At the not-so-tender age of 59, I’ve heard just about every argument an American president has used to justify military intervention abroad. After listening to President Obama this past Monday night attempting to justify America’s use of force in a Libyan civil war, I’ve now heard the most pathetic.
“We have intervened to stop a massacre, and we will work with our allies and partners to maintain the safety of civilians. We will deny the regime arms, cut off its supplies of cash, assist the opposition and work with other nations to hasten the day when [Libyan leader Moammar] Gadhafi leaves power.”
I was way too young to remember any of President Truman’s reasons for America’s involvement in the Korean War, but I was 12 years old when President Johnson told the nation about the Gulf of Tonkin incident.
North Vietnamese naval forces had attacked the U.S.S. Maddox and the U.S.S. Turner Joy on the night of Aug. 4, 1964. Johnson used the alleged attacks as justification for the American bombing of North Vietnam.
It later transpired that there were no North Vietnamese naval attacks on either the Maddox or Turner Joy on Aug. 4. (North Vietnamese naval forces had attacked the Maddox, in North Vietnamese waters, on Aug. 2.) But Johnson’s misleading of the American public pales in comparison with the hoodwinking Obama gave us this past Monday.
“We intervened to stop a massacre”? That’s the justification for butting into a civil war? News flash, Mr. President-whose-primary-experience-in-elected-office-was-that-of-a-state-senator, but civilians get massacred in wars, civil and otherwise, all the time. How, then, did Obama choose to protect the Libyan opposition from a massacre while leaving civilians in harm’s way in other places to die?
“We had … an international mandate for action, a broad coalition prepared to join us, the support of Arab countries, and a plea for help from the Libyan people themselves.”
So let me see if I get this straight: Determining which potential massacre victims get to live and which ones get slaughtered depends, basically, on how many other folks determine who gets to live and who gets slaughtered.
Basically, a group of people in the international community get together and play God to determine who lives and who dies. I don’t know about you, but that sends all kinds of chills down my spine.
And just who’s in this “Libyan opposition”? I don’t know any of these people, and you can bet Mr. Five-years-removed-from-being-just-a-state-senator doesn’t know either. There may indeed be those committed to democracy and human rights. But are there any al Qaeda sympathizers among them? Any of those Wahhabi Muslim types like the ones who ran Afghanistan when the Taliban were in power?
Our president should answer those questions before he commits American forces to supporting one side or the other. For all he knows, Moammar Gadhafi may be the devil we know; those supporting him may be the devil we don’t.
And aren’t there Libyan civilians who SUPPORT Gadhafi? Does our commitment to protect civilians include them? Mr. Obama didn’t make that clear in his speech. He just gave us some vague reasoning about preventing massacres and protecting civilians that, frankly, makes President George W. Bush’s case for going to war against Iraq seem much nobler, and much more compelling.
“At a time of upheaval overseas,” the president said as he closed his remarks, “it can be tempting to turn away from the world.”
In a time of upheaval overseas, it’d be nice to have someone in the White House whose experience in world affairs wasn’t limited to that of a state senator.
Examiner Columnist Gregory Kane is a Pulitzer nominated news and opinion journalist who has covered people and politics from Baltimore to the Sudan.
