The Obama/Pelosi Doctrine

Now that the deadline is approaching for seeking Congressional approval of the "kinetic military action" in Libya under the War Powers Act, (we don't know when the deadline is for Yemen, because that one began in secret), President Obama has announced the law does not apply to him because it's not really a war. Ex-Speaker Pelosi agrees completely.

This begs the question of what they would consider a war- after all, we are making deep strikes into sovereign nations, killing foreign soldiers, (and often civilians by mistake), degrading (that means blowing up) their defense infrastructure, and demanding their governments step down. Most dictionaries would call these things acts of war, but Obama and Pelosi assure us they are not. Why?

The answer is clear from their various statements, a new definition we can call the Obama/Pelosi Doctrine: it's only a war if Americans are dying. Since our attacks are conducted by unmanned drones or extremely high altitude bombing, there's little or no chance any Americans will be killed; so no matter how many die as a result of our actions, it's not a war, and therefore the President needs no Congressional approval. The War Powers Act applies only to even exchanges, not to one-sided massacres.

And why are we doing this? Not in retaliation for attacks upon the United States, nor any of our allies; there have been none. Nor is it to preempt an attack upon ourselves, or any ally; none were planned. Not by any treaty obligation. We attacked a sovereign nation to protect its citizens from their own government Doesn't that sound like... the world's policeman? We are demanding their governments step down, because we believe a government that looks more like ours would be better, and we're willing to go to war- excuse me, to kinetic military action- to ensure it happens. Gee... aren't those Neocon doctrines?

Now, I don't expect war protesters to start showing up at Obama speeches, or Code Pink to start trying to make citizen's arrests of administration officials for war crimes; those are purely partisan organizations. But here's a chance for UUs and the UUA to step up and prove that their eighth principle is not "The Democrat Party, may she always be right- but the party, right or wrong!" Here's a chance to say that the law and the Constitution apply to politicians we like as well as those we don't. Here's a chance to say that American exceptionalism doesn't mean that only American lives matter. I imagine I'll see a firestorm of blogposts and AIWs and SOCs about this.
　
Any minute now.

UPDATE: The video has been taken offline; I can't imagine why. here's a story about it instead.

Those aren't secret "Black Sites", it's just Kinetic Questioning!

From the Associated Press: "“Black sites,” the secret network of jails that grew up after the Sept. 11 attacks, are gone. But suspected terrorists are still being held under hazy circumstances with uncertain rights in secret, military-run jails across Afghanistan, where they can be interrogated for weeks without charge, according to U.S. officials who revealed details of the top-secret network to The Associated Press. The secrecy under which the U.S. runs that jail and about 20 others is noteworthy because of President Barack Obama's criticism of the old network of secret CIA prisons where interrogators sometimes used the harshest available methods, including the simulated drowning known as waterboarding. Human rights advocates say the severest of the Bush-era interrogation methods are gone, but the conditions at the new interrogation sites still raise questions. Obama pledged when he took office that the United States would not torture anyone, but former detainees describe harsh treatment that some human rights groups claim borders on inhumane. "

We can't blame it on the locals or our allies, either; this our project, which the "sovereign" Afghanistan government has no control over: "The status of the temporary facilities likely would be negotiated as part of a future security agreement, transitioning power to the government of Afghanistan."

I did predict in September 2008 that Iraq was a non-issue because candidates Obama and McCain would behave identically regarding the wars. I had hoped I was wrong, but we've already gotten news that we'll be in Iraq past 2012, in Afghanistan past 2014, (after new "surges" in each) started a new war in Libya (and anyone who thinks the no-fly zone is the end of it should read up on the no-fly zone we imposed on Iraq in 1991), re-started the military Gitmo trials, made secret deals to supply arms to the Libyan rebels, and, apparently, opened new Black Sites as fast we closed the old ones. I don't see how McCain could have done more.

Anti-war, or merely anti-Republican?

We've seen many times in the last two years the...ah... flexibility of former Senators Obama and Biden's deeply held principles...

But now I'm wondering about the UU blogosphere- aside from my previous two posts, a search through UUpdates shows that a lobster could count on one hand the number of UU bloggers who have even mentioned the attacks on Libya. This strikes me as very odd. It's a stunning attack- the British are actually running out of cruise missiles, and a single US B2 Stealth sortie dropped 90,000 lbs of bombs, and we've flown hundreds of sorties. And yet the UU response could be described by Paul Simon- "...And my words, like silent raindrops fell, and echoed in the sounds of silence..." Could you understand why the casual observer might conclude that we base our religious principles on our political principles?

The Devil skated to work this morning

I found myself in complete agreement with Rep. Kucinich.

So we've gone to war again

A couple hours ago, Saturday 3/18, the US went to war without a Congressional vote, against a country that had not committed any act of war against the US, nor had any weapons of mass destruction, nor initiated any terrorist acts against the US since 1988.

Given the way US wars have been blogged about the last ten years, and the recent debate on making the UUA an official peace church because of those actions, I expect UU bloggers will be ripping into the President with a vengenge. I can't wait to see it.

Any minute now.


UPDATE: If you had some kind of fantasy that it was going to be okay with the Arab League for American forces to bomb Libya just because they asked us to, read this Reuters story, dateline 03.20.11, 21:45 : "The head of the Arab League, which supported Libyan no-fly zone, said his organization had not endorsed attacks on ordinary Libyans. "What is happening in Libya differs from the aim of imposing a no-fly zone, and what we want is the protection of civilians and not the bombardment of more civilians," Amr Moussa said, announcing an emergency Arab League meeting to discuss Libya.

Moussa's comments followed a demand by Russia to stop the "indiscriminate" use of force it said was killing civilians in Libya.
The air strikes exceed the mandate of the UN Security Council resolution, which approved a no-fly zone and authorized all necessary measures to protect civilians, Russia Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said in a statement."

The Arab League cannot pretend it did not know what is involved to enforce a No-Fly zone; the scenario has been played out many times in their neighboring countries. But by pretending not to know, they can use us to rid themselves of a dictator they didn't like, and simultaneously gin up outrage against us for domestic consumption- for doing what they asked us to do!