Month: May 2011

Word that the Libyan war is illegal has been out for some time now. Here’s just a sampling:

Daniel Larison: As far as U.S. law is concerned, this is also wrong. The President has no authority under the Constitution to do what Obama has done in Libya.

Doug Bandow: President Obama took the country into war against Libya without a declaration of war. He continues to bombard Libya contrary to the War Powers Resolution. He has compounded one of America’s stupidest wars by making it indisputably illegal.

Glenn Greenwald: This war, without Congressional authorization, is illegal in every relevant sense:  Constitutionally and statutorily.   That was true from its start but is especially true now.

Gene Healy: On Friday the 60-day clock ran out, leaving Obama in clear violation of the War Powers Resolution, passed in 1973 to “fulfill the intent of the framers of the Constitution … [and] insure that the collective judgment of both the Congress and the President will apply to the introduction of United States Armed Forces into hostilities.” Instead of withdrawing U.S. forces, the president sent a letter to congressional leaders insisting — bizarrely — that drone attacks and “suppression and destruction of air defenses” don’t qualify as “hostilities” under the resolution.

All of this, while it is being reported today that NATO is “stepping up” the bombardment of Libya, striking “Col. Gadhafi’s residential compound” in “what appeared to be the heaviest night of bombing of the Libyan capital since the alliance launched its air campaign.” To add to this: “the U.S. invited Libya’s rebel leadership on Tuesday to open a representative office in Washington D.C. and NATO moved towards considering adding ground-attack helicopters to its military campaign in hopes of breaking a stalemate between the Libyan leader and rebels seeking to overthrow him.”

One of the strategies consistently employed by U.S. presidents to extend illegal wars is to change the stated mission. This is exactly what has happened with Libya. Hostilities were initiated on the basis of protecting civilians and were revamped almost immediately to include supporting rebel groups and now the mission aims explicitly to overthrow Gaddafi. What gives the U.S. or NATO the prerogative to do such a thing is a mystery.

But we saw similar mission creep in Afghanistan. Initially the invasion was about grabbing bin Laden and whatever elements of al Qaeda we could. It quickly turned into a war against the Taliban for not handing al Qaeda over to the U.S. Shortly thereafter, the war was on the country of Afghanistan, as the U.S. warned the bombing would not stop until Afghans changed their leadership (this happens to be no different from what bin Laden did on September 11^th). After that, the Taliban had fallen, and the mission turned into creating a proxy “democratic” government in Afghanistan to be allied with the U.S. Years passed, and now it seems the mission is quelling a violent insurgency and training Afghan forces, with possibilities for a power-sharing agreement with the Taliban. Hence forever war.

Similar war aim trajectories can be found with Iraq, et al. It is a very common tactic to keep wars going. If the stated war aim is seemingly unlimited to begin with, it’s less likely to get substantial support from the American people. If it is limited at first, but then constantly changes to increasingly aggressive and grandiose aims, passive and indoctrinated acceptance by the electorate is more likely. Plus, ascertaining the legality of the venture will become simply bewildering, and thus a fleeting objective.

Netanyahu’s speech in front of Congress was truly extreme. He said that Judea and Samaria (the Israeli phrase for the West Bank and occupied territories) belongs to Israel. He said the entirety of Jerusalem belongs to the Israelis. He said Israeli settlements are permanent. He said Israeli military occupation along the Jordan River is long term. He said expelled Palestinians will never be allowed to return.

He also mentioned an eventual Palestinian state…but considering what he said about the borders of Israel, one can only assume he means for that state must be to the east of the Jordan River.

This is the recipe for continued conflict. It is a view of the issue far outside what the vast majority of the world views as a viable solution. And the United States Congress applauded every word.

Benjamin Netanyahu will soon speak to Congress presumably to reiterate what we’ve heard from him and others for the past week: “no to Israel’s full withdrawal to the 1967 borders; no to the division of Jerusalem; no to the right of return for Palestinian refugees; and no to a Palestinian military presence in the new state.” That is, no to peace.

Supposedly looming over this recent scuffle between a basically status quo Obama stance and a stern, ticked off Netanyahu is the upcoming September UN resolution to recognize Palestinian statehood. This is something Israel refuses to do, despite harping on Palestinian recognition of the state of Israel as the prerequisite to negotiations. Indeed, everything Israel does on a daily basis – from expanding settlements by expelling Palestinians off private land to insistence on checkpoints to control of the water resources – falls far short of any recognition of Palestinian statehood.

It’s common for Israel to claim that Palestinians won’t recognize Israel and thus obstruct any potential peace. But large majorities support a two state solution based on the 1967 borders. In other words, they are perfectly willing to recognize Israel. The Israeli government (which Netanyahu has most recently made clear) will not, however, recognize Palestine.

It is difficult to imagine Israeli occupation policy has changed very much since Israeli military leader and politician Moshhe Dayan said post- Six Day War: “We don’t have a solution, and you will continue living like dogs, and whoever wants will go, and will see how this procedure will work out.” Or, perhaps more accurately, it follows what Lara Friedman and Daniel Seidemann in Foreign Policy called the “everybody knows fallacy,” namely that Israel’s gradual and continuous expansion onto Palestinian land is premised “on the grounds that ‘everybody knows’ these areas will always be part of Israel.”

The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Muammar Gaddafi, his son, and his top intelligence man under the Rome Statute’s provisions constituting crimes against humanity. Good; they are sick murderous tyrants. But who should be next?

The Explanatory Memorandum of the relevant articles of the Rome Statute say actions qualifying as crimes against humanity must “constitute a serious attack on human dignity” but that “murder, extermination, torture, rape, political, racial, or religious persecution and other inhumane acts reach the threshold of crimes against humanity only if they are part of a widespread or systematic practice.” Our government’s practice of piloting Predator drones primarily in the area of Northwest Pakistan almost surely applies.

Begun under Bush and drastically expanded under Obama, the drone program consistently kills civilians although clear statistics are difficult to amass given how isolated the area is and how difficult it is for journalists or human rights groups to get in there and find out for sure. But estimates are available. (Go here for drone statistics.) In 2009, 53 drone strikes that we know about were launched. The high estimate for the number of people killed is 724. In 2010, strikes increased dramatically, numbering 118, and killing, at a low estimate 607 people, and a high estimate 993. So far in 2011 there have been 29 attacks, killing a high estimate of 222 people. From 2004 – 2011, deaths from drone strikes are somewhere between 1,483 – 2,364. If the Brookings Institution is correct that for each drone strike approximately ten civilians are murdered for every 1 militant, that is something like 1,800 civilians killed.

With no signs of this program being eliminated or slowing down at all, it seems to qualify explicitly as a “widespread or systemic practice.” It has killed a number of civilians roughly comparable to the number of civilians claimed dead in Libya just prior to NATO intervention (although not a single organization I’m aware of is keeping close track of civilian casualties in the conflict). Gaddafi has been accused of crimes against humanity. Barack Obama is lauded as the leader of the free world.

If the operational basis of the International Criminal Court epitomizes this hypocrisy, it contradicts its own statement of purpose: “to help end impunity for the perpetrators of the most serious crimes of concern to the international community.” They merely uphold this scheme of impunity for powerful criminals.

Keep in mind that I’m really focusing on only one program among many deadly programs. The analysis could of course include so called “kill/capture” operations or night raids in Afghanistan (described in this Frontline episode as a “vast and secret” program) which result in numerous civilian casualties and is quite obviously a “systemic practice.” It could include the general policy of a surge in Afghanistan, which has sharply increased civilian deaths. It could even include the crimes that are officially sanctioned by the U.S., but committed by others, like the recent atrocities in Yemen, Bahrain, Palestine, and elsewhere in the region. With these inclusions, the disproportionate ratios of civilian casualties resulting from widespread and systemic practices of outlaw states make it terribly clear that the ICC is not an unbiased, dispassionate arbiter of justice for major atrocities. Whatever it is, it’s not that.

While there was nothing all that new in the President’s speech on the Middle East, most of the discussion has been centered around the Israeli reaction, rather than the content of Obama’s ten-page peroration. In tandem with the usual pledges to keep borrowing money from the Chinese so we can give it to the Egyptians, Obama simply reiterated the terms of the deal Yasser Arafat refused and the Israelis agreed to at Camp David: a return to the 1967 borders with the understanding tha tland swaps could be made within that context in order to bring about a real and lasting settlement. This has been the framework of the entire “peace process” since Day One.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu now rejects this framework, like Samson puling down the temple upon his own head. He claims the 1967 borders are “indefensible,” but the real story is that Israel is no longer concerned with defending its borders, only in expanding them.

In case no one else has noticed, I hasten to point out that the Israel of Camp David is no more. A new Israel has arisen to take its place,  one with an electorate that sees the idea of a Greater Israel as the only “defense.” Forget about poor little beleaguered Israel, beset on all sides by relentless enemies: the states bordering the Jewish state are weak and in disarray. Militarily, Israel is by far the most powerful nation in the region, perhaps even more potent than their American patrons.

It is no longer a question of whether Israel’s borders can be defended: the question is, will they be extended? Israel’s strategic posture is best described in the old adage that the best defense is a good offense.

That is why the status quo — the old framework embodied by the 1967 borders — is no longer acceptable to the Israelis. Faced with a demographic time bomb that shows every sign of going off early, not to mention increasing international pressure and isolation, the Israelis have upped the ante. Placing all their coins on a single bet, they’ve decided it’s expand or die.

The Israelis are increasingly distanced even from many of  their own traditional supporters in the US and have to depend on the likes of  Glenn Beck and a bunch of backwater hicks to gin up support for Israeli in the US. The mainstream Jewish organizations always support the old framework, and are uneasy with Netanyahu’s new dispensation. The main result of Netanyahu’s rejectionist response will be to further alienate American Jews from his government and its policie.

On the other hand, in Israel, it will bolster the Prime Ministe’s standing — and that was always the point, anyway. In public, Netanyahu must roar like a lion, lest his constituents perceive him as a mere satrap of the Americans. Anti-Amerianism plays a role here, just as it does in Pakistan, whose leaders in public rebuke us, and in private say something quite different. Both have a direct line to the US Treasury, and have an interest in keeping it open. And while Netanyahu’s posturing is mainly for public consumption, it serves Israeli interests by keeping the occupied territories in limbo, and allows the settlements to expand and create more “facts on the ground.”

The flap over IMF honcho Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s apparent rape of a hotel maid has the chattering classes nattering a mile a minute, and I’ve so far resisted the temptation to comment, but what’s interesting is who’s defending DSK. Leading the charge: Bernard Henri-Levy, whose unbuttoned shirts and all-around phoniness have made him the subject of widespread ridicule. His earlier piece is the Daily Beast merely hinted at his evil-ness, which was given full-throated expression in an interview with French radio [translation: hat tip, Harry’s Place]:

Interviewer: “There’s an argument in the United States, that we should treat everyone the same, the powerful like anyone else, what do you say?”

BHL: “Well it’s absolutely disgusting because we know that not everyone is the same. We know that someone like Dominique Strauss-Kahn is obviously treated in a different way. We know that he was photographed in a certain way, in order to humiliate him, looking out for the slightest tremor in his face, blasting him with photo after photo. We know all this. So it’s a false argument. Of course, democracy says that we must treat everyone in the same way, but not everyone is everyone. He’s the President of the IMF, the man who was about to be a candidate to run for the President of the French Republic.”

This puts into perspective BHL’s key role in pushing the French into bombing Libya: the Little People who will suffer the consequences of this murderous — and futile —  policy don’t matter, because, after all, “not everyone is everyone.”

Put another way: not everyone is Someone. Our transnational elites can do what they want with us peons, as they jet around the world looking for ways to demonstrate their transcendance of traditional morality. They are beyond good and evil, and the rest of us can go to hell.

BHL is right: it is absolutely disgusting, albeit not in the way he means it.