President Barack Obama arrived in Manhattan this afternoon with one mission in mind, furthering his defense of intervention in Libya.On the day the U.S. and Britain stepped up pressure on Moammar Gadhafi, the president addressed the U.S. Mission to the United Nations.
“Today we see the NATO alliance in command of the arms embargo, the no-fly zone (and) starting tomorrow, the mission to protect the Libyan people,” the president said.
It was the second time in as many days the president defended his decision to send U.S. ships and warplanes to Libya.
“When peace is threatened; when international law is undermined, we cannot stand idly by,” Obama said.
On Monday night the president delivered a speech defending intervention, saying the United States had to intervene in Libya to prevent a humanitarian disaster. But we are now getting some picture of the cost. The pentagon said Tuesday the tab so far is more than half a billion dollars.
Boxes of ammunition and fuel were loaded on to an American warship off the coast of Libya on Tuesday, allowing a tight surveillance ring of allied ships to stay in position as they help to enforce the no-fly zone.
This as the pentagon said it has spent $550 million in the 10 days it has been involved in Libya – the cost of 192 cruise missiles, 983 flyovers – 370 of those bombing missions against Gadhafi’s military sites – plus surveillance, refueling and deployment.
In Libya, rebels fired rockets and machine guns at government troops near Gadhafi’s home town. Opposition forces lost ground and had to flee from the front lines, but they are now regrouping.
This happened as leaders from some 40 nations met in London to step up pressure on Gadhafi to quit.
“All of us must continue to increase the pressure and deepen the isolation of the Gadhafi regime,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said.
Italy and Britain suggested they might be willing to let Gadhafi go into exile in order to achieve a quick cease fire, but the international group is still struggling to work out an end game.
In Washington a top military official told Congress the lesson of Desert Storm in Iraq is that a new government is necessary.
“I think a stalemate is not in anybody’s interest,” U.S. European Commander Adm. James Stravridis said.
The president’s remarks came as officials said they had no specific information about links between the Libyan rebels supported by the no-fly zone and terrorist groups.
“The intelligence I’m receiving at this point makes me feel that the leadership I’m seeing are responsible men and women who are struggling against Col. Gadhafi. We have seen flickers in the intelligence of potential al Qaeda, Hezbollah, but at this point I don’t have detail, sufficient to say that there is a significant terrorist presence,” Adm. Stravridis said.
The president said Monday night the people of Libya deserve than the Libyan strongman.
“We continue to pursue the broader goal of a Libya that belongs not to a dictator but to its people,” Obama said.
However, Libyan government spokesman Ibrahim Mussa was defiant in the face of Obama’s vows.
“You can’t sit in Washington or New York and decide the fate of the Libyan people,” Mussa said.
While in Manhattan the president did interviews on Libya with network television anchors, including CBS’ Erica Hill.
Obama was to attend a mega-fundraiser in Harlem Tuesday night – his first visit there since being elected president and his first fundraising event north of 125th street. New York was a political cash register for then-candidate Obama. He raised $42 million here to help win the presidency. On Tuesday night the haul was expected to be $1.5 million as just 50 people paid over $30,000 each to dine with the president.
{CBS Broadcasting/Matzav.com Newscenter}
And this is not a “stupid war” because…?
. Obama isnt a hypocrit at all and anyone with simple reasoning skills and who simply reads the NY Times or the Washington Post knows what is happening in Libya and what happened in Iraq.
[1] Bush invaded a sovereign country in 2003 that was not attacking or threatening another country.
Saddam Hussein at the time wasn’t even killing his own people ( any more than China or every Arab state or many African states). It wasnt the poorest state and had the best food distribution system of any government run food program of a government in the middle East. Saddam Hussein wasn’t engaged in anything of mass murder against his own citizens from 1994 through the eve of the war in march 2003 on account of his weak hold on the country and aims of keeping it together. He didn’t control 2/3 of his country on account of the no fly zone. He was even letting prisoners out in clemency campaigns for part of his post Gulf War public relations campaign. Therefore on this ground alone it is incomparable since he wasn’t mass killing his peeps.
Obama on the other hand started bombing with a Security Council Resolution aimed at those military targets that were IN PROCESS OF MASS MURDER of their own citizens.
[2] The Security Council members were going to veto any Bush sponsored resolution for invasion and takover by a UN coalition. Bush wouldnt even call for a vote becasue he knew ahead of time he would lose. So his war violated the UN Charter and therefore the Conctitution of the United States. The opposite is the case with Obama.
The President swears an aoth to uphold the Constitution, and since the UN Charter is a treaty, and since the Constitution requires ( in the Supremacy Clasue) the government of the U.S. to uphold all treaties it has entered into…beyond and trumping all other United States laws, Bush violated the Constitution while Obama is fulfilling the Conctitution in abiding by the Security Council Resolution. ( btw the only part of the government that there is a complex argument with is whether the Supreme Court needs to take into account international law or not on account of the Supremacy clause).
[3] the next relevant difference is that Obama is keeping out ground troops, and Bush sent in regular ground forces, and when you do that in a war you consign the people you send in to their deaths. That act of sending a group in to harms way knowing that a portion of them will die requires the greatest justification to legally and morally engage in it. Bush didnt do that with a threat to the U.S. lives. So without justification and in violation of the Constitution he sent 4,000 Americans to death, permanently maiming 30,000 americans ( not including the ones with permanent PTSD and other mental illnesses) and all the concomitant hell and pain Bush condemned tens of thousands of Americans to ( troops, mothers fathers sons daughters widows orphans etc ).
Obama has not sent ground forces in.
BTW Bush gave the order to send all those Americans to die- not congress. Congress’ resolution was signed 4 months prior to the war and no intepretation of the resolution allows that Congress was telling bush he was free to violate the contitution 4 months later and go to war when Iraq was not a threat. Read the resolution. Aside from that, Congress cant violate the UN charter either.
[4] Finally, Obama has targeted the current military forces and resources of Ghadafi currently used by him to commit mass murder, which SCR 1973 is designed to stop. And it has worked, and is a success.