Reality

Information is still coming in and being sorted on what really happened in Egypt and Libya in the past 36 hours.  But the picture that is emerging looks like this:

Somebody posted a video on youtube, a kind of crude preview for what it said was an upcoming film that apparently attacks Islam as a religion.  Somehow (and this part is unclear) Egyptians in particular and perhaps Libyans were told that this film was a major part of U.S. commemorations of 9-11 on September 11.  This of course wasn't true.  Nobody much knew about it, in the U.S. or most of the world.  The film itself (if it exists) has never been seen.

Nevertheless, a few hundred people gathered in loud protest outside the Embassy's substantial walls.  Some climbed over the walls, got into the courtyard and burned the American flag. 

Later a small crowd may have gathered outside the American Embassy in Benghazi in Libya, in a similar protest, but this is not really clear.  What is clear is that an organized and heavily armed group attacked the embassy, essentially burned and destroyed it, and killed the U.S. Ambassador, Christopher Stevens, at least one other American (a former Marine), and two other members of the Embassy staff (not yet identified pending notification of next of kin.)  One report said they did so with rocket propelled grenades.

On Thursday morning, when the deaths were confirmed, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama condemned the attacks, and mourned the loss of these Americans, as well as the reported Libyans who tried to defend them.  The new Libyan government and the vast majority of Benghazi citizens consider the U.S. as a friend.  Ambassador Stevens had been the U.S. envoy to the rebels in Benghazi. 

Secretary Clinton said:  "Today, many Americans are asking – indeed, I asked myself – how could this happen? How could this happen in a country we helped liberate, in a city we helped save from destruction? This question reflects just how complicated and, at times, how confounding the world can be. But we must be clear-eyed, even in our grief. This was an attack by a small and savage group – not the people or Government of Libya."

President Obama immediately ordered a rapid reaction force of U.S. Marines to protect the Embassy in Tripoli (Libya), where the remaining Benghazi staff (rescued by Libyans) are quartered.  Two U.S. warships moved closer, and it was made known that recon drones were over Libya.  In his statement in the White House rose garden, with Secretary Clinton at his side (photo above, video below), President Obama said:  " No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation, alter that character, or eclipse the light of the values that we stand for. Today we mourn four more Americans who represent the very best of the United States of America. We will not waver in our commitment to see that justice is done for this terrible act. And make no mistake, justice will be done."

I add emphasis there because of speculation about this attack.  President Obama called it an act of terror, which is a characterization with some meaning.   If it was organized and planned, rather than improvised, then a particular group is responsible.  Rachel Maddow made a strong case that it could well be an al-Qaeda group.  This late story suggests that U.S. officials are coming around to this view.

It's not known if the Egypt demonstration and the Libyan attack were linked at all.  There is also not much known about the person who apparently made the video in question.  He is said to be American or Israeli, but his name is likely an alias.   In this TPM story, the man in question is described as having "an Egyptian accent."  No one I know of is yet saying this, but there is at this point the possibility that the film itself was part of a plot to incite violence or even cover an act of terrorism.

In any case, when President Obama says "We will not waver in our commitment to see that justice is done for this terrible act. And make no mistake, justice will be done," those aren't just words.  Not by the President who has taken out a great many al-Qaeda's leaders throughout the Middle East, including bin Laden.

President Obama and Secretary Clinton spoke movingly of Ambassador Stevens, and so did Senator John McCain.  A video of his Senate remarks is here.

Thugs in Power

Update on Libya: Rebels advance, NATO taking over.

With the help of brothers who share his power, the head of government moves on his enemies in defiance of the law.

And then there's that whole Gadafhi thing in Libya.

No, I'm talking about Wisconsin, where Governor Scott Walker, with the support of the Fitzgerald brothers who run the legislature (and their father who runs the state patrol), is defying a court order and trying to implement his union-busting law.

Meanwhile in Libya the rebels seem to be gaining ground, but Old Man K/Q/Gadafhi is (according to change.org)using state media to urge his supporters to hunt the opposition “alley by alley, house by house, room by room.” It's been reported that state programming is used to send coded instructions to loyalists and hired mercenaries. He's also given out machine guns to every family in Tripoli to make that easier. Apart from sparking a human rights petition campaign, this seems like evidence that might push NATO towards making Gadawful's removal a goal, in order to protect civilian lives.

President Obama will speak to the nation about U.S. action in Libya on Monday, presumably to repeat in more dramatic circumstances what he's said before, including in Saturday's radio/YouTube message. But the logic of it may come down to this: if you are in position to prevent a child from walking into traffic, can you refuse on the grounds that there are many other children walking into traffic where you can't get to them? This may seem like only a moral argument, but think about it.

Libya and Liars

There are moral questions, questions of policy, of strategy--all kinds of questions on which humans of good will can differ.

And then there are liars, and shameless liars.

In the shameless liar division are the GOPers, prominent and not, who have extended their reflexive opposition to anything President Obama does or supports, even if they themselves have supported the same thing, to what used to be out of bounds for mere partisan politics: those very serious decisions involving the use of the U.S. military, putting Americans in harms way and causing destruction in another country. But several GOPers have lied about their position on Libya--which is in this case a more accurate term that the convenient "flip-flop"--the most prominent so far being Newt Gingrich. Either he lied when he said he was for a no-fly zone, or he lied when a few days later he said he wasn't.

But the simplier lie, and in some ways more pernicious, is John Banal's letter stating that President Obama acted without consulting Congress. In a letter that otherwise raised substantive policy questions, he asserted: “It is regrettable that no opportunity was afforded to consult with congressional leaders, as was the custom of your predecessors, before your decision as commander in chief to deploy into combat the men and women of our armed forces.”

This was and continues to be widely reported. What has not been reported is the answer to a question about this by White House Press Secretary Jay Carney, in which he detailed the consultations that in fact happened:

...in briefings and in hearings that senior people in the administration, as well as the President, have been engaged in consultations with Congress, going back as far as February 28th when national intelligence officers from the DNI briefed House members of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence where they had a closed session on Libya and Somalia; March 1st there was a similar closed briefing with Senate Select Committee on Intelligence members, with issues in the Middle East, North Africa, including Libya. Secretary Clinton testified to the House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on assessing U.S. foreign policy priorities and needs, which included a substantial discussion of Libya. That was on March 1st. March 2nd, Secretary Gates and Admiral Mullen testified at a hearing on Defense Department appropriations, again including a discussion -- an ample discussion of a potential Libyan no-fly zone. Also on March 2nd, Secretary Clinton, at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, included a discussion on Libya and possible policy options.

The list goes on. March 4th, March 10th, March 14th, the ODNI briefed Speaker Boehner on Libya in a classified briefing -- that was March 14th. On March 17th, Under Secretary Burns testified in open session to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on popular uprisings in the Middle East, but the main focus was on Libya. On March 17th... there was an all-senators briefing on Libya developments and possible U.S. government and international responses, including potential military options, by an interagency team led by Under Secretary of State Bill Burns but including the ODNI and DOD."

Now it's possible that Banal only counts "consultation" as when the President talks to him. Just as it is possible that Republicans in the Senate had a number of second thoughts on appropriate action. But as Carney also pointed out:

"And I should mention, as you all know, that on March 1st -- I believe it was March 1st where the Senate passed a resolution calling on actions that they believed should be taken by the United States and international partners, which was extremely similar to the actions that, of course, we did take several weeks later."

Presidents should be able to confer directly with congressional leaders of both parties on such decisions as they make them, and history suggests this used to be done. But really, when lives are at stake, would you trust these guys? That's another deadly result of a policy of lying for partisan politics.

Libya, America and the Painful Change

I'm usually a day behind on posting stuff I liked from the Rachel Maddow program, because that's when the transcripts are available. In this case and the next one, I'm able to quote from Monday's transcripts on themes that she continued Tuesday. This first one is on President Obama and Libya.

She began Monday's program by quoting presidents and presidential candidates talking about how they want a limited, humble U.S. foreign policy. Candidate Obama said similar things, and was more specific about wanting to change the image (and reality) of the U.S. throwing its military weight around to control Muslim countries, especially when they've got oil. So when President Obama committed the U.S. military to air action in Libya, it was only after the UN Security Council in effect requested it, U.S. European allies demanded it, and the Arab League approved it. He did not make a grand announcement from the Oval Office, Maddow said, to signal that this is an international and not a U.S. action. He emphasized the U.S. lead role was temporary, and the goals of the operation were precisely what the UN resolution requested, regardless of further U.S. policy goals. He emphasized that no U.S. ground troops will invade. Maddow:

"This is what President Obama promised as a candidate he would do. It is frankly what most presidential candidates have promised as candidates they would do. But the fact that he‘s actually doing it as president is freaking out all corridors of the political world that really kind of liked the interventionist, chest-thumping, triumphalist stuff.

I mean, think about the big picture and what the presidential candidates in 2008 campaigned on and the legacy of George W. Bush. Do you want the narrative of America‘s role in the world to be America leads Western aggression against Arab countries or don‘t you want that? Do you want that continue to be the master narrative about America‘s role in the world, or do you want the narrative to be something different?

President Obama wants the narrative to be something different. He very clearly did not want there to be another American military action in the Arab world. He is very open about his reluctance. He wants everybody to know how reluctant he was.

The White House keeps broadcasting that. Why are they doing that? Because they want the narrative to change. And everything about the character of the intervention shows Mr. Obama‘s reluctance here.

The U.S. commander in the region reporting today U.S. air missions over Libya decreased dramatically today. He says the overwhelming number of missions were flown by non-U.S. pilots. U.S. officials again are going out of their way to point that out."

Maddow is not alone in seeing it this way, but in the media and among foreign policy and military cable-ready mouths, she is in a decided minority. Yet I also believe that time will prove her correct--both about President Obama's actions concerning Libya, and about the reaction to it: including the utterly shameful politically motivated response of GOPer hypocrites and liars, and the "experts" whose thinking is very limited. (Others whose criticism is actually based on applicable principle are subject to analysis of their position rather than the pity and scorn due the former.)

Those who say that if the G/K/Qadaffis aren't deposed or killed this week, President Obama can't walk away from more military action--that he's started a war--are going to turn out to be wrong. And they are going to freak out even more than they're freaking out now. It's going to be painful for everybody, but if President Obama succeeds in this, and he still gets re-elected, it may change America's role in the world for awhile, and for the better.

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.

UN Resolution on Libya

The UN Security Council has just passed a resolution authorizing member nations to use force to protect civilians in Libya against their government. A no-fly zone is prominent in the tools, but action against tanks and artillery also appears to be within the scope of the resolution. What is specifically eliminated is any ground occupation force.

Here is what else is known: the resolution was publicly acclaimed by rebels in Libya, in their last remaining stronghold in the eastern part of the country. A crowd in the square of Benghazi cheered the news. Around that time, Gadhafi went on the radio to threaten Benghazi with "no mercy." Both of these legitimize the UN action. (There are also reports of more conciliatory statements from the government caught unprepared for the UN action.)

But whether any action will come in time is the great unknown at the moment. The first expected action is bombing of Libyan anti-aircraft installations. What else is not known, but arming rebels may not be within the resolution's authority.

So far it is pretty clear that the U.S., UK, France and Italy are preparing to act (Italy simply by allowing US planes to take off from air bases on its soil.) The question is the involvement of Arab nations. The Arab League previously signalled support for a no-fly zone. AP reports that Jordan, Qatar and the UAE may participate.

So how is this different from Iraq? This is UN authorized and truly international. Occupation of Libya, even parts of it, is not authorized. It is a response to real, visible, documented violence against large numbers of Libyan people, and there is a defined opposition to the dictatorial regime. But everything will depend on how it is handled, and the results.