Since late last week, members of Congress have leveled a steady stream of criticism at President Obama’s handling of the Libyan conflict. With the U.S. mired in a sluggish economic recovery at home and two grinding wars abroad, the prospect of another protracted conflict on Arab soil has forged an alliance between skeptics on both [...]
In recent days we’ve heard a variety of rationales for military intervention in Libya. One is the simple humanitarian impulse to save lives in imminent danger, which Obama officials insist is paramount. Beneath that are other unstated, or less-emphasized, motivations. One, as Massimo has explained, is the assertion of humanitarian intervention as an ideal in [...]
In Libya, allied forces are fighting Gaddafi loyalists from air and sea. Gaddafi loyalists are fighting rebels on the ground. And CNN and Fox News have begun a vicious battle of their own. It all began Monday, when Fox News reporter Jennifer Griffin announced that a British bombing mission of a Gaddafi compound “had to [...]
The U.S. is engaged in a dangerous conflict over Libya and no doubt the president decided to intervene and is prosecuting the war first and foremost in pursuit of the aims he outlined in his “casus belli” paragraph last Friday: preventing atrocities and a humanitarian crisis, averting regional destabilization, and blunting a threat to democratic [...]
Suhaib Salem/Reuters Michael Crowley pointed yesterday to national security adviser Tom Donilon’s struggles to distinguish between “rebels,” who U.S. forces are not supposed to protect in Libya, and a “civilians,” who U.S. forces are charged with protecting. In his comments Tuesday, Donilon seemed at pains to avoid drawing any clear lines of distinction between the [...]
(Christopher Morris—VII for TIME) –Rebels on Libya’s front line: “I am here to defend Benghazi,” says Muatasim Billah Mohamed, waiting with a crowd of young men on the roadside some 5 km from where the shells are falling. He has gone all the way from Tobruk and has a flag tied around his head like [...]
Max Boot offers a classic example of neoconservative shoot-first, think-later reasoning on the op-ed page of the New York Times today. Boot, who is honest enough to admit some belated second thoughts about Libya, has reflexively favored military intervention “for weeks,” he says. But now he worries that the air campaign may not be enough: [...]
“The first duty in life is to assume a pose,” wrote Oscar Wilde. “What the second duty is, no one has yet discovered.” A cynic might say the same of Presidential politics. Barack Obama posed as the bearer of hope. George W. Bush posed as a compassionate conservative. John McCain posed as a maverick. Perhaps [...]
It’s been a few months, but we’re back to debating whether or not Elizabeth Warren needs to be the first head of the Consumer Financial Protction Bureau she’s currently setting up through her non-confirmed position at Treasury. Warren is unquestionably eloquent and whip smart; the consumer protection agency was her idea and she’s a natural [...]
