The Swarm

For what it's worth, which is next to nothing, I am adopting a wait and see attitude about military action in Libya. But I continue to be alarmed by the apparent inability of American media to report accurately.

I watched and listened to President Obama's press conference in Chile. What he said seemed very clear to me: in support of the "international community" (western allies plus Arab states), the U.S. is using its unique military capabilities to enforce the UN resolution's mandate, to protect those Libyan people who were threatened for opposing Kaddafi or Qadaffi or Gdaffi or whatever whatever media outlets choose to call him. Apart from that, U.S. policy is that this dictator should go. The U.S. for weeks has been organizing diplomatic and financial means to make it harder and harder for him to stay in power.

Military to prevent his military from slaughtering rebels and protestors and everybody else. Diplomacy and other non-military means to make it harder and harder for him to remain. What is so hard to understand? Obviously this military action also erodes Kaddafi's power. And making it harder for him to pay for weapons and mercenaries also makes it harder for him to defy the no-fly zone and attack the rebels. So they are related. But pursuing these two purposes by different means is not contradictory, it is not even unclear. Military action has probably already saved Benghazi from an even larger and more savage attack than began to happen the other night, when government gunmen rode down the streets shooting indiscriminately into residences. Now there is time for Libyians to evaluate what they want to do about Q/K/Gadaffi, and for him to evaluate his options.

What's so hard to understand about this? I understand it, the guy from Human Rights Watch I just saw understands it. American media seems congenitally hysterical, listening to each other more than anyone else. If they seemed capable of accurate reporting, I might have more confidence in this country coping with anything serious.

There are a lot of moral and political issues involved in all this, and the situation is fluid, chancy and rife with risk. But let's at least get President Obama's stated intentions straight.