Obama Successfully Demobilized the Anti-war Movement

Kurt Nimmo
Infowars

It is more evidence the antiwar movement is largely a left-vs-right distraction. A new study by U-M’s Michael Heaney and colleague Fabio Rojas of Indiana University shows that the antiwar movement in the United States demobilized as Democrats took over Congress and the White House.



“As president, Obama has maintained the occupation of Iraq and escalated the war in Afghanistan,” said Heaney. “The antiwar movement should have been furious at Obama’s ‘betrayal’ and reinvigorated its protest activity.”

“Instead, attendance at antiwar rallies declined precipitously and financial resources available to the movement have dissipated. The election of Obama appeared to be a demobilizing force on the antiwar movement, even in the face of his pro-war decisions.”

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US politico in Libya to meet Kadhafi, seek deal

A Libyan rebel fighter scans the horizon in the desert
© AFP Odd Andersen

AFP

WASHINGTON (AFP) - A former US lawmaker with prior dealings with Moamer Kadhafi was in Tripoli Wednesday on a private mission seeking a peace deal that would include the departure of the Libyan strongman.

Curt Weldon, a Republican representative from Pennsylvania from 1987 to 2007, said in a New York Times column that he was in Libya "as the leader of a small private delegation, at the invitation of Colonel Kadhafi's chief of staff and with the knowledge of the Obama administration and members of Congress from both parties."

"Our purpose is to meet with Colonel Kadhafi today and persuade him to step aside," he said.
State Department spokesman Mark Toner said Weldon "did inform us of his plans to travel" to Libya, but added "he's not there on our behalf" and "is not carrying a message" from US President Barack Obama's administration.

"I don't know if it's helpful or unhelpful," Toner told reporters when queried about the impact of his trip. "He's not representing the US government."


Weldon, who in 2004 traveled to Libya as the head of a bipartisan congressional delegation to express support for Kadhafi's decision to give up his country's nuclear weapons, wrote that "there is no question that America should play a critical role in helping the Libyans build a new government."

He argued that both Obama and former US president George W. Bush failed to follow up on promises made in 2004 to help Libya with reforms.

Weldon said he would seek "an immediate United Nations-monitored cease-fire, with the Libyan army withdrawing from contested cities and rebel forces ending attempts to advance."

"The world agrees that Colonel Kadhafi must go, even though no one has a plan, a foundation for civil society has not been constructed and we are not even sure whom we should trust. But in the meantime, the people of Libya deserve more than bombs."

The mission comes as the key Western powers involved in the Libyan conflict were throwing their energies into negotiating a solution, as the war between government and rebel forces dug deeper into a stalemate.

The United States, France and Britain are reaching out to both the rebels and, indirectly, to officials in Kadhafi's regime, looking for a way to bring them together in talks, officials for both sides said.

© AFP -- Published at Activist Post with license

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Is America Addicted to War?

The top 5 reasons why we keep getting into foolish fights.

Wikimedia Commons Image

Stephen M. Walt
Foreign Policy

The United States started out as 13 small and vulnerable colonies clinging to the east coast of North America. Over the next century, those original 13 states expanded all the way across the continent, subjugating or exterminating the native population and wresting Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California from Mexico. It fought a bitter civil war, acquired a modest set of overseas colonies, and came late to both world wars. But since becoming a great power around 1900, it has fought nearly a dozen genuine wars and engaged in countless military interventions.

Yet Americans think of themselves as a peace-loving people, and we certainly don't regard our country as a "warrior nation" or "garrison state." Teddy Roosevelt was probably the last U.S. president who seemed to view war as an activity to be welcomed (he once remarked that "A just war is in the long run far better for a man's soul than the most prosperous peace"), and subsequent presidents always portray themselves as going to war with great reluctance, and only as a last resort.


In 2008, Americans elected Barack Obama in part because they thought he would be different from his predecessor on a host of issues, but especially in his approach to the use of armed force. It was clear to nearly everyone that George W. Bush had launched a foolish and unnecessary war in Iraq, and then compounded the error by mismanaging it (and the war in Afghanistan too). So Americans chose a candidate who had opposed Bush's war in Iraq and could bring U.S. commitments back in line with our resources. Above all, Americans thought Obama would be a lot more thoughtful about where and how to use force, and that he understood the limits of this crudest of policy tools. The Norwegian Nobel Committee seems to have thought so too, when they awarded him the Nobel Peace Prize not for anything he had done, but for what it hoped he might do henceforth.


Yet a mere two years later, we find ourselves back in the fray once again. Since taking office, Obama has escalated U.S. involvement in Afghanistan and launched a new war against Libya. As in Iraq, the real purpose of our intervention is regime change at the point of a gun. At first we hoped that most of the guns would be in the hands of the Europeans, or the hands of the rebel forces arrayed against Muammar al-Qaddafi, but it's increasingly clear that U.S. military forces, CIA operatives and foreign weapons supplies are going to be necessary to finish the job.

Moreover, as Alan Kuperman of the University of Texas and Steve Chapman of the Chicago Tribune have now shown, the claim that the United States had to act to prevent Libyan tyrant Muammar al-Qaddafi from slaughtering tens of thousands of innocent civilians in Benghazi does not stand up to even casual scrutiny. Although everyone recognizes that Qaddafi is a brutal ruler, his forces did not conduct deliberate, large-scale massacres in any of the cities he has recaptured, and his violent threats to wreak vengeance on Benghazi were directed at those who continued to resist his rule, not at innocent bystanders. There is no question that Qaddafi is a tyrant with few (if any) redemptive qualities, but the threat of a bloodbath that would "[stain] the conscience of the world" (as Obama put it) was slight.

It remains to be seen whether this latest lurch into war will pay off or not, and whether the United States and its allies will have saved lives or squandered them. But the real question we should be asking is: Why does this keep happening? Why do such different presidents keep doing such similar things? How can an electorate that seemed sick of war in 2008 watch passively while one war escalates in 2009 and another one gets launched in 2011? How can two political parties that are locked in a nasty partisan fight over every nickel in the government budget sit blithely by and watch a president start running up a $100 million per day tab in this latest adventure? What is going on here?

Read the 5 Reasons Full Article Here

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Libya war costs $4 million a day: US Air Force

The total cost of the operation for the entire US military was estimated at $500 million on March 28.

© AFP Mahmud Hams

AFP

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The war in Libya is costing the US Air Force $4 million a day but the cost likely will drop now that American fighter jets pulled out of the operation, the air force secretary said Tuesday.

As of Tuesday morning, "we're probably (at) about 75 million dollars for the cost of the operation thus far," said Air Force Secretary Michael Donley, the top civilian overseeing the service.

"And our best estimate was about four million dollars a day."
Speaking to defense reporters in Washington, Donley said the price tag "will probably be adjusted here as the US participation in strike operations has now gone away."

But Donley could not say how much the cost of the operation might be reduced after the withdrawal of US combat aircraft.

About 50 warplanes -- including fighter jets and ground-attack aircraft -- were deployed for combat flights over Libya in the past few days, while the air force has contributed 39 "support aircraft" for refueling, surveillance and other tasks, according to Donley.

He said the "strike" aircraft would return to European bases and remain on standby in case NATO requested help from Washington in the air campaign, launched March 19.

US combat sorties ended at 2200 GMT on Monday as NATO allies take over strike missions, under a UN-mandate to enforce a no-fly zone and protect civilians from the Libyan regime's forces,

The total cost of the operation for the entire US military was estimated at $500 million on March 28.

For relief efforts in Japan after that country's earthquake and tsunami, the air force had spent about $40 million evacuating 5,000-6,000 Americans and about $8-$9 million on humanitarian assistance, including food supplies, Donley said.

The air campaign in Libya and the disaster relief operation in Japan have aggravated mounting financial pressures on the Pentagon, as Congress has yet to approve spending to cover the current fiscal year for the military or the rest of the federal government.

© AFP -- Published at Activist Post with license

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Oil Rises On Market Speculation Over Globalist War in Libya

Dees Illustration

Kurt Nimmo
InfoWars

Oil has spiked to a 30-month high on market speculation related to demand and the globalist war against the Libyan regime of Muammar Gaddafi.

Gaddafi’s forces bombed an oil field south of the city of Ajdabiya and heightened concerns about the supply of oil from the African nation.

Crude for May delivery gained around 84 cents and topped $108.78 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It is the highest spike since September 24, when prices hit $108.30 a barrel. Brent oil for May settlement climbed as much as $1.05, or 0.9 percent, to $119.75 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange.


“It’s becoming increasingly clear that the situation in Libya may be prolonged,” said Christopher Bellew, a senior broker at Bache Commodities Ltd. in London, told Bloomberg. “The more one looks at uprisings in the Middle East, the more one realizes they will not be easy to resolve. At the same time, oil demand is relatively inelastic to higher prices.”

Oil has climbed 28 percent since American and British intellignece prompted a rag tag gang of Gaddafi opponents to take up arms against the Libyan government.

Mark Pervan, head of commodity research at Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd. in Melbourne, told Bloomberg upcoming elections in Nigeria may also impact oil prices. A vote to elect lawmakers was rescheduled on April 2. More than 50 people have died in election-related violence since July, according to Amnesty International. Nigeria is Africa’s most populous nation and largest oil producer.

Last week a leading neocon responsible for the Pentagon’s Office of Special Plans and the lies that led the United States into an undeclared war against Iraq – and ultimately led to the murder of nearly 1.5 million Iraqis – told Fox News it is irrelevant who controls the flow of oil. Douglas Feith said despite who controls the oil in Libya or elsewhere in the Middle East, governments will be obliged to sell it on the international market.


Neocon Douglas Feith is not worried about the oil supply

Feith admitted that conflict does interrupt the production of oil and impact prices. He did not discount the possibility that the CIA created terror group al-Qaeda may eventually control oil.

A former leader of an al-Qaeda linked group in Libya claims that there are around 1000 fundamentalist Islamic fighters in the country that have joined the uprising against Gaddafi.

The plan to invade Iraq and oust the former CIA operative Saddam Hussein and replace him with former Petra Bank chairman Ahmed Chalabi began well before a neocon-dominated Pentagon decided to invade the oil producing country enfeebled by more than a decade of brutal economic sanctions.

Kurt Nimmo is the editor of Infowars.com and author of Another Day in the Empire.

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The U.S. Government Must Go!

Dees Illustration

Mike Rozeff
Lew Rockwell

A chorus of U.S. and international officials keeps chanting that "Gaddafi must go" because, they keep repeating, he has lost legitimacy.

Let’s turn the tables. How legitimate is the U.S. government? I’m not talking about the popularity of particular persons like Obama, Bush I, Bush II, or Clinton. Changing faces, political parties, and administrations in Washington is a lost cause. I’m talking about national government itself. Should Washington be dismantled? Has Washington lost legitimacy as a government? If so, as a remedy, as a guide to action, as an objective to work toward, the U.S. government must go!
There are many valid ways to criticize the U.S. government. Any small government or anarchist perspective gives rise to a critique. Any adherent of constitutionality has another critique. For example, Lysander Spooner’s critique is devastating. Anyone who looks to the government’s effectiveness in serving the public will have yet another perspective. Anyone who restricts attention to economic and monetary matters will find plenty to criticize. Anyone who focuses on rights and liberties will be able to make important criticisms.

Here my perspective is to question the legitimacy of the U.S. government. Legitimacy is the perspective being used loudly by many world leaders against Gaddafi. I wonder, can we camp on their grounds and turn their own ideas against them?

World heads of state do not usually shine the light of legitimacy on one another, much less on themselves. Oh no, they are very quiet and reserved in that area. They don’t want people questioning their legitimacy, so they don’t raise the idea. Libya is atypical. Some leaders are using the rhetoric of legitimacy against Gaddafi. They believe that they can confine its use to him. They believe that they can restrict illegitimacy to instances of outright violence and ignore hidden violence. This serves their purposes.

In the post-Soviet era, criticisms by world leaders of the U.S. tend to be restrained, muted and timid. The world’s states are essentially in cahoots with one another. Many are beholden to the U.S. or tied in via relations of one kind and another. They cannot be too critical. Many have their own domestic problems and don’t want to stir up nests of hornets.

We are not so confined. If we use Obama’s criterion that violence against one’s people is a sign of government illegitimacy, then how many world governments are themselves legitimate? They all use violence and the threat of violence to maintain themselves. The fact that the threats of violence are effective and prevent outright blood on the streets doesn’t remove the presence of violence as the government’s means of controlling its citizens. Once we look under the hood at the motor of government, we find violence. At what point does such violence mean that the government’s leaders or the government itself – its very form – have lost legitimacy?

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Libya more 'vital' to Europe than US: Obama ex-advisor

Robert Gates: Libya is "not a vital interest (to the United States) in the sense that it affects the vital security of the nation," and "It is more in the vital interest of Europeans... when you consider the effects of massive immigration, the effects of terror, the oil market."

Dees Illustration

AFP

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The Libya endgame is more "vital" to Europe than the United States, a former White House adviser said Sunday, and urged Arab and African allies to step up as Washington slims its role in the conflict.

Retired general James Jones, who until last October served as President Barack Obama's national security adviser, acknowledged on Sunday talk shows that strongman Moamer Kadhafi's ouster was the ultimate goal in the military campaign, but said there was little clarity on how that will be accomplished.

With the UN-approved military strikes against Kadhafi's forces in their third week, the Pentagon has stepped back from a leadership role in the air campaign, stressing it does not want to engage in yet another major war.
Libya is "not a vital interest (to the United States) in the sense that it affects the vital security of the nation," he told ABC News program "This Week."

"It is more in the vital interest of Europeans... when you consider the effects of massive immigration, the effects of terror, the oil market."

European countries, led by Italy, France and Germany, are the top consumers of Libyan crude, and total Libyan output amounts to less than two percent of world production.

A US-led coalition launched the first air strikes against Libya, but NATO began to take command of the air bombing operations last Wednesday.

"What we're doing here is making sure that our allies also take on their share of responsibilities, which they are," Jones told CNN's "State of the Union" program.

He said the United States was still flying "about 50 percent of the missions," but mostly in support roles such as search and rescue and refueling.

The Arab world and Africa, players who "have much more influence on Kadhafi than we do," must now step up, said Jones, who praised the involvement of nations such as Qatar, the first Arab state to fly sorties over Libya to enforce a no-fly zone.

Some Arab nations have been targeted for criticism for standing on the sidelines in the Libya crisis.

"The participation of the Arab League in this mission I think is hugely important, and the African Union has to step up also. This is their neighborhood, and they need to play a major role in how this is going to work out," Jones said.

While Washington has insisted its involvement in Libya, where Kadhafi forces were threatening a bloodbath in rebel-held eastern cities, was meant to avert a humanitarian disaster, Jones said the true goal was the ouster of Kadhafi.

Exactly how that is accomplished has been a point of debate, and Jones appeared to reflect the growing frustration over the best way to achieve such a goal.

"We know that the ultimate -- the end state -- is to have regime change in Libya. And how you get there from where we are now... without the partitioning of Libya, without Kadhafi staying in power for a long period of time, that is the problem," he told CNN.

"But unfortunately, most people want perfect clarity in a situation where clarity doesn't exist."

© AFP -- Published at Activist Post with license

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Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich on Freedom Watch (Video)

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What’s the difference between Obama’s Libyan war and neoconservatism?

David Rieff
The New Republic

Well, that was quick! It usually takes some time for the gap between how a White House justifies a military adventure to the public, and the reality of what is really going on to be revealed. It took the fall of Saddam Hussein for the Bush administration’s pretext for war—the threat of weapons of mass destruction—to be shown up as a fabrication. But from President Obama’s televised address on the evening of March 29, in which he claimed that the intervention in Libya was not about regime change, to the Reuters story revealing that he had signed an order allowing covert U.S. operations in Libya at least a week before the speech, and possibly longer, took—what?—24 hours. And so in we go to Libya, as both neoconservatives and liberal interventionists have been pressing for all along.

In his speech, the president insisted that there was no comparison between Iraq and Libya, and that broadening the U.S. military mission “to include regime change would be a mistake.” In reality, of course, that is exactly what Washington has done. President Obama made much of U.N. sanction and the multinational nature of the no-fly zone, and boasted that the United States had now handed over the lead role to our “allies and partners in NATO.” But this is disingenuous nonsense. From a military perspective, NATO without U.S. military assets is not a particularly redoubtable force. It is true that, politically, the French government pressed hard for more aggressive military moves to support the Libyan insurgency. But despite President Obama’s assertions to the contrary, the overwhelming preponderance of bombs, missiles, and bullets fired at Colonel Qaddafi’s forces have been from U.S. ships and aircraft.

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RELATED ARTICLE:
Liberals Willing to Trade Blood for Oil Under Obama

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Scahill: US wages covert war in Yemen (Video)

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US senators seek to force Libya vote

US Sen. Rand Paul
© AFP/Getty Images/File Chip Somodevilla

AFP

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Two senators concerned about US military strikes on Libya warned Friday they aimed to force a vote on whether President Barack Obama has the authority to wage war without congressional approval.

"We believe the answer is that he does not," Republican Senators Rand Paul and Mike Lee said in a letter to Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Paul and Lee said they would block legislation pending in the Senate until Reid schedules a debate and vote on a resolution offered by Paul that states Obama "does not have the power to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve an actual or imminent threat to the nation."
"While we realize there are other matters the Senate had planned to work on, it is our belief that there is very little we are doing that rises to the level of a constitutional question regarding war," they wrote.

"We do not take this responsibility lightly, and we believe the Senate is abdicating its responsibility at this very moment," they said in the letter, which Paul's office made public.

"The bombing and military action against the Libyan government will be two weeks old by the time we return to session next week. That means congressional debate on this war is two weeks overdue," they said.

Jon Summers, a spokesman for Reid, said the Obama administration had done a "good job of consulting with Congress and conveying as much information to us as is possible."

"Further, the Senate has had hearings and briefings, which Senators Paul and Lee have been invited to attend, throughout the week to carefully examine the effectiveness of our operations, and will continue to do so as operations continue," he said.

The US Constitution reserves to Congress the right to declare war, though US presidents have often deployed forces without first getting lawmakers' explicit say-so, despite a 1973 law that aimed to curtail their ability to do so.

The War Powers Act allows the president to use force in response to an attack on the United States, its territories, or its armed forces, but calls for notifying Congress within 48 hours and says US troops must start to withdraw 60 days later unless specifically authorized to remain by lawmakers.

© AFP -- Published at Activist Post with license

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MUST SEE: Kucinich Exposes the Entire Libya Agenda on The House Floor (Video)

Youtube - DJKucinich
Congresman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) speaks for a powerful hour on the House floor about the illegality of the Libya war.  This is a MUST SEE speech as he reveals the entire agenda behind the Libya attack. He connects the dots to the CIA quite convincingly.  And he asked the big philosophical questions: "Our dear nation stands at a crossroads. The direction we take will determine not what kind of nation we are but what kind of nation we will become. Will we become a nation which plots in secret to wage war? Will we become a nation that observes our Constitution only in matters of convenience? Will we become a nation which destroys the unity of the world community painstakingly pieced together from the ruins of World War II, a war which itself followed a war to end all wars?"


You MUST WATCH Part 2 and beyond to hear Kucinich thrash Obama and the Congress

RELATED ARTICLE: 
Liberals Trade Blood for Oil Company Profits Under Obama

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Libya vs. Iraq Hypocrisy (Video)

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Libya's rag-tag rebels badly need training: US

Editor's Note: Translation: We need to dedicate more money and more time to this third war front.

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates (L) and Chairman
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen testify
© AFP Saul Loeb

AFP

WASHINGTON (AFP) - US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Thursday Libya's rag-tag rebels needed training more than guns in their battle against Moamer Kadhafi's army but that other nations should do the job.

Facing lawmakers concerned that armed intervention in Libya could end in stalemate, Gates and top military officer Admiral Mike Mullen said a NATO-led air campaign had damaged Kadhafi's forces but not yet brought them to a breaking point.

Gates said the military mission did not call for deposing Kadhafi but he said economic and political pressure and Libya's people -- not air strikes -- would eventually drive Kadhafi from power.
With the outgunned opposition in retreat, the United States and its allies were now looking at how to assist the makeshift force, with weapons or other help, Gates said.


The Pentagon chief described the rebels as a "disparate," improvised force that had a supply of small arms seized at regime depots but sorely lacked military leadership.

"What they really need is training, command and control and some coherent organization," Gates told the House Armed Services Committee.

He said training "requires advisers on the ground, as would more sophisticated weapons in terms of training them on how to use those weapons."

But Gates, insisting on a limited US role, said other countries could and should provide the training and assistance instead of the United States.

"The truth is in terms of providing that training, in terms of providing that assistance to them, frankly, there are many countries that can do that.

"That's not a unique capability of the United States and as far I'm concerned someone else should do that," he said.

Mullen said the United States was still weighing whether to arm and train the rebels, but agreed that other governments -- including some Arab countries -- could carry out the task.

A detailed picture of the rebels was still hard to come by, and the US government had biographical information for only a handful of leaders in the east, Gates said.

"We really don't know very much about what I think is a very disparate, disaggregated opposition to Kadhafi," he said.

His comments on the rebels came as US media reported CIA operatives were on the ground making contact with the opposition and amid speculation British and French intelligence and special forces' officers had started helping the opposition.

Gates, a former CIA director who led efforts to arm Afghan fighters against Soviet forces in the 1980s, declined to comment on the spy agency's work in Libya.

Admiral Mullen, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, told the same hearing about 20 to 25 percent of Kadhafi's military had been knocked out by coalition bombing but "that does not mean he's about to break from a military standpoint."

Kadhafi's army -- equipped with tanks and heavy guns on the ground -- still enjoyed a major edge over the rebels, said Mullen, estimating a "ten to one ratio" in favor of the regime.

Lawmakers voiced concerns about the risk of an open-ended war, complained the White House had failed to consult them in advance and worried whether the Libyan leader could still be standing when the dust settles.

 "I just don't see how this ends," said Senator Susan Collins.

With NATO now in command, the US military's involvement would in a matter of days "significantly ramp down," Gates said, repeating a vow of "no American boots on the ground."

Gates said the coalition air campaign launched March 19 was designed to protect civilians and not to remove Kadhafi, but suggested the strikes would steadily squeeze the regime.

He said Kadhafi's inner circle would be forced to choose whether to stick by him or save themselves as NATO bombing gradually decimates the regime's army.

"In my view, the removal of Colonel Kadhafi will likely be achieved over time through political and economic measures and by his own people," he said.

As lawmakers voiced concerns about the rebels whose political stance remained unclear, Gates pushed back, saying what was important was the threat posed by Kadhafi.

With popular unrest sweeping the region, Arab countries and European allies had backed military intervention because of Kadhafi's "potential for disrupting everything in the Middle East right now," he said.

© AFP -- Published at Activist Post with license

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Obama: 'we stopped massacre in Libya'

Editor's Note: Says a president who had to apologize for more Afghan 'kill team' photos on the very same day.

Tomahawk missile launch/Wiki commons image

AFP

WASHINGTON (AFP) - A defiant President Barack Obama told Americans he had stopped a "massacre" in Libya, but bluntly warned that trying to oust Moamer Kadhafi by force could repeat the carnage of Iraq.

"As president, I refused to wait for the images of slaughter and mass graves before taking action," Obama said, mounting a robust defense of his decision to rain air strikes on Kadhafi's troops in a UN-mandated bid to protect civilians.

Obama spoke after Libyan rebels, enabled by pounding air attacks by international fighter jets, grabbed back government-held territory, and on the eve of a major international conference in London dedicated to Libya's future.

The president, in a major televised address at the National Defense University in Washington, also denied he had ceded leadership to US allies and had failed to lay out a clear strategy for war-weary Americans.
"In just one month, the United States has worked with our international partners to mobilize a broad coalition, secure an international mandate to protect civilians, stop an advancing army, prevent a massacre, and establish a no-fly Zone with our allies and partners," Obama said.

Faced with a man who compared his people to "rats" and who had hanged "civilians in the streets," Obama said he had seen no choice but to act against Kadhafi's forces as they bore down on the key city of Benghazi.


He said the city could have suffered "a massacre that would have reverberated across the region and stained the conscience of the world."

"I refused to let that happen," said Obama, who came to power vowing to get US troops home from Iraq and eventually Afghanistan, but has found himself launching a new military adventure abroad on his own watch.

"To brush aside America's responsibility as a leader -- and more profoundly -- our responsibilities to our fellow human beings ... would have been a betrayal of who were are," he said.

The president said US "interests and values" were at stake in the crisis, in an apparent response to those who question whether Libya represents a vital threat to the United States.

Obama did not, however, sketch an end game for the conflict, as critics warn that he may have taken sides in an intractable Middle Eastern civil war, and fear a blow to US credibility unless Kadhafi is ousted.

He made clear he wants Kadhafi gone, but warned that pursuing a military quest for regime change would backfire and exact a terrible price.

"If we tried to overthrow Kadhafi by force, our coalition would splinter."

"We would likely have to put US troops on the ground, or risk killing many civilians from the air.

"To be blunt, we went down that road in Iraq.

"Regime change there took eight years, thousands of American and Iraqi lives, and nearly a trillion dollars. That is not something we can afford to repeat in Libya."

Top international powers including Britain and France meet in London on Tuesday to assess the success of the coalition effort against Kadhafi and to consider how to oust the long-time leader with non military means.

Protesters take part in an anti-war
demonstration in front of the
White House in Washington, DC,
© AFP Jewel Samad

Before making his speech, Obama spoke by videoconference with the leaders of France, Britain and Germany to review the progress made by the coalition, White House spokesman Jay Carney said.

The United States and its partners have levied punishing financial and diplomatic sanctions on the Libyan regime, seized billions of dollars in assets and are policing an arms embargo.

Obama said a "badly weakened" Kadhafi could hang on for some time, saying Libya would remain "dangerous" with him still around.

But he warned Kadhafi was on the wrong side of history.

"The transition to a government that is responsive to the Libyan people will be a difficult task," Obama said, adding that it was up to the international community to join the United States in a rebuilding effort.

The president also sought to explain his criteria for committing US power abroad, as analysts seek an "Obama doctrine" as revolt sweeps the Middle East.

He said he would never shrink from using force decisively and unilaterally if the US homeland was threatened, but said America could also deploy its military in situations when it was not at risk, for instance to prevent genocide.

But he said he would seek the support of allies in such cases, telling Americans who have seen a decade of war: "The burden of action should not be America's alone."

Obama's speech was partly an answer to a storm of criticism in recent days, especially from lawmakers who argued they were not fully consulted on the Libyan operation.

Republican Senator John McCain welcomed Obama's explanation of the US intervention in Libya, but said his comment that regime change by force was not on the table was "puzzling."

"Kadhafi must have been somewhat comforted by that," Obama's 2008 general election foe told CNN.

© AFP -- Published at Activist Post with license

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Wow That Was Fast! Libyan Rebels Have Already Established A New Central Bank Of Libya

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Economic Collapse Blog

The rebels in Libya are in the middle of a life or death civil war and Moammar Gadhafi is still in power and yet somehow the Libyan rebels have had enough time to establish a new Central Bank of Libya and form a new national oil company.  Perhaps when this conflict is over those rebels can become time management consultants.  They sure do get a lot done.  What a skilled bunch of rebels – they can fight a war during the day and draw up a new central bank and a new national oil company at night without any outside help whatsoever.  If only the rest of us were so versatile!  But isn’t forming a central bank something that could be done after the civil war is over?  According to Bloomberg, the Transitional National Council has “designated the Central Bank of Benghazi as a monetary authority competent in monetary policies in Libya and the appointment of a governor to the Central Bank of Libya, with a temporary headquarters in Benghazi.”  Apparently someone felt that it was very important to get pesky matters such as control of the banks and control of the money supply out of the way even before a new government is formed.
Of course it is probably safe to assume that the new Central Bank of Libya will be 100% owned and 100% controlled by the newly liberated people of Libya, isn’t it?

Most people don’t realize that the previous Central Bank of Libya was 100% state owned. The following is an excerpt from Wikipedia’s article on the former Central Bank of Libya….

The Central Bank of Libya (CBL) is 100% state owned and represents the monetary authority in The Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya and enjoys the status of autonomous corporate body. The law establishing the CBL stipulates that the objectives of the central bank shall be to maintain monetary stability in Libya , and to promote the sustained growth of the economy in accordance with the general economic policy of the state.

Since the old Central Bank of Libya was state owned, it was essentially under the control of Moammar Gadhafi.

But now that Libya is going to be “free”, the new Central Bank of Libya will be run by Libyans and solely for the benefit of Libyans, right?

Of course it is probably safe to assume that will be the case with the new national oil company as well, isn’t it?

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