of death and destruction meted out against some swarthy foreigners in a far away place.

Of course, Gaddafi will likely emerge with greater popularity now that the United States is killing his people. There is nothing like an attack from a foreign power to give any leader credibility and support. The Arab nationalism which has so recently re-emerged is thanks to the United States, now stronger than ever and hostile to the U.S., all because of our government’s actions.

Obama definitely took a page out of the Bush administration recipe book. First we start with an evil dictator. (Said dictator may have been a United States ally but no one will mention that anymore.) Next, add hysterical warnings of imminent terror attacks from the evil-doer.

“United States allies in Bahrain and Yemen kill their citizens without fear of American reprisal.”

The administration had already begun peddling scary stories of poison gas stock piled at a remote desert location. “In recent weeks, as U.S. and European militaries prepared to intervene in Libya, Western reconnaissance satellites have been focused on a small garage at a remote site in the Libyan desert. In the garage, south of the city of Sirte, the Libyan government keeps about 10 tons of mustard gas in about a half-dozen large canisters. If he chose to do so — and could determine how — Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi could use the caustic chemical to kill large numbers of his people.”

Barack Obama should just go ahead and hire Colin Powell to do a reprise of his mobile chemical weapons labs story, this time with photos of a garage in the Libyan desert instead of the Iraqi desert.

Meanwhile, United States allies in Bahrain and Yemen kill their citizens without fear of American reprisal. The hypocrisy is breathtakingly transparent and ought to immediately discredit Obama and his European partners in crime. Unfortunately it will do no such thing. Obama and Sarkozy and Cameron will survive and never pay a price for their criminality.

Obama won’t pay a price domestically either. Democrats will repeat their behavior of clinging desperately to one of their own, no matter what he does. American blood lust is always just below the surface, and scenes of missiles creating havoc and terror always gain a president greater popular support. So it goes, this time with a peace prize laureate.

Violence is as American as apple pie, and is loved just as much.




* Margaret Kimberley's Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BAR, and is widely reprinted elsewhere. She maintains a frequently updated blog as well as at  http://freedomrider.blogspot.com. Ms. Kimberley lives in New York City.