Bingo: We just found "our interests." And unsurprisingly, they don't involve protecting innocent people from being killed so much as they do protecting the natural resource on top of which they're dying -- and then having the freshly liberated locals pick up the tab for American contractors to rebuild everything American missiles destroyed.
Major General Smedley Butler had it right: War is a racket.
But even assuming Obama has the best of intentions -- with which the road to hell is paved, mind you -- U.S. intervention in Libya is more likely to do harm than good. Besides the inevitable "collateral damage," meaning widowed mothers and orphaned children, war sets off an unpredictable chain reaction of evil -- evil that no side has a monopoly over.
Indeed, the Los Angeles Times reports that while the intervention is sold as in defense of human rights, the Libyan rebels on whose behalf the U.S. is intervening are actively rounding up hundreds of their perceived political opponents and imprisoning them without charge in Gaddafi's former torture chambers. Those being rounded up are primarily black immigrants, with rebel spokesman Abdelhafed Ghoga telling the paper that suspected Gaddafi mercenaries who don't voluntarily turn themselves in will be subjected to extra-judicial "justice" (read: murder) for being "enemies of the revolution." If they seize the country, who will stop roundups -- and massacres -- in Tripoli and elsewhere of those deemed to be supporters of the Gaddafi regime, perhaps for no reason other than the color of their skin?
U.S. official have publicly acknowledged an al Qaeda presence among the rebels, bringing to mind U.S. support for the Afghan mujahideen in the 1980s. And with the self-proclaimed leadership consisting of former top-level Gaddafi cronies who had no problem with the regime's human rights abuses four weeks ago, those lionizing the rebels -- and suggesting the U.S. illegally arm them -- should take a closer look at who the U.S. and its allies are preparing to put in power when Gaddafi's gone.
The Obama administration and supporters of the war -- who a month ago couldn't tell the difference between Benghazi and Baghdad -- portray the intervention in Libya as a simple morality tale, with evil on one side and good on the other. But the reality is more nuanced than the applause lines the president laid out in his speech. In the real world, peace is rarely achieved by dropping bombs and installing the most avowedly "pro-American" locals you can find in power. Just look at Afghanistan and Iraq, where George Bush started wars that Barack Obama has only continued -- and in the case of the former, escalated.
"Some nations may be able to turn a blind eye to atrocities in other countries," Obama said this week. "The United States of America is different." And credit where credit's due, he's right: From Gaza to the Arabian peninsula, Obama doesn't stand idly by while others carry out atrocities -- he funds and arms those carrying them out.
And just like Bush, he doesn't let his hypocrisy get in the way of a good war.
Medea Benjamin is cofounder of Global Exchange (www.globalexchange.org) and CODEPINK: Women for Peace (www.codepinkalert.org).
Charles Davis (http://charliedavis.blogspot.com) is an independent journalist who has covered Congress for NPR and Pacifica stations across the country, and freelanced for the international news wire Inter Press Service.
Major General Smedley Butler had it right: War is a racket.
But even assuming Obama has the best of intentions -- with which the road to hell is paved, mind you -- U.S. intervention in Libya is more likely to do harm than good. Besides the inevitable "collateral damage," meaning widowed mothers and orphaned children, war sets off an unpredictable chain reaction of evil -- evil that no side has a monopoly over.
Indeed, the Los Angeles Times reports that while the intervention is sold as in defense of human rights, the Libyan rebels on whose behalf the U.S. is intervening are actively rounding up hundreds of their perceived political opponents and imprisoning them without charge in Gaddafi's former torture chambers. Those being rounded up are primarily black immigrants, with rebel spokesman Abdelhafed Ghoga telling the paper that suspected Gaddafi mercenaries who don't voluntarily turn themselves in will be subjected to extra-judicial "justice" (read: murder) for being "enemies of the revolution." If they seize the country, who will stop roundups -- and massacres -- in Tripoli and elsewhere of those deemed to be supporters of the Gaddafi regime, perhaps for no reason other than the color of their skin?
The Obama administration and supporters of the war -- who a month ago couldn't tell the difference between Benghazi and Baghdad -- portray the intervention in Libya as a simple morality tale, with evil on one side and good on the other. But the reality is more nuanced than the applause lines the president laid out in his speech. In the real world, peace is rarely achieved by dropping bombs and installing the most avowedly "pro-American" locals you can find in power. Just look at Afghanistan and Iraq, where George Bush started wars that Barack Obama has only continued -- and in the case of the former, escalated.
"Some nations may be able to turn a blind eye to atrocities in other countries," Obama said this week. "The United States of America is different." And credit where credit's due, he's right: From Gaza to the Arabian peninsula, Obama doesn't stand idly by while others carry out atrocities -- he funds and arms those carrying them out.
And just like Bush, he doesn't let his hypocrisy get in the way of a good war.
Medea Benjamin is cofounder of Global Exchange (www.globalexchange.org) and CODEPINK: Women for Peace (www.codepinkalert.org).
Charles Davis (http://charliedavis.blogspot.com) is an independent journalist who has covered Congress for NPR and Pacifica stations across the country, and freelanced for the international news wire Inter Press Service.
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