Currently viewing the tag: “Libya”
A few days ago Senator Rand Paul introduced a motion to condemn President Obama for using military action in Libya without congressional authorization.
According to NRO, this proposal by Sen. Paul has Senator Reid fuming.
We may have an explanation for Comrade Obama’s inscrutable behavior in Libya. There’s no need to envision a complex, SPECTRE-esque international conspiracy of the sort Glenn Beck is often on the verge of revealing, when our foreign policy is better explained by a single word: incompetence.
As NATO takes over control of airstrikes in Libya, and the Obama administration considers new steps to tip the balance of power there, the coalition has told the rebels that if they endanger civilians, they will not be shielded from possible bombardment by NATO planes and missiles, just as the government’s forces have been punished.
That is, we may soon be bombing both sides. Admittedly, both sides deserve it, but then how many in the Middle East outside of Israel don’t?
The warnings, and intense consultations within the NATO-led coalition over its rules for attacking anyone who endangers innocent civilians, come at a time when the civil war in Libya is becoming ever more chaotic, and the battle lines ever less distinct.
Irregular troops, including civilians and driving around in civilian vehicles, have been fighting on both sides. With no ground intelligence, how is NATO — i.e., US Armed Forces — supposed to know who to waste extravagantly expensive cruise missiles on?
Also adding to the chaos is that we have no coherent objectives and don’t even know what we’re doing over there.
The deliberations about where to draw the line, going on at the highest levels of allied nations and among senior officials across the Obama administration, show how an intervention to stop a potential massacre is evolving into a much more complex, and perhaps open-ended, role in policing the Libyan chaos.
“Open-ended” means its time for libs to dust off a word they used to love: quagmire.
David Glazier, a professor of national security law at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, sums up the situation:
“This is all poorly defined. It really is all about politics…”
Maybe making a left-wing community organizer Commander in Chief of the military because it made liberals feel good about themselves to vote for the black guy with a name like a terrorist wasn’t such a good idea after all.
On a tip from Ghost of FA Hayek.
When the President ordered the attack on Libya without Congressional authorization, he crossed a very bright Constitutional line that he himself recognized in 2007 when he told the Boston Globe “The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.”
The reason the American Founders reserved the question of war to Congress was that they wanted to assure that so momentous a decision could not be made by a single individual. They had watched European kings plunge their nations into bloody and debilitating wars and wanted to avoid that fate for the American Republic.
The most fatal and consequential decision a nation can make is to go to war, and the American Founders wanted that decision made by all the representatives of the people after careful deliberation. Only when Congress has made that fateful decision does it fall to the President as Commander in Chief to command our armed forces in that war.
The authors of the Constitution were explicit on this point. In Federalist 69, Alexander Hamilton drew a sharp distinction between the American President’s authority as Commander in Chief, which he said “would amount to nothing more than the supreme command and direction of the military and naval forces” and that of the British king who could actually declare war.
To contend that the President has the legal authority to commit an act of war without Congressional approval requires ignoring every word the Constitution’s authors said on this subject – and they said quite a lot.
There seems to be a widespread misconception that under the War Powers Act, the President may order any attack on any country he wants for 60 days without Congressional approval. This is completely false. The War Powers Act is clear and unambiguous: the President may only order our armed forces into hostilities under three very specific conditions: (quoting directly from the Act): “(1) a declaration of war, (2) specific statutory authorization, or (3) a national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces.”
Only if one of these conditions is present can the President invoke the War Powers Act. None are present or alleged to be present, and thus the President is in direct violation of that Act.
The United Nations Participation Act requires specific congressional authorization before American forces are ordered into hostilities in United Nations actions. The North Atlantic Treaty clearly requires troops under NATO command to be deployed in accordance with their country’s constitutional provisions. The War Powers Act specifically forbids inferring from any treaty the power to order American forces into hostilities without specific congressional authorization.
The only conclusion we can make is that this was an illegal and unconstitutional act of the highest significance.
The President has implied that he didn’t have time for Congressional authorization to avert a humanitarian disaster in Libya. He had plenty of time to get a resolution from the United Nations. I would remind him that just a day after the unprovoked bombing of Pearl Harbor, Franklin Roosevelt appeared in this very chamber to request and receive congressional authorization.
Some have said that the President can do whatever he wishes and that Congress’s authority is limited to cutting off funds. War is not a one-sided act that can be turned on and off with Congressional funding. Once any nation commits an act of war against another, from that moment it is AT WAR — inextricably embroiled and entangled with an aggrieved and belligerent party that has casus belli to prosecute hostilities regardless of what Congress then decides.
Finally, I’ve heard it said, “we did the same thing in Kosovo.” If that is the case, then shame on the Congress that tolerated it. And shame on us if we allow this act to stand unchallenged any longer.
This matter strikes at the heart of the Constitution. If this act is allowed to stand, it will fundamentally change the entire character of the legislative and executive functions on the most momentous decision a nation can make and take us down a dark and bloody road the American Founders fought so hard to avoid.
by: Dr. Lawrence Davidson
Spokespersons for NATO, European politicians, members of the Obama administration, and the President himself have been out and about seeking to articulate justifications for the ongoing intervention in Libya. For better or worse, their public statements do not always make sense.
Part I – Rhetoric
On 22 March 2011 French Prime Minister Francois Fillon insisted that “we are not at war with Libya, we are protecting the civilian population, excluding explicitly any occupation forces.” Now just what does that mean? Can the army of the government of Libya, operating against rebels in the midst of civil war, possibly be defined as “occupation forces”? You might not like Muammar Qaddafi, but he and his supporters are indigenous to the country.
On 28 March 2011 the Secretary General of NATO, General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, insisted that coalition forces in Libya were acting in a strictly “impartial” manner even as NATO aircraft attacked the town of Sirte in support of rebel forces. “NATO is impartial” repeated the General, and is present in Libya to “protect civilians within the framework of the UN mandate, no more no less.” This statement is utterly surreal. Does the Secretary General actually believe this? Can it be that he is ignorant of what his organization is actually doing in North Africa? Is he consciously attempting to mislead?
On the same day Defense Secretary Robert Gates, speaking on ABC’s This Week televison program, repeated for what must be the hundredth time the allegation that Muammar Qaddafi was preparing to massacre civilians in Benghazi as well as other parts of eastern Lybia and quick US action prevented a “full scale slaughter.” U.S. Vice Admiral Bill Gortney, speaking at a Pentagon briefing, again on the 28th of March, said that the message being sent to Qaddafi loyalists is “Stop killing your own people.” No one is denying that Qaddafi is a tyrant and a man perfectly capable of murdering his fellows. However, as a rule the United States has supported many such “leaders”such as Hosni Mubarak, Augusto Pinochet, the last Shah of Iran, Ngo Dinh Diem of South Vietnam, Argentina’s old junta of Generals, Indonesia’s Suharto and, as of late in a de facto manner, the monarch of Bahrain. Why is Qaddafi’s murderous ways so special? Then again, for all the talk of mass murder in Lybia, there has been little incontrovertible evidence of it and surely if there was such evidence Fox TV would be running the video images every fifteen minutes.
Finally, there was the statement of President Barack Obama, delivered to the American people on the evening of 28 March 2011. Certainly heartfelt in its delivery, the 28 minute speech was a mixture of established rationales (America “halted a slaughter that could have shaken the stability of the entire region”) and national glorification (“To brush aside America’s responsibility as a leader and more profoundly our responsibilities to our fellow human beings under such circumstances would have been a betrayal of who we are.”) First of all, just how Qaddafi’s attempt to assert government control over rebellious provinces would “shake the stability of the entire region” or endanger the present processes of reform in Egypt and Tunisia, is yet to be explained.. Actually, it can be argued that it was the violent suppression of unarmed demonstrators calling for democratic reform by the monarch of Bahrain (and not the violence in Lybia) which sent out the signal that repression in the form of shooting down your own people was now an acceptable option in the region. Secondly, while I am willing to give President Obama the benefit of the doubt and accept that he speaks from the heart, his statement about who we Americans are as a nation is not historically accurate. Our military interventions have never reflected any sincere sense of “responsibilities to our fellow human beings.” Just ask the Vietnamese, the Iraqis, the Afghans, the Palestinians, the Chileans, the Guatemalans, the people of El Salvador, Cubans, Panamanians, Filipinos, ad infinitum. I would even be willing to believe that the President has had an epiphany and really wants to lead the nation in the way of goodness, if it weren’t for his persistent catering to the distinctly less than good Israelis and their Zionist lobbies. No. President Obama’s statements are just too out of national character to be believable.
Part II – Prospects
In the meantime, NATO spokespersons project a 90 day mission in Libya, but this is probably optimistic, for the complications and contradictions are only now beginning. Here are some examples:
1. The rebels cannot defeat Qaddafi unless they are armed with much heavier weapons then they now possess and also trained in their use. Despite Secretary of State Clinton verbal gymnastics this would be the sort of reinterpretation of UN Resolution 1973 that is very likely to lead to the splintering of the NATO coalition. Will President Obama support actions that might have long term detrimental consequences for the alliance?
2. If the coalition creates a well armed rebel army and assists it with close air support, it will almost certainly kill and maim as many, if not more, civilians as they move west, than Qaddafi was allegedly in the process of killing as his forces moved east.
3. The rebel coalition is tribal in nature and potentially fractious in character. What holds them together is not their alleged desire for democracy, but rather their dislike of Qaddafi. In a post-Qaddafi Libya there is a chance that the rebels will start fighting among themselves over control of the country’s resources?
4. There are some reports that a NATO multinational force is being considered to keep the peace in Libya. Well, Qaddafi always said that this was a “Crusader” venture against his country. Putting European troops into Lybia would be utterly stupid. But, you never know where the mysterious logic of present day Western leaders might lead you.
Part III – Conclusion
There is a really remarkable irony in all of this. It was back in 2003 that Muammar Qaddafi gave up his nuclear and chemical weapons programs. On the face of it such moves toward disarmament are good things. However, I don’t think you will be seeing many more of them in the future. The present intervention in Lybia, whether justified or not, has demonstrated to everyone (and, no doubt, particularly to the Iranians) that if you want to keep the Americans and their friends out of your country, having an atomic bomb or two may well be the only sure way of doing so.
[email protected]
www.tothepointanalyses.com
Lawrence Davidson
Department of History
West Chester University
West Chester, Pa 19383
USA
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DR. LAWRENCE DAVIDSON is professor of Middle East history at West Chester University in West Chester, PA, and the author of America’s Palestine: Popular and Official Perceptions from Balfour to Israeli Statehood (University of Florida Press, 2001), Islamic Fundamentalism (Greenwood Press, 2003), and Foreign Policy, Inc.: Privatizing American National Interest (University of Kentuck Press, 2009).
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Kevin Drum says he backed Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton because he had greater faith in the former’s judgment, especially on the matter of kinetic interventions. Alas, that confidence is being sorely tested.
Obama has been a disappointment on civil liberties and national security issues, but since I frankly don’t think any modern president can buck the national security establishment in any significant way, I haven’t held that too deeply against him. The escalation in Afghanistan has been unfortunate too, but he did warn us about that.
[…]
There was never a chance that any president, liberal or otherwise, was going to intervene in Iran or in Egypt. Nor were interventions in places like the Congo or the Ivory Coast ever genuinely a possibility. Libya has been Obama’s first real opportunity to make a decision on a new overseas military operation, and within days of making his choice it’s already started to spiral. First he resisted intervention. Then he agreed to a no-fly zone. The no-fly zone turned into a Kosovo-style air campaign in support of the rebels. On Wednesday we learned that the CIA has advisors on the ground. And the administration has made it clear that providing arms to the rebels is under serious consideration too. Given that Muammar Gaddafi appears quite capable of holding out, or even outright winning, against even this, how likely is it that Obama will accept a stalemate or a loss and not escalate even further? Not very, I’d say.
I agree, down to the comma, with every bit of that.
There’s an elite consensus in American foreign policy that pushes president’s of both parties into certain conflicts and keeps them out of others. But the urge to “do something” when it looks relatively easy continues to lead us into adventures that actually aren’t easy at all. Bosnia, Kosovo, and now Libya all featured the prospect of massive atrocities if we didn’t act and relatively low risk for our forces. But, as we should have learned over the past two decades—but clearly haven’t—simply taking out the bad guys’ air power and blowing up a few tanks doesn’t end the problem; it merely transforms it into a tougher one.
Having bought into Libya, we’re in it. As best I can tell, the strategy is to hope that somehow, some way, Gaddafi is removed from power.
Like Walt Slocombe, I’m deeply skeptical that it’ll happen without substantial escalation. Gaddafi’s air force, such as it is, was disabled very early in the operation, so the no fly zone is a moot point. But the ragtag opposition clearly is inadequate to win on the ground against a disciplined, trained force. So, unless the military revolts against Gaddafi—and we’re seeing little sign of that—he’s likely to prevail if NATO remains relatively neutral. And that means continued atrocities by Gaddafi’s forces and, presumably, a prolonged guerrilla insurgency of the sort predicted by Steven Metz.
My strong guess is that this outcome will be unacceptable to the Big 3. Obama, the most reluctant to join the fight, now seems the most eager to take sides in the civil war. Given how unpalatable a stalemate would be, Nicolas Sarkozy and David Cameron would be likely to go along.
Simply giving better weapons to untrained “rebels,” however, is unlikely to do much beyond getting more people killed. And Obama has been adamant that US ground forces will not be used. So, either someone else will have to be found to do the fighting—and there are no ready candidates—or Obama will have to break one or the other promise. Having put American prestige—to say nothing of his own—on the line, there’s not much doubt which he’ll choose.
Photo credit: Reuters Pictures.
If you thought it was cynical to suggest that Nicolas Sarkozy may have been aggresively pushing for military action with an eye on the 2012 election, that’s nothing compared to the notion that the campaign is serving as an advertisement for the Dassault Rafale fighter jet. EUObserver reports:
But looking in detail at French operations in Libya, military
analysts have also said that France is using the war to promote its
badly-selling €60-million-per-unit Rafale fighter.Rafale jets fired the symbolic first shot against Gaddafi at 17.45
Libyan time on 19 March, destroying four tanks on the outskirts of
Benghazi. The strike took place three hours before the US and UK began
bombarding Gaddafi anti-aircraft bases, with the French ministry of
defence swiftly posting a set of Rafale pictures on its website.David Cenciotti, an Italian jet-fighter-pilot-turned-analyst, told
EUobserver that the Rafale strikes were highly irregular because in a
normal operation the anti-air-defence bombardment would have come
first."The French intervention is, among other things, aimed at putting
the Rafale under the spotlight," he said. "For sure, the French air
force was confident that Benghazi was free of SAM
[surface-to-air-missile] sites, but I think it was mainly a demo."
Sweden may also be getting in on the act:
For his part, Paul Holtum, an expert at the Swedish arms-control NGO
Sipri, added: "I understand that the ‘marketing possibilities’ have
also been discussed with regard to a Swedish decision on whether to
send the Gripen for action over Libya … However, the air campaign
might be of more interest with regard to markets for advanced missiles
and guided bombs rather than combat aircraft."
A spokesman for Dassault, the French company dismisses the theory as "propaganda, not reality," but is also eager to point out why the jet’s features make it ideally suited to the mission as it "can do air combat, bombardment, observation. All this in one flight."
Dassault is currently in talks to sell 60 of the jets to the United Arab Emirates — a coalition partner — and ironically had been in talks to sell 14 to Qaddafi himself until February.
Also worth noting is that the U.S.’s much-vaunted F-22 Raptor has been conspicuous by its absence in the skies Libya because of its "inability to communicate with other coalition aircraft and its limited ability to hit ground targets." With more than $ 65 billion spent, the F-22 has also not performed a single mission in Iraq or Afghanistan.
Mark Hosenball, who yesterday broke the news that Obama had issued a Finding authorizing the CIA to operate covertly in Libya in the last 2-3 weeks, today says “intelligence operatives” were on the ground before Obama signed that Finding.
U.S. intelligence operatives were on the ground in Libya before President Barack Obama signed a secret order authorizing covert support for anti-Gaddafi rebels, U.S. government sources told Reuters.The CIA personnel were sent in to contact opponents of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and assess their capabilities, two U.S. officials said.
[snip]
The president — who said in a speech on Monday “that we would not put ground troops into Libya” — has legal authority to send U.S. intelligence personnel without having to sign a covert action order, current and former U.S. officials said.
Within the last two or three weeks, Obama did sign a secret “finding” authorizing the CIA to pursue a broad range of covert activities in support of the rebels.
Congressional intelligence committees would have been informed of the order, which the officials said came after some CIA personnel were already inside Libya.
Now, one explanation for this is simply that Obama sent JSOC-under the guise of preparing the battlefield-rather than CIA. It sounds like the practice-first exploited by Cheney-that the government has used frequently in the last decade of ever-expanding Presidential authority.
Indeed, House Intelligence Chair Mike Rogers’ claims he must authorize covert action, but hasn’t, sounds like the kind of complaint we’ve frequently gotten when the President bypassed the intelligence committees by claiming DOD was simply preparing the battlefield.
And Hosenball’s nuanced language about “boots,” that is, military, on the ground, may support that view.
Furthermore, we know there are a slew of British Special Forces on the ground in Libya. So why not Americans, too?
Hosenball is not saying this explicitly, yet. And he does refer to “CIA operatives” (who could be in Libya to simply collect information). But all the subtext of this article suggests that our special forces have been on the ground since before any Finding, which in turn suggests they may have been there longer than 2-3 weeks (the timeframe given for the Finding).
This is all a wildarsed overreading of Hosenball at this point. But if I’m right, then it would mean Obama would be using the shell game he adopted from Cheney to engage in war without Congressional oversight.
Related posts:
This is from Washington Post cartoonist Tom Toles’ sketchbook.
This would have been a great illustration to use for Obama’s speech on Monday. Too bad that historic address was out of date faster than a dead fish begins to rot.
Back when the Cold War was still perking along, Ronald Reagan wanted to support the Contras fighting the Marxist Sandanista dictatorship in Nicaragua. The Democrats in Congress passed something called the Boland Amendment, which barred the administration from providing support for the Contras using any ”funds available to … any … agency or entity of the United States involved in intelligence activities.” (Why?) The Iran-Contra scandal grew out of an administration attempt to end run the Boland Amendment.
Back in 1987, the effort to bypass the Boland Amendment caused Harvard Law prof Laurence Tribe to have a cow in the New York Times:
… the White House also insists that however active a role the President played in efforts to encourage private and foreign assistance to the contras from sources outside the Iranian arms deal, no law passed by Congress either attempted to, or could, restrict his freedom to deploy his own office, or the offices of his National Security Council, to obtain third-party support for the contras. …
… the President – if his latest ”recollections” are accepted – either encouraged entities involved in intelligence to circumvent the amendment or, at the very least, did not ”take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed” by such entities, as Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution requires.
In other words, if the puppets are subject to the law and violate it, the puppet master cannot escape accountability. …
Therein lies what appears to be the most serious breach of duty by the President – a breach that may well entail an impeachable abuse of power, however politically unlikely impeachment of this affable officeholder may be.
The Constitution is, after all, indifferent to popularity and blind to personality. Yet, stripped of its technical camouflage the latest White House position ultimately reduces to the claim that this President, being somehow outside the Government, is above the law.
Our entire constitutional system -not to mention common sense -rebels at any such notion.
Fast forward to today. Hillary Clinton tells Congress:
The White House would forge ahead with military action in Libya even if Congress passed a resolution constraining the mission, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said during a classified briefing to House members Wednesday afternoon. … The answer surprised many in the room because Clinton plainly admitted the administration would ignore any and all attempts by Congress to shackle President Obama’s power as commander in chief to make military and wartime decisions.
Isn’t that the precise claim that, if acted upon, Tribe thought was an impeachable offense on Reagan’s part? If Congress passed a Boland amendment type law with application to Libya, and Obama really had the stones to defy it, would Tribe call for his impeachment?
Welcome to Obama’s QUAGMIRE …
It is amateur hour in the White House and “We the People” are feeling the brunt of the inexperience. Obama truly is the worst President ever.
Thanks to Barack Obama’s “Kinetic Military Operation” WAR in Libya oil prices have climbed to their highest level since 2008. Obama claimed that the military operation in Libya would last days not weeks. The community organizer and “Ditherer” in Chief could never have been so wrong. Who but an inexperienced and completed over-matched individual could ever have thought that a any military action would have ended so quickly.
Instead of a quick outcome and slam dunk in Libya as stated by Obama, fighters loyal to Moammar Gadhafi pushed back rebels from key areas in eastern Libya and have dealt the rebels a severe setback. Today, a spokesman for the Libyan leader said that Gaddafi will stay in Libya “until the end”. The result … oil prices rose to a 30 month high and the pain at the gas pumps will be felt by American workers trying to get to work. More ‘Hope & Change’ from Obama … rising gas prices.
Battles between Gadhafi’s troops and rebels have seesawed back and forth in Libyan ports and towns since mid-February, with the price of oil rising more than $ 20 a barrel since then. Energy consultants Cameron Hanover said traders are beginning to view the Libya uprising as a standoff for now. ‘Without control of the air, Gadhafi’s troops have been unable to hammer home their gains. And, without strong and well-trained ground forces, the rebels seem incapable of holding onto their gains. Optimism that Libyan oil might return to the market, seen earlier this week, was dashed.”
Libya’s oil exports, which went mainly to Europe, are shut down. The rebels have said they plan to start shipping oil again, although how soon that could happen is unclear.
As per ABC News, the weekly national average gas price showed the highest price ever during the month of March and the seventh consecutive increase this week,
Under President Barack Obama, oil prices have doubled and are up 100%. THANKS BARACK. Not only has this President been a complete incompetent failure in creating a $ 787 billion stimulus plan that created no jobs, added a ridiculous amount to the federal debt with Obamacare and has hampered job creation by an over-reaching and over-regulative government … the “Not Ready for Prime Time” President has not got the US into a hornet’s nest in Libya as oil prices skyrocket.
According to the GasBuddy gasoline price tracking web site, the price of a gallon of regular gas was around $ 1.79 when Mr. Obama took office. Today the national average is $ 3.58. The lowest average price in the continental United States is $ 3.31 in Tulsa Oklahoma, the highest is $ 4.14 in Santa Barbara, CA.
Who would ever have thought that during the 2008 Democrat primaries in the run up to the 2008 Presidential election that Joe Biden would have been the sage of sages and stated the following regarding the rank amateur Barack Obama. Watch VIDEO.
Biden said that Obama was not ready for the job and the Presidency is not one that lends itself to on the job training. Biden’s reply, “I stand by that statement”. Looks like Joe was 100% correct. However, as we are reminded by the Gateway Pundit Jim Hoft, Peggy was wrong. Obama was not going to pay for our gas, he doubled it instead. I wonder what peggy has to say for herself today? Sadly, the Kool-Aide drinking Obamaite would blame it still on George W. Bush.
Welcome to Obama’s QUAGMIRE …
It is amateur hour in the White House and “We the People” are feeling the brunt of the inexperience. Obama truly is the worst President ever.
Thanks to Barack Obama’s “Kinetic Military Operation” WAR in Libya oil prices have climbed to their highest level since 2008. Obama claimed that the military operation in Libya would last days not weeks. The community organizer and “Ditherer” in Chief could never have been so wrong. Who but an inexperienced and completed over-matched individual could ever have thought that a any military action would have ended so quickly.
Instead of a quick outcome and slam dunk in Libya as stated by Obama, fighters loyal to Moammar Gadhafi pushed back rebels from key areas in eastern Libya and have dealt the rebels a severe setback. Today, a spokesman for the Libyan leader said that Gaddafi will stay in Libya “until the end”. The result … oil prices rose to a 30 month high and the pain at the gas pumps will be felt by American workers trying to get to work. More ‘Hope & Change’ from Obama … rising gas prices.
Battles between Gadhafi’s troops and rebels have seesawed back and forth in Libyan ports and towns since mid-February, with the price of oil rising more than $ 20 a barrel since then. Energy consultants Cameron Hanover said traders are beginning to view the Libya uprising as a standoff for now. ‘Without control of the air, Gadhafi’s troops have been unable to hammer home their gains. And, without strong and well-trained ground forces, the rebels seem incapable of holding onto their gains. Optimism that Libyan oil might return to the market, seen earlier this week, was dashed.”
Libya’s oil exports, which went mainly to Europe, are shut down. The rebels have said they plan to start shipping oil again, although how soon that could happen is unclear.
As per ABC News, the weekly national average gas price showed the highest price ever during the month of March and the seventh consecutive increase this week,
Under President Barack Obama, oil prices have doubled and are up 100%. THANKS BARACK. Not only has this President been a complete incompetent failure in creating a $ 787 billion stimulus plan that created no jobs, added a ridiculous amount to the federal debt with Obamacare and has hampered job creation by an over-reaching and over-regulative government … the “Not Ready for Prime Time” President has not got the US into a hornet’s nest in Libya as oil prices skyrocket.
According to the GasBuddy gasoline price tracking web site, the price of a gallon of regular gas was around $ 1.79 when Mr. Obama took office. Today the national average is $ 3.58. The lowest average price in the continental United States is $ 3.31 in Tulsa Oklahoma, the highest is $ 4.14 in Santa Barbara, CA.
Who would ever have thought that during the 2008 Democrat primaries in the run up to the 2008 Presidential election that Joe Biden would have been the sage of sages and stated the following regarding the rank amateur Barack Obama. Watch VIDEO.
Biden said that Obama was not ready for the job and the Presidency is not one that lends itself to on the job training. Biden’s reply, “I stand by that statement”. Looks like Joe was 100% correct. However, as we are reminded by the Gateway Pundit Jim Hoft, Peggy was wrong. Obama was not going to pay for our gas, he doubled it instead. I wonder what peggy has to say for herself today? Sadly, the Kool-Aide drinking Obamaite would blame it still on George W. Bush.
Rudy Giuliani told Laura Ingraham that “since this whole thing in the Middle East began,” the Obama administration “doesn’t know what it’s doing.”
“This is probably the worst handled national security military action I have ever seen. From announcing — when he didn’t know what to do — that Gadhafi must go to then making that speech the other night, which was internally contradictory. You cannot say we’re there to protect the Libyan people, but we’re not going to be for regime change with Gadhafi because the reason we are there to protect the Libyan people is because of Gadhafi.”
Taegan Goddard’s Political Wire
Tom Marino (R., Pa.) needs a geography lesson:
Rep. Tom Marino, R-10, Lycoming Twp., said he supports Mr. Gadhafi’s removal but said Mr. Obama should have consulted Congress before acting.
Instead, the president’s action raised questions about whether he violated the constitutional provision that gives Congress the power to declare war, or the War Powers Act, Mr. Marino said.
“The bottom line is I wish the president would have told us, talked to Congress about what is the plan. Is there a plan? Is the mission to take Gadhafi out?” Mr. Marino asked. “I think he’s fumbling through this.”
Mr. Marino, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said he hopes to ask questions of administration officials at a committee hearing today. He questioned whether humanitarian reasons are good enough for intervention.
“Where does it stop?” he said. “Do we go into Africa next? I don’t want to sound callous or cold, but this could go on indefinitely around the world.”
Apparently, membership on the Foreign Affairs Committee does not require one to actually know anything about foreign countries.
Join us on Friday, April 1, 2011 from 12-1 ET for our “Lunch with Heritage” chat. We will be joined by Heritage’s Middle Eastern Affairs expert Jim Phillips. Jim will be taking your questions about what we should be doing in Libya and what we should not be doing. There has been a lot said about the current situation in Libya and Heritage has written extensively about it. Join us Friday at noon with your questions. If you would like to be reminded about the event, please leave your name in the form below.
(Scott)
Rich Lowry cruelly asks: “Is it a war or a Marx Brothers comedy?” I believe that the Obama administration’s position is that it is neither. Rich, however, links to the New York Times article by Thom Shanker and Charlie Savage reporting that NATO is prepared to bomb the the LIbyan rebels (or “rebels,” as I prefer to call them) whom we have intervened to support.
Shanker and Savage lead their story with this: “Members of the NATO alliance have sternly warned the rebels in Libya not to attack civilians as they push against the regime of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, according to senior military and government officials.”
Shanker and Savage report in paragraph two: “As NATO takes over control of airstrikes in Libya and the Obama administration considers new steps to tip the balance of power there, the coalition has told the rebels that the fog of war will not shield them from possible bombardment by NATO planes and missiles, just as the regime’s forces have been punished.”
Was it only the day before yesterday that the Obama administration was debating whether we should arm the “rebels”? Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that Obama was holding the debate with himself: “I’m not ruling it out. But I’m also not ruling it in,” Obama told NBC News in an interview Tuesday evening.
Damn, these limited kinetic engagement deals can get complicated.
