Month: July 2011

Somehow America’s most prominent chest-beating war-hawks feel legitimate in fear-mongering about Gaddafi’s most recent charades, real or percieved, in a desperate attempt to retroactively justify U.S.-NATO intervention. First, as Dan Larison reported upon, we have Lindsey Graham chiming in with this little number:

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) warned on Tuesday that Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi is “serious” about attacking European cities in order to pressure European officials to cease their airstrikes against Libya.

“He actually means it,” Graham said of Gadhafi. “Hitler meant it. He means it.”

Aside from the Hitler reference making him a terrible fool, Graham is emphasizing a security threat that is a result of the intervention. And still further, the suggestion that all of Europe – with their superior militaries and military alliances – is at any considerable risk from Gaddafi strikes me as a bit of fantasy.

But it doesn’t end there. Marc Thiessen of the American Enterprise Institute may recognize the stupid futility of directly comparing Gaddafi to Hitler, so he instead paints this threat to Europe as a virtual operational alliance with al Qaeda, in the Mad Dog’s triumphant return to terrorism:

Last week, Gary Schmitt posted a disturbing report that Libyan government arms might be flowing to al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). He noted that, while to date the worry has been that elements of al Qaeda were infiltrating the ranks of the Libyan rebel forces, “if the above intelligence is correct, the greater worry may be a Gaddafi willing to strike back at the United States and its NATO allies by supplying weapons to terrorists.”

Well no sooner had Gary posted his concerns, than Gaddafi issued exactly such a threat.

Interesting how he phrased that: “the worry has been that elements of al Qaeda were infiltrating” rebel forces. Another way to say it is the way that Libyan rebel commanders as well as top U.S. officials have said it, that the Libyan rebels have had some ties to al Qaeda from the very beginning. This doesn’t register in the neo-con mind, though; it’s too contradictory, too cynical. This is how it strikes most people until they realize that just about every post-9/11 war has emboldened al Qaeda to some extent.

Thiessen of course has to go over the rap sheet:

This no idle threat, coming from the man who blew up Pan Am 103 over Scotland, killing 270 people; destroyed a French passenger jet over Niger, killing 171 people; bombed the La Belle discotheque in West Berlin, killing two U.S. soldiers and injuring more than 50 American servicemen; established terrorist training camps on Libyan soil; provided terrorists with arms and safe haven; and plotted to kill leaders in Saudi Arabia, Chad, Egypt, Sudan, Tunisia, and Zaire.

First of all, if these are such unforgivable crimes portending future terrorism from the Gaddafi regime, why in the world were these same neo-con scoundrels shaking hands with Gaddafi and making deals about supporting him militarily just a few years ago? Secondly, Thiessen apparently forgot to mention that the United States government is guilty of all of those types of terrorist crimes to a degree which leaves Gaddafi looking like a dime store thief.

Angela Keaton talks libertarianism and Antiwar.com on New Hampshire Capital Access!

Topics include the performance of Barack Obama measured against recent past Presidents, the relationship of the Left and Libertarians to the anti-war movement, the efficacy and cost of warfare, and AntiWar’s newest campaign, ComeHomeAmerica.us

Also: Economic Crisis: Prediction for Quantitative Easing 3 aka “massive inflation”

Republicans are berating Obama about the Somali pirate Ahmed Abdulkadir Warsame who was caught in the Gulf of Aden two months ago and kept on board a U.S. Navy ship for interrogation instead of being informed of his rights. Indeed, they are criticizing the administration heavily on having recognized his rights at all:

“Why is it so hard for President Obama to acknowledge what the majority of Americans already know: foreign terrorists are enemies of America,” [Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas] said. “They should not be tried as common criminals, but as terrorists in military commissions at Guantanamo Bay.”

And this, from Time magazine:

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell took the floor Wednesday to denounce the move. “Ahmed Abdulkadir Warsame is a foreign enemy combatant,” McConnell said, “He should be treated as one; he should be sitting in a cell Guantanamo Bay, and eventually be tried before a military commission.”

Anyone unencumbered by these GOP slogans about (1) depriving people of their legal rights and (2) fear-mongering Americans into believing that trying accused terrorists on American soil actually represents some kind of national security threat, knows that the real story here is that Warsame was held and interrogated for two months without a access to a lawyer or being informed that he had the right to remain silent. This is an affront to individual liberty that the U.S. government has, on the whole, insisted on implementing in a systematic way post-9/11. The Republican Party seems to disagree, thinking the travesty is that he wasn’t shipped off to Guantanamo for indefinite imprisonment immediately.

As per usual, though, there is blame to go around. Some commentaries are attempting to point out, as the above Time link does, that it was a Republican-controlled Congress which enacted legislation prohibiting the use of federal funds to transfer Gitmo detainees to the U.S. and therefore Obama’s breach of the law in this case was the fault of Republicans putting him between a rock and a hard place. Glenn Greenwald laid that dishonest excuse to rest back in January, after Obama “signed an executive order…that will create a formal system of indefinite detention for those held at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay“:

It is true that Congress — with the overwhelming support of both parties — has enacted several measures making it much more difficult, indeed impossible, to transfer Guantanamo detainees into the U.S. But long before that ever happened, Obama made clear that he wanted to continue the twin defining pillars of the Bush detention regime: namely, (1) indefinite, charge-free detention and (2) military commissions (for those lucky enough to be charged with something). Obama never had a plan for “closing Guantanamo” in any meaningful sense; the most he sought to do was to move it a few thousand miles north to Illinois, where its defining injustices would endure.

The preservation of the crux of the Bush detention scheme was advocated by Obama long before Congress’ ban on transferring detainees to the U.S. It was in May, 2009 — a mere five months after his inauguration — that Obama stood up in front of the U.S. Constitution at the National Archives and demanded a new law of “preventive detention” to empower him to imprison people without charges: a plan the New York Times said “would be a departure from the way this country sees itself.” It was the same month that the administration announced it intended to continue to deny many detainees trials, instead preserving the military commissions scheme, albeit with modifications. And the first — and only — Obama plan for “closing Guantanamo” came in December, 2009, and it entailed nothing more than transferring the camp to a supermax prison in Thompson, Illinois, while preserving its key ingredients, prompting the name “Gitmo North.”

Party devotees will attempt to paint the perfunctory objections to this Warsame treatment as in the right or on the side of justice, but there is still a bi-partisan consensus on depriving accused terrorists of their legal rights. It’s true, Warsame will be tried on U.S. soil in civilian courts (which is better than some of the potential alternatives now being argued for), but only after being held and interrogated for two months, long enough for anyone to self-incriminate.