Why are we bombing Libya? To prevent a massacre that would have “stained the conscience of the world,” President Obama proclaimed in his address to the nation last week. “As president, I refused to wait for the images of slaughter and mass graves before taking action,” he said.

Say what you will about the Bush Doctrine of preventive war, at least it was directed at purported threats to American national security. Obama, by contrast, reserves the right to shoot first before the global conscience gets stained. In this vision, the U.S. military serves as a sort of Scotchgard for the World-Soul.

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