The Obama administration set a bad precedent by launching a surprise war for regime change in Libya without congressional authorization or informed public debate, in violation of the letter and spirit of the War Powers Resolution enacted by Congress in 1973.
With a new Congress with a House controlled by Republicans who have trumpeted deficit reduction as one of their central priorities, it would be logical to expect that there might be trimming in one of the largest and most bloated areas of US government spending: the nation’s $700bn military budget. However, the realities of Washington, DC are different than the rhetoric.
A no-fly zone would be of little help halting the largely ground-based attacks on Libyan rebels and civilians.
To understand just how bad the 112th Congress, elected on November 2nd and taking office on January 3rd, is likely to be for peace on Earth, one has to understand how incredibly awful the 110th and 111th Congresses have been during the past four years and then measure the ways in which things are likely to become even worse.
The grisly details continue to drip out. Five American soldiers have been accused of setting up “kills” and murdering innocent Afghans earlier this year, according to charges filed by the U.S. Army against them. But could some of the murders have been stopped earlier? And could potential whistleblowers within the military’s chain of command have been protected?
Two years after the collapse of the global economy, prospects for economic recovery remain distant. Despite modest upturns at the end of 2009, the end of public stimulus spending in the United States, China, and other states has renewed fears of a double-dip recession. All major sectors in the economy remain cautious; firms are not investing, banks are not lending, and consumers are not spending. Partly to blame for the continued mess is a lack of coherent, focused, and directed government action.
Leading congressional Democrats are outraged at British Petroleum and others responsible for the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. But that stands in sharp contrast to their outspoken support of those responsible for a major oil spill in the eastern Mediterranean in 2006, the largest in that region’s history.
Countering the broad consensus of international legal scholars who recognize that the attack was in flagrant violation of international norms, prominent Democrats embraced the Orwellian notion that Israel’s raid, which killed at least nine activists and wounded scores of others, was somehow an act of self-defense.
On the eve of the 50th anniversary of the first U.S. military intervention in Lebanon, and 25 years after a second U.S. military intervention which left hundreds of Americans and thousands of Lebanese dead, the U.S. House of Representatives recently passed a resolution by a huge bipartisan majority which may lay the groundwork for a third one. At a minimum, this move has crudely and unnecessarily inserted the United States into Lebanon’s complex political infighting.
When Bush’s former press secretary admits that the administration used a “political propaganda campaign” to sell its case for war and calls the mainstream media “deferential, complicit enablers” – as Scott McClellan does in What Happened – it’s time to examine just how badly the press failed.