Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Libya Turmoil 69

To the 3 stooges and their media supporters.
Some basic truths are left to be said:
When I met the main reporters and journalists in the beginning of my last trip to Tripoli I thought they were basically liars. Not having had the need of ever meeting them before, and not really interested in meeting them before, I thought they had the same kind of knowledge I had. Not so, big mistake. The new type of intelligence gathering by the big media by flashing in a country and flashing out again, and copying each other obscures the real backgrounds of the news. Soundbites and textbites is the name of the game.
Meanwhile I am aware that the top-class reporters are very intelligent people, who, given half a chance, would be marvelous sources of information if only they had the time to study their subjects.
In Libya the main subject to study are the tribes.
When Moammar Gaddafi told BBC reporter Jeremy Bowen repeatedly ”No you don’t  understand the system here, no don’t say that, you don’t understand the system” it looked like Gaddafi was a stubborn idiot who insisted on belittling his interviewer, that’s how it was broadcasted without any explanations.
Except that privately the reporter admitted afterwards that Gaddafi was probably right, the reporter didn’t know the system. Meanwhile the reporter had been confronted time after time with the fact that all predictions crumbled like houses of cards.
Even the inhuman and criminal bombardments, inclusive with depleted uranium which will make the whole population for square miles around the impact zone sick with radiation sickness., launched for internal electioneering reasons in the 3 countries of the 3 stooges, couldn’t make a dent in the conviction and fortitude of the Gaddafi regime.
All the calls for Gaddafi to give up, surrender, disappear, go to his mother or commit suicide to satisfy the appetite for a quick victory of the 3 stooges were in vain, Gaddafi didn’t budge. All the media lies in the world didn’t even shake him.
The difference is that Gaddafi knows his country and his people, he knows the tribes he is dealing with successfully since 42 years and those tribes know that Gaddafi is no fool and won’t budge until his last breadth.
And there comes the biggest surprise, the tribes see a man, a man who is organizing and reorganizing their lives since 42 years, trying to bring them, in his own unique way, into the 21st century. A man who has only one word, a Libyan word for Libyan people:”I unified you, I gave you a country, I made you wealthy beyond your dreams, I did this against the assembled vultures of the whole world without bending and without accepting their anti-Libyan poisoned gifts. I controlled the rapacious oil majors and obliged them to accept our rules and laws without taking bribes and I had only the unity and prosperity of the Libyan people in my mind.
Since Libya was never a really unified country before I had to break all resistance coming from all angles to safeguard the unity of the country.”
This would be the discourse of Gaddafi if he thought it would be important for the world to know it.
But Gaddafi knows that the political leaders of this world wouldn’t even listen to his discourse, they wouldn’t even read one letter of his discourse if it would be presented to them.
The Western leaders are so impregnated with their basic Marxist indoctrination of a world government and a world police force that they totally ignore the centrifugal forces in Asia, Africa and at a later stage South-Anerica.
Gaddafi, an avid reader of history and philosophy, has seen the collapsing colonial structure of Africa and he is convinced that Africa has to go back to its tribal roots to solve its problems. He did everything in his power to convince the African leaders to go back to their roots. The problem is that those same leaders realize that their position is supported by the West as part of the Western corrupt power games and influence.
France has been on the forefront of those corrupt power games and has found Gaddafi blocking those games several times.
Libya is the original name the Romans gave to the African continent and the scholar of history Moammar Gaddafi wants Libya and its developing modern tribal system to be an example for the African development, thus screwing up the Western Marxist World Order under the control of a “politburo” in New-York, pulling the authoritarian non- or anti-democratic strings. The dictatorship of the Security Council members was challenged by Gaddafi when he made his speech in New-York and tore a copy of the UN charter to shreds.
A madman? No, certainly not, a visionary is more like it.
The unification of Europe, the real starting point for a dominant world government will be shredded in the same way Gaddafi shredded the UN charter symbolically, and the dream of a world government will die a certain death and will be replaced by a consensus between independent mature nation states.
I hope Gaddafi will still be able to see that during his life because he is one of the few who saw clear, which is a major handicap in our time of soundbites and textbites without thorough examination and verification.

Hermes MSafir
Libya Turmoil 68


I will be absent for a few days probably since I am with our group on a factfinding mission which I will tell you all about in about a week's time.
Meanwhile  I will try to send some news everyday.


Today CAM assembled following tidbits for us.







As I thought, the more time passes the more difficult it gets for the three stooges.....




Legal experts warn usa it is illegal to arm rebels



Cameron in trouble




Public opinion and legal expert say enough bombing



US using depleted uranium bombs. Of course depleted 
uranium for military personal, not for civilians. 
The civilians resist the radioactivity.



More about al quaeda

Libya Turmoil 67 and the oil prices


Thanks kermit.


Obama has put a moratorium on oil exploration in the Gulf, the richest off-shore oil fields of the US.
Now he has attacked Libya and probably stopped oil supplies from that country for an unlimited period, whereas OPEC has no supplementary capacity.
Qatar finances meanwhile Sarko's war effort and collects the spoils from the rising oil- and gas prices.
How stupid can you get?
Of course now Obama blames the oil-industry.
How hypocritical can you ger? 
Obama seems to have an unlimited capacity for hypocrisy. 



 
From: LOGA
Sent: Tuesday, March 29, 2011 6:03 PM
Subject: Interior Department report suggests two-thirds of offshore leases are inactive
 
LOGA
 Daily News
From the President's Desk
Interior Department report suggests two-thirds of offshore leases are inactive

Reacting to mounting pressure over rising gasoline prices, President Obama commissioned the Interior Department to conduct a study on oil & gas activity on federal lands.  Today, the Interior released its response report that suggests more than two-thirds of offshore leases in the Gulf of Mexico are sitting idle.  The Administration claims that these leases are neither producing oil & gas resources, nor being actively explored by companies who own the leases.  In addition to a large percentage of stagnant leases in the Gulf, the Interior reports that over 45% of onshore federal leases have been identified as inactive.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar noted in reaction to the report, "These are resources that belong to the American people, and they expect those supplies to be developed in a timely and responsible manner and with a fair return to taxpayers."

Instead of taking blame due to its failed energy policies, the Administration is attempting to put pressure on oil & gas companies to increase U.S. domestic production.  In an attempt to relieve political pressure, the Administration is claiming that idle activity on federal oil and gas leases is the reason for limited supply and rising oil prices.

It would seem somewhat ironic that while the Interior Department continues its de facto moratorium in the Gulf of Mexico, it would urge companies to develop resources in a timely and responsible manner.  Currently, the BOEMRE has issued six permits to companies operating in the Gulf.  Prior to the federal drilling moratorium, the government was issuing approximately five permits each month.  Logic would suggest that the government, not inactive companies, is to blame for the slow development of our offshore resources.

Leases on federal lands remain inactive due to a number of reasons.  For starters, overburdening environmental regulations and bureaucratic permitting processes with federal government agencies have always been significant hurdles to ensuring projects on federal lands develop in a timely fashion.

A more important reason is simply that idle leases are not idle at all. When companies acquire a lease they must conduct geological analysis, seismic testing, drill a discovery well, and then attempt to determine if the lease has potential for further development and capital investment. The geological surveying alone can take years to identify whether a reserve is even capable of production.  Also, a large percentage of the production in the Gulf of Mexico exists on leases that expired in the past and were re-leased from another company.  Sometimes the ten-year lease process is not sufficient for many potential offshore prospects.  Just because a company has a lease does not mean they are guaranteed production from the geological structures below that lease.

Currently, members of Congress are pushing for the federal government to expand and open up access to domestic resources such as ANWR and offshore leases off the Northeastern coast.  To avoid pressure from environmental supporters and negative heat from consumers suffering from high gas prices, the Administration chooses to blame oil and gas companies for failing energy policies.
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LOGA Louisiana Oil & Gas Association 
Office 800.443.1433 
www.loga.la
Serving Louisiana's Oil & Gas Industry 
Libya Turmoil 66


Gaddafi attacked by 3 feminists, by Roeser.
Thank you Bill





Posted: 28 Mar 2011 05:24 AM PDT


       So now we know how this presidential pillar of  uncertain, quivering Obama Jello reacts (I wouldn’t dignify it by calling it thinking). He was definitely against entering Libya on any pretext until three women pressured him—the most notable being the orange-haired ex-journalist, 40-year-old Irish born Leftist Samantha Power director of multilateral affairs at the National Security Council (the wife of economist Cass Sunstein of the U of C)…about whom that legendary arbiter of Washington power NPR’s feminist Nina Totenberg said trilled about the women changing the presidential intention: she’s brilliant you know.   All three of them are!  Referring to co-producers of the Libyan engagement, Hillary Clinton and Susan Rice UN ambassador.
          Indeed the three women brokered the deal getting the insouciant Obama to agree as he noodled over the NCAA matchups….and did it over the opposition of three men!   This titillates Totenberg…setting it up as a slam dunk for the women over Defense Secretary Robert Gates, national security adviser Thomas Donilon and counterterrorism chief John Brennan validating her lifelong labors to prove the superiority of women.
. Yesterday on ABC-TV you saw both Hillary and Gates sitting side by side, Gates not backing down from his contention that the humanitarian intervention is not of direct priority for the United States which is already engaged in two Middle Eastern wars.
       Just as Barbara Ward aka Lady Jackson,  was an idealistic disciple of rich nations sharing  their wealth with the poor…exhibiting a theology the depth of a pie-tin…she was revered as she lived as an authentic liberal Catholic saint….albeit her religious ideals had no quantitative measure attached just basic altruism.
        But while she lived she was mighty. She consulted with  Adlai Stevenson, JFK and LBJ.   Regarded as a great Catholic intellectual she evidently had a rupture with the Church and ordered herself buried in an Anglican churchyard.
         Samantha Power is the latest liberal intellectual to come kicking down the sawdust trail advocating that wherever human rights are trampled anywhere in the world and genocide exists, there the U.S. should be flexing its power.  Of course as an over-privileged good looking young female intellectual, she has gone on to great fame in liberal circles….writing a book that secularly canonizes a visionary UN staffer who vowed to fight injustice and who was killed by a suicide bomber in Iraq,Chasing the Flame: Sergio Vieira del Mello and the Fight to Save the World.  He was supposed to be a candidate for chief staffer of the  UN which adds a passionate wail to the book—things the left does particularly well:  Oh what we have lost!
         Chasing the Flame…and the Fight to Save the World.  Nice passionate title, isn’t it?  Powered by the media organs of the Left it won many prizes and faux intellectuals vie to be seen on New  York trains coming in from the suburbs with it in tow.   Another book A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide won the Pulitzer for nonfiction in 2003 and quickly topped Sergio Vieira del Mello whom all those in the know wink at each other knowingly hoping that some dumb cluck will ask them who he was….thereby allowing them to show off their erudition.
         The three feminists scored a coup of sorts by turning Obama around.   When questioned about the coup by Diane Sawyer Hillary resorted to her first line of defense and lied volubly.  
        “Hillary and Susan Rice were key parts of this story,” said Brian Katulis, a national security expert working with the Center for American Progress which has close ties to the Obama administration.  “Hillary got the Arab buy-in,  Susan worked the UN to get the 10 to 5 vote which was no easy thing” and the passion to intervene on humanitarian grounds came principally from Power who was the African adviser to Bill Clinton when he failed to stop the Rwanda genocide because public opinion turned against it here.
        Other things helped, too: such as Hillary’s spoiled child petulance saying she won’t serve in a second term and her incorrigible leaking to put heat on Obama despite the fact that the three men argued intervention has no military significance and that the Libyan rebels are unknowables and could well have ties to al Qaeda.   Talking with Sawyer. Hillary ratified the conclusion of the author of the finest book extending from the beginnings of Whitewater to the denouement of the Lewinsky, a book with an awful name—The Death of American Virtue by law school dean Ken Gormley… who concludes that the prosecutors were at the verge of giving up trying to nail Bill Clinton…far more captivated by the tissue of lies and deception surrounding Hillary’s fraudulent actions when the Monica Lewinsky scandal broke and they reverted back to Clinton—thus allowing this latter-day Mme. Defarge to move on up to our secretary of state.
        But Samantha Power (Harvard Law JD) who taught at Harvard’s Kennedy School and won the Pulitzer prize for general non-fiction in 2003 and the J. Anthony Lukas prize for and did columns for Time is refreshingly passionate about these things squeaked Totenberg on this week’s Inside Washington. She has devoted her entire coverage of the Supreme Court to gender wars; it was she who sprang the Anita Hill surprise on Clarence Thomas and is the closest journalist to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.    Charles Krauthammer on the panel fretted what does it matter what gender these people share?
     Looking at Totenberg’s uncomprehending little pig eyes set too closely together on her 67 year old face  you get the unmistakable answer: Oh but it does! It really does!
       She’ll change her tune when it is discovered that by entering this imbroglio to spare racial slaughter, we may trigger more of it.  She likely will blame the male soldiers not the three women who pushed it. That’s because liberals never…ever…learn anything.     




Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Intermezzo about Fukushima


As a non-active nuclear physicist I have been quite upset about the news, more accurately said the lies and panic stories of Fukushima.


To make my readers better understand I am giving you some good professional links to the reality of radiation.
Don't misunderstand me, the cost-cutting of the operator company was and still is unforgivable.
The stupid panic articles of the media are also unforgivable.
Thank you Bill.



There's so much continuing hype about radiation coming from the crippled 
Fukushima reactor that I've been on the look-out for sane information to 
counteract the media's scare tactic reporting. It also helps when 
someone with a great scientific or engineering brain helps me understand 
basic units of measurement. An active duty Navy buddy sent a set of 
data and charts this morning which should help us all heighten our 
education.

First, a very good comparative chart athttp://xkcd.com/radiation/.


Second, the full article with text that accompanies the chart at 
http://blog.xkcd.com/2011/03/19/radiation-chart/.


Third, "A Layman's Intro to Radiation" at 
http://people.reed.edu/~emcmanis/radiation.html
.

Last, a well-sourced and intelligent article at one of our favorites, 
PajamasMedia. See 
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/understanding-radiation/?singlepage=true 

and make certain to read some of the comments regarding science 
reporting including a critique or two of Fox......... long over-due IMHO.
Libya Turmoil 65


Reader Ego Igwe is in good company



What Happened to the American Declaration of War?

Libya, the West and the Narrative of Democracy
By George Friedman
In my book “The Next Decade,” I spend a good deal of time considering the relation of the American Empire to the American Republic and the threat the empire poses to the republic. If there is a single point where these matters converge, it is in the constitutional requirement that Congress approve wars through a declaration of war and in the abandonment of this requirement since World War II. This is the point where the burdens and interests of the United States as a global empire collide with the principles and rights of the United States as a republic.
World War II was the last war the United States fought with a formal declaration of war. The wars fought since have had congressional approval, both in the sense that resolutions were passed and that Congress appropriated funds, but the Constitution is explicit in requiring a formal declaration. It does so for two reasons, I think. The first is to prevent the president from taking the country to war without the consent of the governed, as represented by Congress. Second, by providing for a specific path to war, it provides the president power and legitimacy he would not have without that declaration; it both restrains the president and empowers him. Not only does it make his position as commander in chief unassailable by authorizing military action, it creates shared responsibility for war. A declaration of war informs the public of the burdens they will have to bear by leaving no doubt that Congress has decided on a new order — war — with how each member of Congress voted made known to the public.
Almost all Americans have heard Franklin Roosevelt’s speech to Congress on Dec. 8, 1941: “Yesterday, Dec. 7, 1941 — a date which will live in infamy — the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan … I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, Dec. 7, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese Empire.”
It was a moment of majesty and sobriety, and with Congress’ affirmation, represented the unquestioned will of the republic. There was no going back, and there was no question that the burden would be borne. True, the Japanese had attacked the United States, making getting the declaration easier. But that’s what the founders intended: Going to war should be difficult; once at war, the commander in chief’s authority should be unquestionable.

Forgoing the Declaration

It is odd, therefore, that presidents who need that authorization badly should forgo pursuing it. Not doing so has led to seriously failed presidencies: Harry Truman in Korea, unable to seek another term; Lyndon Johnson in Vietnam, also unable to seek a new term; George W. Bush in Afghanistan and Iraq, completing his terms but enormously unpopular. There was more to this than undeclared wars, but that the legitimacy of each war was questioned and became a contentious political issue certainly is rooted in the failure to follow constitutional pathways.
In understanding how war and constitutional norms became separated, we must begin with the first major undeclared war in American history (the Civil War was not a foreign war), Korea. When North Korea invaded South Korea, Truman took recourse to the new U.N. Security Council. He wanted international sanction for the war and was able to get it because the Soviet representatives happened to be boycotting the Security Council over other issues at the time.
Truman’s view was that U.N. sanction for the war superseded the requirement for a declaration of war in two ways. First, it was not a war in the strict sense, he argued, but a “police action” under the U.N. Charter. Second, the U.N. Charter constituted a treaty, therefore implicitly binding the United States to go to war if the United Nations so ordered. Whether Congress’ authorization to join the United Nations both obligated the United States to wage war at U.N. behest, obviating the need for declarations of war because Congress had already authorized police actions, is an interesting question. Whatever the answer, Truman set a precedent that wars could be waged without congressional declarations of war and that other actions — from treaties to resolutions to budgetary authorizations — mooted declarations of war.
If this was the founding precedent, the deepest argument for the irrelevancy of the declaration of war is to be found in nuclear weapons. Starting in the 1950s, paralleling the Korean War, was the increasing risk of nuclear war. It was understood that if nuclear war occurred, either through an attack by the Soviets or a first strike by the United States, time and secrecy made a prior declaration of war by Congress impossible. In the expected scenario of a Soviet first strike, there would be only minutes for the president to authorize counterstrikes and no time for constitutional niceties. In that sense, it was argued fairly persuasively that the Constitution had become irrelevant to the military realities facing the republic.
Nuclear war was seen as the most realistic war-fighting scenario, with all other forms of war trivial in comparison. Just as nuclear weapons came to be called “strategic weapons” with other weapons of war occupying a lesser space, nuclear war became identical with war in general. If that was so, then constitutional procedures that could not be applied to nuclear war were simply no longer relevant.
Paradoxically, if nuclear warfare represented the highest level of warfare, there developed at the lowest level covert operations. Apart from the nuclear confrontation with the Soviets, there was an intense covert war, from back alleys in Europe to the Congo, Indochina to Latin America. Indeed, it was waged everywhere precisely because the threat of nuclear war was so terrible: Covert warfare became a prudent alternative. All of these operations had to be deniable. An attempt to assassinate a Soviet agent or raise a secret army to face a Soviet secret army could not be validated with a declaration of war. The Cold War was a series of interconnected but discrete operations, fought with secret forces whose very principle was deniability. How could declarations of war be expected in operations so small in size that had to be kept secret from Congress anyway?
There was then the need to support allies, particularly in sending advisers to train their armies. These advisers were not there to engage in combat but to advise those who did. In many cases, this became an artificial distinction: The advisers accompanied their students on missions, and some died. But this was not war in any conventional sense of the term. And therefore, the declaration of war didn’t apply.
By the time Vietnam came up, the transition from military assistance to advisers to advisers in combat to U.S. forces at war was so subtle that there was no moment to which you could point that said that we were now in a state of war where previously we weren’t. Rather than ask for a declaration of war, Johnson used an incident in the Tonkin Gulf to get a congressional resolution that he interpreted as being the equivalent of war. The problem here was that it was not clear that had he asked for a formal declaration of war he would have gotten one. Johnson didn’t take that chance.
What Johnson did was use Cold War precedents, from the Korean War, to nuclear warfare, to covert operations to the subtle distinctions of contemporary warfare in order to wage a substantial and extended war based on the Tonkin Gulf resolution — which Congress clearly didn’t see as a declaration of war — instead of asking for a formal declaration. And this represented the breakpoint. In Vietnam, the issue was not some legal or practical justification for not asking for a declaration. Rather, it was a political consideration.
Johnson did not know that he could get a declaration; the public might not be prepared to go to war. For this reason, rather than ask for a declaration, he used all the prior precedents to simply go to war without a declaration. In my view, that was the moment the declaration of war as a constitutional imperative collapsed. And in my view, so did the Johnson presidency. In hindsight, he needed a declaration badly, and if he could not get it, Vietnam would have been lost, and so may have been his presidency. Since Vietnam was lost anyway from lack of public consensus, his decision was a mistake. But it set the stage for everything that came after — war by resolution rather than by formal constitutional process.
After the war, Congress created the War Powers Act in recognition that wars might commence before congressional approval could be given. However, rather than returning to the constitutional method of the Declaration of War, which can be given after the commencement of war if necessary (consider World War II) Congress chose to bypass declarations of war in favor of resolutions allowing wars. Their reason was the same as the president’s: It was politically safer to authorize a war already under way than to invoke declarations of war.
All of this arose within the assertion that the president’s powers as commander in chief authorized him to engage in warfare without a congressional declaration of war, an idea that came in full force in the context of nuclear war and then was extended to the broader idea that all wars were at the discretion of the president. From my simple reading, the Constitution is fairly clear on the subject: Congress is given the power to declare war. At that moment, the president as commander in chief is free to prosecute the war as he thinks best. But constitutional law and the language of the Constitution seem to have diverged. It is a complex field of study, obviously.

An Increasing Tempo of Operations

All of this came just before the United States emerged as the world’s single global power — a global empire — that by definition would be waging war at an increased tempo, from Kuwait, to Haiti, to Kosovo, to Afghanistan, to Iraq, and so on in an ever-increasing number of operations. And now in Libya, we have reached the point that even resolutions are no longer needed.
It is said that there is no precedent for fighting al Qaeda, for example, because it is not a nation but a subnational group. Therefore, Bush could not reasonably have been expected to ask for a declaration of war. But there is precedent: Thomas Jefferson asked for and received a declaration of war against the Barbary pirates. This authorized Jefferson to wage war against a subnational group of pirates as if they were a nation.
Had Bush requested a declaration of war on al Qaeda on Sept. 12, 2001, I suspect it would have been granted overwhelmingly, and the public would have understood that the United States was now at war for as long as the president thought wise. The president would have been free to carry out operations as he saw fit. Roosevelt did not have to ask for special permission to invade Guadalcanal, send troops to India, or invade North Africa. In the course of fighting Japan, Germany and Italy, it was understood that he was free to wage war as he thought fit. In the same sense, a declaration of war on Sept. 12 would have freed him to fight al Qaeda wherever they were or to move to block them wherever the president saw fit.
Leaving aside the military wisdom of Afghanistan or Iraq, the legal and moral foundations would have been clear — so long as the president as commander in chief saw an action as needed to defeat al Qaeda, it could be taken. Similarly, as commander in chief, Roosevelt usurped constitutional rights for citizens in many ways, from censorship to internment camps for Japanese-Americans. Prisoners of war not adhering to the Geneva Conventions were shot by military tribunal — or without. In a state of war, different laws and expectations exist than during peace. Many of the arguments against Bush-era intrusions on privacy also could have been made against Roosevelt. But Roosevelt had a declaration of war and full authority as commander in chief during war. Bush did not. He worked in twilight between war and peace.
One of the dilemmas that could have been avoided was the massive confusion of whether the United States was engaged in hunting down a criminal conspiracy or waging war on a foreign enemy. If the former, then the goal is to punish the guilty. If the latter, then the goal is to destroy the enemy. Imagine that after Pearl Harbor, FDR had promised to hunt down every pilot who attacked Pearl Harbor and bring them to justice, rather than calling for a declaration of war against a hostile nation and all who bore arms on its behalf regardless of what they had done. The goal in war is to prevent the other side from acting, not to punish the actors.

The Importance of the Declaration

A declaration of war, I am arguing, is an essential aspect of war fighting particularly for the republic when engaged in frequent wars. It achieves a number of things. First, it holds both Congress and the president equally responsible for the decision, and does so unambiguously. Second, it affirms to the people that their lives have now changed and that they will be bearing burdens. Third, it gives the president the political and moral authority he needs to wage war on their behalf and forces everyone to share in the moral responsibility of war. And finally, by submitting it to a political process, many wars might be avoided. When we look at some of our wars after World War II it is not clear they had to be fought in the national interest, nor is it clear that the presidents would not have been better remembered if they had been restrained. A declaration of war both frees and restrains the president, as it was meant to do.
I began by talking about the American empire. I won’t make the argument on that here, but simply assert it. What is most important is that the republic not be overwhelmed in the course of pursuing imperial goals. The declaration of war is precisely the point at which imperial interests can overwhelm republican prerogatives.
There are enormous complexities here. Nuclear war has not been abolished. The United States has treaty obligations to the United Nations and other countries. Covert operations are essential, as is military assistance, both of which can lead to war. I am not making the argument that constant accommodation to reality does not have to be made. I am making the argument that the suspension of Section 8 of Article I as if it is possible to amend the Constitution with a wink and nod represents a mortal threat to the republic. If this can be done, what can’t be done?
My readers will know that I am far from squeamish about war. I have questions about Libya, for example, but I am open to the idea that it is a low-cost, politically appropriate measure. But I am not open to the possibility that quickly after the commencement of hostilities the president need not receive authority to wage war from Congress. And I am arguing that neither the Congress nor the president have the authority to substitute resolutions for declarations of war. Nor should either want to. Politically, this has too often led to disaster for presidents. Morally, committing the lives of citizens to waging war requires meticulous attention to the law and proprieties.
As our international power and interests surge, it would seem reasonable that our commitment to republican principles would surge. These commitments appear inconvenient. They are meant to be. War is a serious matter, and presidents and particularly Congresses should be inconvenienced on the road to war. Members of Congress should not be able to hide behind ambiguous resolutions only to turn on the president during difficult times, claiming that they did not mean what they voted for. A vote on a declaration of war ends that. It also prevents a president from acting as king by default. Above all, it prevents the public from pretending to be victims when their leaders take them to war. The possibility of war will concentrate the mind of a distracted public like nothing else. It turns voting into a life-or-death matter, a tonic for our adolescent body politic.


Read more: What Happened to the American Declaration of War? | STRATFOR 
Libya Turmoil 64


Reader Ego Igwe is furious, we all are.





This made my day!

A peep-hole:

"Maybe I missed something, but wasn't that The Constitution of the
United States of America that we just laid to rest this weekend? It
was buried in a private ceremony by Mr. Barack Obama of Chicago as he
silently signed America on to the One World Government some of us have
been worried about for decades.

"Look at it this way: Where did Mr. Obama get the authority to commit
United States forces to war in Libya? There was no declaration of war.
There was no authorizing resolution by Congress allowing money to be
spent on a war against Col. Gaddafi... There was no lengthy buildup in
which the Congress was 'allowed' to express the people's opinion on
whether we want to be in a third concurrent war. There was just a vote
by the United Nations Security Council, a very far from unanimous
vote, and suddenly, the President's Secretary of State, Mrs. Hillary
Rodham Clinton, solemnly announced that we were at war.

"But, when did we amend the Constitution to declare that the United
Nations had control over our military? When did we abolish the part of
the Constitution that said Congress had the right to declare war? Now,
I well know that in recent postwar conflicts, we don't have
declarations of war. But we have Congressional debates. We have
funding votes. We have a sense of the Congress or some kind of
resolution. This time, zip. Nada. Nothing. Just France and the U.K.
and Norway saying that it's time to go to war, and off America goes to
war. And off Mr. and Mrs. Obama go to a South American 'fact finding'
trip for the POTUS and a fun sightseeing junket for the Obama girls."
Libya Turmoil 63


How the 3 stooges play with the world peace for their own glory.
Thanks Igoigwe.
Joel Skousen writes the very ultimate article.



rense.com

 


No Fly Zone Turns Into
All-Out Attack On Libya

By Joel Skousen
Editor - World Affairs Brief  
3-26-11

 


As seems to be the usual pattern for US globalist leaders, whether Republican or Democrat, the humanitarian intervention in Libya was just a pretext for a broader war that was preplanned even before the non-spontaneous revolt by opposition leaders. Moammar Gaddafi's air defense sites and air bases have all been destroyed by cruise missiles, and now the US and its allies are having trouble finding excuses to continue the attack. Anything that moves on the ground militarily is now a new target eagerly sought out, as is Gaddafi's bunker complex in Tripoli. But air attacks alone aren't going to remove Gaddaffi, who is determined to turn this into a long and protracted conflict. At some point the US is going to have to justify an invasion, either directly or by surrogates, and that won't be easy to do given the mounting opposition to this trumped up and unconstitutional war.
 
 
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates is the man on the hot seat and he isn't doing a very good job convincing the public that this is just a minor police action, as he tried to do in the beginning. Gates admitted mid-week that "there is no timeline for the end of the US-led assault on Libya" as international opposition to the invasion continues to grow. In other words, the US is staying in the fight, even as they claim they want NATO to take over, for as long as it takes to accomplish globalist objectives.
 
 
There is also increasing evidence that this was planned and provoked well in advance, just like the invasion of Afghanistan, that used the 9/11 attacks as a pretext. Russia Today (RT television) happened to be filming Gates walking along with General Petraeus in Afghanistan when the two exchanged this little embarrassing slip: Petraeus asks off-handedly if they were going to invade Libya? "Yeah, exactly" said Gates, who is now claiming he was being sarcastic. Yet, during a prior visit to Cairo, Robert Gates said no one was in a position to predict what would happen in Libya. Sure!
 
 
Michel Chossudovsky points out the revolt was provoked by western backed opposition: "the entire Libyan rebel movement has been backed by the US and UK for nearly 3 years. The initial calls for a Libyan 'Day of Rage' came not from the streets of Benghazi, but from the London based National Conference for Libyan Opposition (NCLO). NCLO leader Ibrahim Sahad was literally sitting in front of the White House giving an interview to the Western media in the opening stages of the Libyan unrest, talking about the West's desire to militarily intervene with a no-fly zone."
 
 
The Wall Street Journal noted the presence of Egyptian mercenaries: "...the latest Egyptian operation to arm Libyan rebels had started several days ago and is ongoing."
 
 
Stratfor, with ties to the CIA, reported that, "While all this was going on and before final decisions were made,special operations forces were inserted in Libya on two missions. First, to make contact with insurgent forces to prepare them for coming events, create channels of communications and logistics and create a post-war political framework. The second purpose was to identify targets for attack and conduct reconnaissance of those targets that provided as up-to-date information as possible. This, combined with air and space reconnaissance, served as the foundations of the war. We know British SAS operators were in Libya and suspect other countries' special operations forces and intelligence services were also operating there."
 
 
Former NATO commander General Wesley Clark inferred in an interview this week that the bombing of Libya has been on the drawing board of the Pentagon for several years. The Financial Times recorded a comment by a western official at the NATO negotiations that added fuel to the provocation fire. When asked whether or not any of them could get their act together and assume command of the US operation he replied "NATO countries have beenworking for weeks to have the alliance assume effective command of the mission." Given that the mission is only a week old, that means this was planned in advance.
 
 
The source to the Times added that "As we got closer and closer to closing the deal at Nato, France suddenly blocked everything, which confused us at first ... But then it became clear -
 
[French president Nicolas] Sarkozy wanted to announce strikes just as he was walking out of his meeting in Paris where he was leading the show." This is typical of European infighting. Even though the US has predictable globalists in every major government in Europe, they are each jockeying for recognition and power with the EU and keep stabbing each other in the back.
 
 
"French officials denied acting alone in Saturday's attack, saying the plan had always called for French fighters to kick off the operation followed by British and American missile attacks, French diplomats said." This quote strongly implies a closed door agreement between the US, Britain and France (and probably Italy) that the rest of the EU was supposed to go along with. That didn't happen.
 
 
While the US is still desperate for someone else to front for the war, NATO completely failed this week to agree on who should have command. Turkey was the main stickler, having been kept out of the initial secret negotiations between the US, Britain and France that had given France the major glory role. While NATO has claimed as of today that they are taking over command, other sources revealed that the current coalition (US, France and Britain) is still "retaining control over certain aspects." What that means is that the NATO command is a puppet front. In spite of the show of unity, let me take you through the problems in the negotiations to show how little unity there really is.
 
 
"After ambassadors of the 28-nation alliance ended a third day of wrangling in Brussels without a deal, one senior NATO diplomat said: 'No decision on anything.' Turkey, a Muslim ally, said it did not want NATO to take responsibility for offensive operations that could cause civilian casualties or be in charge of enforcing a U.N.-mandated no-fly zone while coalition aircraft were simultaneously bombing Libyan forces." That's understandable for the lone Muslim nation in NATO, but the real reasons have to do with Turkey wanting to exercise her veto for having been slighted on this and other issues, including failure of the EU to allow her to join the economic Union in addition to NATO.
 
 
"Turkey, a NATO member that has expressed reservations about the military intervention, also blocked a move to give the alliance command and control responsibilities during a Sunday night meeting. The Turkish government was upset that its representatives had not been invited to Paris for a summit on the crisis. Other non-European Union members of NATO, including Norway, were included. Yesterday, Turkey gave in after being promised unspecified concessions for the future.
 
 
"In desperation after Wednesday's failures, the French proposed a new political 'committee' to oversee operations--supposedly giving no one the limelight as leader. That didn't fly either, especially when the French wanted to have a predominance of members from France and Britain--a new Anglo-French alliance as in WWII. Sarkozy is posturing for the limelight as he is in trouble for reelection. In fact, almost every European leader is under increasing threat of disapproval at home over the Libyan affair and needs to carve out some political capital from it if they are going to foot the cost and the blame in the future.
 
 
"Failing to come to an agreement, Germany pulled out the largest share of its military equipment, two frigates, and an AWACS surveillance aircraft, but the US is luring them back in with financial bribes as well. The temporary withdrawal was mainly for show since the Americans don't trust any but themselves for command and control. The feint of a withdrawal was a backhanded way of telling the Americans how tired the Europeans are of playing second fiddle and covering for US black operations. The Italians, meanwhile, who have had the lion's share of cheap oil from Libya (a former colony) accused the French of backing the NATO agreement only with promises of more oil from Libya after its all over. Finally on Thursday NATO finally had paid off enough of the opposition states to forge an agreement. However, the show of disunity mares its significance."
 
 
There was also a verbal disagreement between the US and Britain over whether or not Gaddafi was a legitimate target for assassination. Canada's PM Harper already let the cat out of the bag that Gaddafi's elimination was what the US was shooting for. U.K. government officials were mincing words about killing the Libyan leader, but only if it would prevent civilian deaths as laid out in a U.N. resolution. And how about the deaths caused by the US bombing? A funeral was held Thursday for civilian victims, but the US is denying they did it--as usual.
 
 
The Russians and Chinese play both sides, as usual. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Monday lashed out at the "steady trend" of US military intervention around the world, accusing Washington of acting without conscience or logic.' And yet Russia didn't use its veto, because it wanted to eavesdrop on US and NATO military operations. But the Ruskies failed to get any data on the effectiveness of the Russian supplied anti-aircraft missiles sold to Libya. They were all destroyed by cruise missiles before any could be launched.
 
 
Is this another no win war? Probably not even though several U.K. ministers say war could last thirty years. Libya does not have the terrain that lends itself to a long guerrilla war like Afghanistan or Vietnam. They aren't self-sufficient in agriculture and now have few sources of income with oil production and exportation shut down.
 
 
If the US has to start attacking civilian cities--so much for their humanitarian concerns--they will do so in order to get this over with. Not because they think what they did was wrong in provoking this war, but because the current Democratic administration is losing credibility fast with its core constituency who were promised a change from the aggressive, interventionist Bush era policies that brought down the Republicans. They know the American public is getting weary of all these wars.
 
 
For various reasons, I'm suspicious that the US may be instigating this attack on Libya for reasons other than allowing a radical Islamic state to emerge. That hasn't panned out yet in Egypt either now that the military is in charge--and they aren't giving the Muslim Brotherhood the time of day. That, of course, could still happen both in Egypt and Libya. We know very little about who the US is backing in the opposition ranks.
 
 
All the talk about al Qaeda is just so much propaganda. Al Qaeda, at the top, is a US and British creation so globalists can jerk the chain of anti-terrorism any time they want to justify a new intervention. Ironically, when Gaddaffi cries that he is fighting al Qaeda, no one gives him any credence. But when the Western press blames something on al Qaeda, the dumbed down public believes them.
 
 
Now that the US African Command is running this show, I suspect that the US is about to open another anti-terror and anti-dictator front in Africa and use Libyan military occupation as a jumping off base to start dictating to other countries in Africa. The Sudan, just south of Libya is ripe for intervention. And then there is Somalia. This might just be the reason the US has been playing soft with pirates and not invading their safe harbors in Somalia. This might be the time for them to pull that excuse out of the hat. In short, there's no shortage of countries in Africa with dictators that the globalists and excuses for intervention.
 
 
Meanwhile, the rest of the Middle East is still aflame. Protestors were shot dead in Syria, and Yemen is falling to political unrest. Bahrain has Saudi troops inside the country, and I wouldn't be surprised if the insurrection starts up again in the Saudi Kingdom itself--after having fizzled the first time. The "Day of Rage" didn't amount to much. President Assad made a public statement hinting at giving Syrians greater freedom to appease the public outcry after the killing of 37 protestors.
 
 
Neoconservative Foreign Policy Still Reigns: The long term implications of more foreign intervention are not good. Philip Geraldi expresses the sense of those who are tired of US hegemony: "One of the enduring mysteries is why neoconservative foreign policy continues to dominate the Republican Party and also large parts of the Democratic Party even though that policy has been disastrous for the United States.
 
 
"No one - not even Secretary of Defense Robert Gates - is willing to call the two land wars currently underway in Asia successful (there are others) and the hemorrhage of more than $12 billion a month to support the conflicts does nothing whatsoever for a struggling US economy unless one is a defense contractor. Yet the view that the United States must use its waning power to remake much of the globe prevails. The policy is in some circles underwritten by the myth that the United States is a special nation that makes it somehow immune to the history of the decline and fall of past empires."
 
 
It's true. Very few Americans believe the US could fall. It can and it will if our globalist leaders continue down this path. That is, in fact, just what they are intending--to foment a huge backlash to US bullying that will induce a nuclear war someday, attacking America, giving them the excuse to force us into a New World Order for protection and the prosecution of another "war to end all wars."
 
 
TEPID REPUBLICAN RESPONSE
 
While I find it refreshing that someone other than just Ron Paul is protesting Obama going to war without Congressional approval, the Republican opposition is tepid and not intended to stop this continuing intervention. The key unconstitutional aspects are not be prosecuted.
 
 
House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) is making the news with his critique of the attack on Libya, but he is only asking questions that can easily be answered with diplomatic doubletalk. After all, this is the same White House he is addressing that told Democratic and Republican congressional aides Tuesday that the U.S. is "not at war with Libya." Incredible.
 
 
The media claims Boehner sent Obama a "scathing letter" that "demands answers to the run-up to engagement in the region and hits the White House for first consulting the United Nations and the Arab League, but not Congress." All this just evades the real issue. If Boehner is only demanding that Congress be consulted, he doesn't understand the constitution--which gives Congress the exclusive power to wage war. Perhaps that is why the White House won't admit this is war.
 
 
According to Politico.com "Boehner wrote in the letter that he is 'troubled' the United States
 
military has been engaged in the attacks on Libya 'without clearly defining what the mission is and what America's role is in achieving the goal." Only troubled? And, how hard is it for the State Department to come forward with some esoteric goals to answer his critique? -Even if they are lies.
 
 
"The questions touch on the U.N. resolution, among other things. Boehner notes that the U.S. has said Col. Mommar Qadhafi should step down, but the resolution does not indicate a similar goal. Given that, Boehner asks if it would be acceptable for Qadhafi to stay in power, how he'd be removed from power, and why the U.S. would 'commit American resources to enforcing a U.N. resolution that is inconsistent with our stated policy goals and national interest.'
 
 
"The speaker asks which nations are in the lead, if there are clear lines of authority and responsibility and whether the mission involves attacking 'land-based battlefield activities.' And if other nations drop their support, Boehner wants to know if the U.S. will 'take on an increased role.' He's also seeking information on when the Americans will hand over control, and how long after that U.S. forces will be involved. And if Qadhafi stays in power, how long a no-fly zone would stay in place."
 
 
These are all nice questions, but equally simple to defer or evade by saying "we won't know until we get further down the road." Also, he wants the administration's plans to engage with opposition forces, also inquiring what 'standards must a new regime meet to be recognized by' the U.S. government. The budget-slashing Republican leader also wants to know the cost of the mission, and if the administration will seek a supplemental funding measure for military actions."
 
 
Boehner knows quite well that there are no answers to these questions. They all depend on future events unknown. Instead of asking rhetorical questions, he ought to say "Stop, in the name of the Law (the Constitution)" Congress will set the parameters and then tell you if and when you can go to war.
 
 
The cost is already piling up. The Pentagon had to request emergency funding from Congress to pay for it. The first day of Operation Odyssey Dawn cost about $100 million for the U.S. in missiles alone." So, if the Republican controlled Congress objects to not being consulted, why do they agree to pay?
 
 
The hardcore opposition from Sen. Rand Paul and his father Congressman Ron Paul are once again going to force Congress to address a declaration of war. Both will introduce into their respective chambers a declaration of war on Libya, which they do not intend to support. This follows after what Ron Paul did during the Iraq war in an attempt to force Congress to go on record with proper justification--something he knew they wouldn't do.
 
 
The earlier attempt by Ron Paul elicited the infamous retort by House Speaker Henry Hyde that, "There are things in the Constitution that have been overtaken by events, by time. Declaration of war is one of them. There are things no longer relevant to a modern society. Why declare war if you don't have to? We are saying to the President, use your judgment. So, to demand that we declare war is to strengthen something to death. You have got a hammerlock on this situation, and it is not called for. Inappropriate, anachronistic, it isn't done anymore."
 
 
So not only has Congress informally repudiated its war powers in Ron Paul's day, but it now is reluctant to even bring it up. The only thing Paul's protest in committee did was add to our proofs of conspiracy. Hyde's remarks were edited out of the video tape and the audio tape of the hearings by two separate entities--one private (C-Span) and the other public (Congressional Recording Office). Somebody got to both of them to protect Hyde from having publicly denigrated the Constitution and his oath of office to it.
 
 
What it adds up to is this: The president skipped town for a tour of South America so he couldn't be called before Congress to justify his actions. It was doubtful his hiding was necessary. As a defense, he could very well have said that the White House did send a team to brief a "select few" in Congress--which was true. But they were sworn to secrecy in an intelligence briefing, which hardly constitutes the constitutional approval of Congress to declare war.
 
 
The more volatile issue that the White House is desperate to avoid is the resurrection of the video of 2007 when then SeNATOr Joe Biden was pressed to repeat his position that then President Bush should be impeached because he went to war without a declaration of war. Not only did he confirm that this was his position he told Matthews, "I was head of the Judiciary Committee for seven years. I taught constitutional law. The president has no constitutional authority to take this country to war against another country without the approval of Congress." He then repeated his claim earlier to Matthews that "Yes, this was an impeachable offense."
 
 
So where is Joe Biden now? Why, he's the Vice President to Barack Obama who just went to war without the approval of Congress, and without a whimper of protest from Biden. In 2007 Biden had merely jumped on the bandwagon attacking Bush for reasons of political expediency but he's now quite silent. Worse, there are only a handful of Republican statesmen that countenance a proposal to impeach the president. There would be an immediate retort, "It just isn't done anymore!" Sad but true.
 
 
The president did TELL Congress he was engaging in military actions, and someone should at least hold Obama accountable for the soon-to-be-clear lies he told:
 
 
"On March 19, 2011, at my direction [not Congress], U.S. military forces commenced operations to assist an international effort authorized by the United Nations (U.N.) Security Council and undertaken with the support of European allies and Arab partners, to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe and address the threat posed to international peace and security by the crisis in Libya."
 
 
We know the humanitarian pretense is a ruse. If the US were serious, they would have long ago invaded Zimbabwe where thousands have been killed and tortured under a communist reign of terror and land confiscation. North Korea is also a much bigger threat than Iran or Libya,and yet we give them guarantees against any military intervention and promises not to seek regime change. The Sudan and Somalis also have much blood on their hands, but there is no invasion there either.
 
 
How can Obama prove that the internal affairs of Libya constituted a threat to international peace and security? When Libya was sending thousands of fighters to engage in warfare in Iraq, no such claim was made about posing a threat to International peace!
 
 
 
Obama continues, "These strikes will be limited in their nature, duration, and scope. Their
 
purpose is....to support an international coalition as it takes all necessary measures to enforce the terms of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1973." However, the allied response was a partial violation of its own UN resolutionwhich calls for a ban of ALL weapons into Libya. But the US and Britain are supplying rebels with weapons.
 
 
Here's the expansion clause: "These limited U.S. actions will set the stage for further action by other coalition partners." That's an open door to invasion and occupation.
 
 
Even bigger than the Biden quote for political expediency was Obama's campaign statement which directly contradicts what he is doing now. Fred Lucas of CNS News reports: "As a presidential candidate, Sen. Barack Obama (D.-Ill.) emphatically stated that the Constitution does not give the president the authority to unilaterally authorize a military attack unless it is needed to stop an actual or imminent attack on the United States. Obama made the assertion in a Dec. 20, 2007 interview with the Boston Globe when reporter Charlie Savage asked him under what circumstances the president would have the constitutional authority to bomb Iran without first seeking authorization from Congress.
 
 
"'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,' Obama responded." Explain that away.
 
 
In a harshly worded statement Monday evening, Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-Md.) said that "The United States does not have a king's army... President Obama's unilateral choice to use U.S. military force in Libya is an affront to our Constitution,"
 
 
But those too are hollow words without a bill of impeachment. But that won't ever come especially with the weasel words of establishment SeNATOrs like Dick Lugar, a ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a frequent ally of the president on foreign policy, who called for a "full congressional debate on the objectives and costs... and a declaration of war if it goes on." Hearings are always a means to a cover-up. We'll never see a declaration of war, especially when Gaddaffi has not done a thing to attack the US.
 
 
Finally, not a few anti-American leaders have called for Obama's Peace Prize to be revoked. It should never have been given, except that it served globalist political purposes. I'll end this section with words from Ben Stein, American political writer, lawyer and author, who is very upset:
 
 
"Maybe I missed something, but wasn't that The Constitution of the United States of America that we just laid to rest this weekend? It was buried in a private ceremony by Mr. Barack Obama of Chicago as he silently signed America on to the One World Government some of us have been worried about for decades.
 
 
"Look at it this way: Where did Mr. Obama get the authority to commit United States forces to war in Libya? There was no declaration of war. There was no authorizing resolution by Congress allowing money to be spent on a war against Col. Gaddafi... There was no lengthy buildup in which the Congress was 'allowed' to express the people's opinion on whether we want to be in a third concurrent war. There was just a vote by the United Nations Security Council, a very far from unanimous vote, and suddenly, the President's Secretary of State, Mrs. Hillary Rodham Clinton, solemnly announced that we were at war.
 
 
"But, when did we amend the Constitution to declare that the United Nations had control over our military? When did we abolish the part of the Constitution that said Congress had the right to declare war? Now, I well know that in recent postwar conflicts, we don't have declarations of war. But we have Congressional debates. We have funding votes. We have a sense of the Congress or some kind of resolution. This time, zip. Nada. Nothing. Just France and the U.K. and Norway saying that it's time to go to war, and off America goes to war. And off Mr. and Mrs. Obama go to a South American 'fact finding' trip for the POTUS and a fun sightseeing junket for the Obama girls." Yes, it's enough to make us despair. But this is just the beginning of wars. It's going to get worse folks. Be prepared. Don't just be a passive observer.
 
 
 
World Affairs Brief, March 25, 2011 Commentary and Insights on a Troubled World. Copyright Joel Skousen. Partial quotations with attribution permitted. Cite source as Joel Skousen's World Affairs Brief  http://www.worldaffairsbrief.com