Libya Then! Libya Now!

by John Willson

The National Review published an article in the early 70s by an aspiring young writer who advocated the invasion and permanent occupation of Libya. His argument had nothing to do with regime change or the health and welfare of the Libyan people; rather, he wanted to change the balance of power in the middle east permanently in favor of the West, and especially the United States. The young man was driving big trucks at the time, to make a living while trying to make it as a writer, and one night was cut in half by shotgun fire after returning his truck to its southern California dock. I don't think that a connection between his essay and his profession and his death has been made.

His argument was that such an adventure would be 1) easy, taking few troops and few dollars; 2) profitable, giving us control over untold amounts of oil; and 3) a stroke of strategic genius that would give us, contra USSR, a permanent position (i.e. colony) close to the action that would inevitably continue to develop in the region. Plus, it would, with Israel, give us a pincers on Nasser and the Suez Canal and in effect turn back the debacle of 1956. Middle east solved; go on to the next problem.

Actually, he had a point. It wouldn't have taken much military effort to pull off, and the benefits of the operation might not only have been economically and strategically great, but, dare we think it? The Libyan bad guy may never have been. No Lockerbie, no Obamawar; maybe even no OPEC or bring-down in Iran or rise of Saddam Hussein and a hundred other things if the US and Israel had just had the right positioning to act quickly in concert with short supply lines and less political resistance.

The Moral Demands of Intervention in Libya: Above Obama's Pay Grade?

by John Creech

Last week, the US Catholic Conference of Bishops (USCCB) issued a statement saying that military intervention in Libya “appears to meet” the just-cause criterion of Catholic teaching on just war, cautioning, however, that it has “refrained from making definitive judgments” in light of “many prudential decisions beyond our expertise.”  Additionally, this past Sunday, Pope Benedict XVI urged the international community to end hostilities in Libya.  Because there’s been considerable discussion on this site about our involvement in Libya and many of us, including myself (a Roman Catholic), disagree with our intervention, I wanted to make several points about the U.S. bishops’ and Pope Benedict’s statements about our involvement in Libya, especially in light of what we now know (or don't know) based on Obama's attempts last night to explain the reasons for our engagement.  

First, note that the bishops did not specifically say by whom military intervention in Libya is appropriate.  Posts and comments here have focused primarily on U.S. involvement.  Bishop Hubbard, who penned the statement, speaks, however, in terms of the “internationally-sanctioned military mission.”  His statement, actually a letter addressed to National Security Advisor, Thomas Donilon, implicitly acknowledges U.S. involvement, but it neither distinguishes between the appropriateness of military intervention by the U.S. alone and its involvement as part of an international collaborative effort, nor concerns itself with the constitutionality of Obama’s unilateral decision (i.e. without the approval of Congress) to intervene.  

The War for Libyan Oil: In the Tradition

by John Willson

First of all, let’s agree on one important point: We are at war in Libya.  All the niceties and all the casuistry aside, we are spending $100 million a day bombing and equipping and sending ground troops (yes, we are, folks--2500 Marines so far); enough to have already wiped out the Obama “stimulus” and put us back where we were economically in roughly July 2008.  The same old tired reasons are given that we have heard ever since Korea, and the results will be the same.

I don’t want to get into all that, however.  This is really a response to the dispute between Brad Birzer and Steve Hollingshead over the powers of the President to have so involved us in one more place without a declaration of war or even specific Congressional authorization.  It’s an issue that is bigger than either of them have yet admitted, it goes to the heart of the Presidency, and it is out of control.

Forrest McDonald

The best book yet written on the office is Forrest McDonald’s The American Presidency:  An Intellectual History (University Press of Kentucky, 1994).  I refer to it as the framework of ideas that encourages us to understand what “Commander-in-Chief” might mean, and how it relates to the current situation in the African desert.

Forrest makes the important point that those who argued against the adoption of the Constitution almost always included the great potential danger of a commander-in-chief who could use that exact concept to abrogate the liberties the document was supposedly there to protect.  It didn’t happen right away, but Jefferson and Madison set the precedents for Presidential interventionism that has never had many intervals between its use.  Consider this remarkable fact:  “On five occasions Congress declared war [the last time was 1941]...whereas American fighting men were sent to fight in foreign climes on more than 200 occasions.”  We can add five or six more since that was written.  Overall, in undeclared wars we have killed over two million enemies and have lost at least 100,000 American lives.  The wars have all been justified one way or another, despite some sticky times such as the passage of the War Powers Act of 1973, which (and this is my editorial comment, not McDonald’s) has made no difference whatsoever in the President’s ability to act. By the way, these undeclared wars have been utterly bipartisan.  First conclusion, then: President Obama is acting in Libya exactly as at least 20 other Presidents acted.  Given that great tradition, he is unlikely to have to answer for what many of us think are serious violations of our republican heritage.