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Key US Senate panel backs limited Libya conflict

Libyan rebels capture a network of bunkers
in the desert around 25 kilometres (15 miles)
from the hilltown of Zintan
© AFP Florent Marcie

AFP

WASHINGTON (AFP) - A key US Senate panel voted Tuesday to authorize limited US strikes on Libya as part of a NATO-led campaign against Libyan strongman Moamer Kadhafi but to forbid the deployment of ground troops.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee's 14-5 vote set the stage for what was sure to be a volatile full Senate debate as early as this week, with lawmakers deeply divided on whether President Barack Obama's Libya policy flouts US law.

The panel heard earlier from US State Department legal adviser Harold Koh, who argued Obama's approach did not violate the US Constitution or the 1973 War Powers Resolution that aims to constrain presidential war-making authority.

US 'strongly condemns' Kabul hotel attack

The Inter-Continental hotel in seen in the dark as tracer
bullets are shot during an attack in Kabu

© AFP Massoud Hossaini

AFP

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States condemned Tuesday a Taliban suicide attack on the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul, offering condolences to victims but providing no details on the number of casualties.

At least one suicide bomber and several gunmen attacked the hotel typically frequented by foreigners and Afghan officials, police and officials said, in a brazen strike claimed by the Taliban.

Witnesses reported hearing three explosions late Tuesday at the high-security hotel on a hill overlooking the Afghan capital, as gunmen penetrated the building and sparked a shootout.

“After you Brother!” Qadaffi stays and Obama leaves?

Dees Illustration

Franklin Lamb LLM, PhD
Activist Post

Tripoli, Libya -- The 6/27/11 International Criminal Courts (ICC) arrest warrants issued for Muammar Gadhafi, his son Seif al-Islam Gadhafi, and Libya intelligence chief Abdullah al-Sanoussi, however pleasing to the “rebels” and NATO, probably won’t have much effect on negotiating a settlement between the two camps and certainly the warrants will not facilitate a voluntary regime change. Quite likely, the warrants effects will tend toward the obverse, with the Libyan government ignoring, but ridiculing the much criticized ICC and pointing out its historical pattern of targeting African leaders. At Tripoli’s Rixos Nasser Hotel, just a few hours after the arrest warrants were announced, Libya’s Justice Minister and a high ranking Foreign Affairs official did just that and then refused to take any questions from the large gathering of western journalists of whom Libya is distrustful of, given a spate of recent false main stream media reports that have been exposed as hoaxes.

Colonel Qaddafi and his supporters, in a series of what this observer refers to as “Hezbollah style free give and take dialogue sessions” are making it very plain that they will prevail in re-unifying Libya and probably before Ramadan which begins, this year, in early August. They argue that the “rebels” are increasingly fighting among themselves and are losing popular support. It’s an argument similar to the one the “rebels” are using to explain how their victory is all but assured, also by the end of Ramadan.

The Day the Earth Stood Nil: Wisdom Vs. Cleverness

Anthony Freda Illustration

Rand Clifford
Activist Post

Could human intelligence be a lethal mutation? Catastrophes spawned by Earth’s most intelligent species suggest not only self-extinction, but annihilation of countless other species. Is the apparent disconnect between cleverness and wisdom primarily a human characteristic, and if so, what are the chances of human wisdom catching up with human cleverness?

Noam Chomsky gave a speech about human intelligence and the environment at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, on September 30, 2010. With typical Chomsky eloquence he explored this question of lethality of the mutation of intelligence...referring to a debate between astrophysicist Carl Sagan and biologist Ernst Mayr regarding the possibility of discovering intelligent life somewhere else in the universe.

Who could not love Carl Sagan, the man who gave the term “billions” a personality? Ernst Mayr was widely considered “the grand old man of American biology”. Debating with Mayr, Sagan talked about “billions and billions” of other planets sharing Earth’s general profile, and there being no reason for intelligent life not to develop elsewhere. Mayr noted that of the billions of species that have existed on Earth, the average life span is about 100,000 years—nearly how long modern humans have been around. And Mayr basically argued that intelligence is a lethal mutation. Reinforcement of Mayr’s argument lurks all around, even inside of us.

War Counsel: Obama shops for Libya advice that lets him ignore the law

President Woodrow Wilson asking Congress to
declare war on Germany, 2 April 1917 - Wiki Image

Jacob Sullum
Reason Magazine 

During the Bush administration, when the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) got into the habit of rationalizing whatever the president wanted to do, Indiana University law professor Dawn Johnsen dreamed of an OLC that was willing to "say no to the President." It turns out we have such an OLC now. Unfortunately, as Barack Obama's defense of his unauthorized war in Libya shows, we do not have a president who is willing to take no for an answer.

While running for president, Obama criticized George W. Bush's lawless unilateralism in areas such as torture, warrantless surveillance, and detention of terrorism suspects. "The law is not subject to the whims of stubborn rulers," he declared in 2007, condemning "unchecked presidential power" and promising that under his administration there would be "no more ignoring the law when it is inconvenient."

Obama's nomination of Johnsen to head the OLC, although ultimately blocked by Senate Republicans, was consistent with this commitment; his overreaching responses to threats ranging from terrorism to failing auto companies were not. Last week, by rejecting the OLC's advice concerning his three-month-old intervention in Libya's civil war, Obama sent the clearest signal yet that he is no more inclined than his predecessor to obey the law.

Bill would approve US role in Libya retroactively

US Senator John Kerry
© AFP/File Aamir Qureshi

AFP

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Two top US senators on Tuesday introduced a bill that would retroactively support America's military role in Libya, amid a raging debate over whether President Barack Obama flouted the law by not getting prior congressional approval.

"I believe we will find a strong, bipartisan majority that is in favor of authorizing our current military operations in Libya and seeing this mission through to success," said Republican US Senator John McCain, one of the authors of the bill.

"That is a message that (Libyan President Moamer) Kadhafi needs to hear. It is a message that Khadafi's opponents, fighting to liberate their nation, need to hear," McCain told his fellow senators during floor debate in the Senate, as he urged a vote on the measure "as soon as possible."

A Firestorm On The Eastern Horizon

Dees Illustration

Brandon Smith
Alt-Market

The Middle East is and always has been an incredible waste of time, energy, capital, and of course, human lives. Every civilization that has attempted to tame and corral the region has met with resounding frustration and defeat. Every empire that moves to extend its borders around its existing cultures has withered under the strain of constant war and revolution. Long before petroleum became a sought after commodity and long after its free flow was established, the Middle East has been used as a fulcrum point for turning nations and worlds inside out. One might begin to wonder where the West’s mindless obsession with the place actually comes from...

From crusades for the holy land, to crusades for oil, to crusades for “WMD’s” and the “downtrodden masses”; we have been regaled for centuries by governments and elitists with elaborate rationalizations for indefinite war within the cradle of civilization. Our government in particular has seen fit to topple dictatorships, install new dictatorships, embroil our troops in the quagmire of nation building, instigate social instability and civil unrest, fund terrorist organizations, elevate madmen, and then brandish them like weapons to frighten the American public into relinquishing their civil liberties. Every decade, and every new layer of conflict, brings the U.S. closer to the breaking point, and closer to bankruptcy.

US 'holding talks with Taliban': Karzai

Karzai says talks between US and Taliban are "going on well"
© AFP Aamir Qureshi

AFP

KABUL (AFP) - The United States is holding talks with the Taliban, Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Saturday, in the first official confirmation of such contacts after nearly ten years of war.

Although diplomats and officials say the talks are at a very early stage, Karzai's remarks highlight the increasing focus on finding a political settlement in Afghanistan as foreign combat troops prepare to pull out by 2014.

"Talks with the Taliban have started... the talks are going on well," Karzai said, addressing a conference in Kabul.

Vision: An Antiwar Movement That Puts Peace Over Politicians

Instead of continuing the hard work of protesting unjust wars, too many people took the election of politicians with "D"s after their name as their own Mission Accomplished.

Medea Benjamin and Charles Davis
AlterNet

After campaigning as the candidate of change, the man awarded a Nobel Prize for peace has given the world nothing but more war. Yet despite Barack Obama's continuation – nay, escalation – of the worst aspects of George W. Bush's foreign policy, including his very own illegal war in Libya, you’d be hard-pressed to find the large-scale protests and outrage from the liberal establishment that characterized his predecessor's reign (and only seems to pop up when a Republican's the one dropping the bombs).

That's not for a lack of things to protest. Since taking office, Obama has doubled the number of troops in Afghanistan and now looks set to break his pledge to begin a significant withdrawal in July. He has unilaterally committed the nation to an unapologetically illegal war in Libya and in two years has authorized more drone strikes in Pakistan than his predecessor authorized in two terms, with one in three of their victims reportedly civilians. In Yemen, he has targeted a U.S. citizen for assassination and approved a cluster bomb strike that,according to Amnesty International, killed 35 innocent women and children.

Kucinich and Rand Paul Talk About Bipartisan Lawsuit Against Libya War (Video)

Youtube

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US Congress votes against Libya funding

An explosion following a NATO air-raid in Tripoli
© AFP/File

AFP

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The US House of Representatives voted to prohibit the use of funds for American military operations in Libya.

Lawmakers adopted the amendment to a military appropriations bill by a vote of 248 to 163.

A number of members of Congress have recently expressed their dissatisfaction at President Barack Obama's decision to go ahead with operations in Libya in March and to continue without congressional authorization.

The Media Distract the Public from War

Dees Illustration

Sheldon Richman
Future of Freedom

If one is to judge by the tone of the television commentators, America must be deep in a crisis. Long stretches of cable time are devoted to the breaking news. Each detail is presented as more grave and consequential for the republic than the last. The fate of the country surely hangs in the balance.

What is it? War? Fiscal crisis? Mass unemployment? A double-dip recession?

No. A congressman was caught sending lewd photographs of himself to women over the Internet.

This is what now consumes so much of the news media’s attention. This is what outranks in news value continuing occupations of foreign countries, three overt and an undetermined number of covert wars, and a looming fiscal crisis. As America’s imperial elite seeks to hold on to and extend its global power in defiance of economic reality, the spectacle of a congressman, Anthony Weiner of New York, appparently sharing pictures of his private parts with female strangers has taken center stage.

US backs Ethiopia peacekeepers in Abyei

© AFP/File Stuart Price

AFP

DAR ES SALAAM (AFP) - US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Monday endorsed the idea of a peacekeeping force in Sudan's disputed Abyei region and encouraged both sides in the conflict to take up an Ethiopian offer of troops.

"The United States strongly believes a robust peacekeeping presence should be a central part of the security arrangements in Abyei," Clinton said before leaving Dar es Salaam on her Africa tour.

"The government of Sudan should urgently facilitate a viable security arrangement starting with the withdrawal of Sudanese Armed Forces," Clinton said.

6 in 10 Americans Now Oppose Obama's War in Libya

The president has made himself vulnerable by launching the conflict without congressional cover. Will Republicans capitalize?

Conor Friedersdorf
The Atlantic

Six in 10 Americans don't think the U.S. should be involved in Libya, according to a new CBS News poll. It found that only 30 percent of Americans think we're doing the right thing by intervening militarily in that country. That includes majorities of Republicans, Democrats and independents. As a point of comparison, 51 percent of Americans and a majority of Republicans think we're "doing the right thing" in Afghanistan. The Libya numbers are bad news for the man in the Oval Office.

What does it mean for a president seeking reelection to have launched a wildly unpopular war without congressional approval? That his Republican challengers should run to President Obama's left on at least some aspects of national security. It might've been awkward to do so given that much of Obama's national security strategy is identical to the one that Republicans praised under George W. Bush. But this affords a surprisingly easy opportunity to win support from an electorate that is tiring of expensive foreign wars: The GOP nominee need not disavow conflicts like Iraq and Afghanistan that rank and file conservatives defended for so long. He or she need only rail against the expense, execution, and questionable strategic value of fighting in Libya.

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Libyan rebel group sells first oil to U.S.

Dees Illustration

Jamie Crawford
CNN

Washington (CNN) -- The rebel government in control of the eastern part of Libya has made its first sale of oil from territory it controls, the State Department confirmed Wednesday.

Tesoro, a U.S. oil refiner, entered into a deal May 25 with the Transitional National Council based in Benghazi, Libya for 1.2 million barrels of Libyan crude oil, the State Department said in a written statement. The shipment was scheduled to arrive aboard the MT Equator, a Liberian-flagged tanker, at the Single Point Mooring in Hawaii on Wednesday. The dollar value of the deal is not known.

U.S. support for additional oil sales with the TNC will continue as a means to support additional revenue streams for the Libyan people, the statement said.

The sale was made possible following an April announcement by the Office of Foreign Assets Control at the Treasury Department that established a new licensing policy with Libya. That action was taken to ease barriers to certain oil related transactions with the TNC, in place because of wider U.S. sanctions on Libya.

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Geneva Conventions Redefined: The New U.S. Department of War

"What's in a name?"-- William Shakespeare

Perpetual war continues abroad and domestically
Dees Illustration

Lt. Eric N. Shine and Gary Corseri
Activist Post

Most people are unaware of the larger picture developing over the past seven or eight decades, or have been willing to ignore it. This still-developing image portrays matters requiring knowledge of world history, a degree of self-education and a global perspective to recognize and decipher.

The remarkable change still underway is a complete militarization of the United States, if not also the rest of the world. Today, the most disturbing sign of this take-over of all of the civilian commons by the military, at least in the U.S., comes in the form of a new, or reinvigorated, Department of War.

Our de facto Department of War, was known as our War Department from 1789 until it was reconstituted on September 18, 1947 in response to international terms set forth by the Geneva Convention accords. Wars of aggression and conquest were outlawed by those international agreements. Only wars to defend a nation’s borders were allowed. In 1948, with our agreeing to the terms of these accords, our Department of War was converted to a reconfigured Department of Defense and its focus changed… until now.

War is the new normal

“On an average day, eighteen veterans of our nation’s armed forces take their own lives..."

Bill Boyarsky

Afghanistan - Wiki Image

TruthDig

Remember the war, the one in Afghanistan? The recent Memorial Day weekend forced the news media to briefly focus on it. But otherwise the war and its heavy toll have faded from our national consciousness, leaving President Barack Obama free to continue the combat without much pressure to get out.

Just how forgotten the war has become is revealed in the latest news coverage report of the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism. The project gives its findings in a nonjudgmental, just-the-facts manner, no how maddening they are. The Afghanistan War didn’t make the top five stories covered in newspapers, online or on cable and network television for the period May 16-May 22.

I wish Pew would go a step farther in these monthly reports. I’d like a few paragraphs on the harm being done to the United States by the longest war in our history, both to the country as a whole and to the women and men fighting it.

US Troops discuss "Drop-Weapons"

Editor's Note:  Is US law enforcement also using drop weapons here at home to cover up disastrous home invasions such as the murder of Jose Guerena in his home in Pima County, Arizona?

YouTube

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The Heavy Cost of the Bush-Obama Murder Rampage

Dees Illustration

Anthony Gregory
Lew Rockwell

In every election cycle, the politicians love to pretend there is a difference among them on the foreign policy questions. Yet on these issues of unsurpassed importance, we see the Democrats and Republicans are all part of the same bloodthirsty gang.

On the superficial level of presidential politics, Obama and Bush appeared light-years apart. They play opposites in the DC-approved official culture war between those who pretend to be genuine red-blooded Americans of the heartland and those who feign an understanding of the beleaguered urban minorities and oppressed underclass, when in truth both perfectly embody the same Wall Street-Pentagon-friendly power elite. This is most clearly seen in their virtually identical approach toward empire.