A Wafer-Thin No-Fly Zone

by Jeff Huber

No doubt oblivious to the irony of the farcical realism he’s helping create, Christian Science Monitor staff puke Brad Knickerbocker wonders aloud in a March 19 thunk piece if the Libya ado signals the emergence of an “Obama Doctrine” of war. 

Obama (right) feeds the
American war machine.

Jesus in a strip joint, Brad: the Obama war doctrine emerged when he kept “Uncle Bob” Gates and Mike “Moon” Mullen and “King” David Petraeus and Ray “Desert Ox” Odierno on active duty instead of having them transferred to Civilian Command like he should have the nanosecond the words “…preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States" crossed his lips.  Since his inaugural, young Mr. Obama has proven time and again that his doctrine involves giving the American Pentarchy* as much war as he thinks the country can possibly tolerate.  The Libya boondoggle is merely the latest manifestation. 

Young Mr. Bush at least had the grace to build a case, albeit one as phony as a blue dollar bill, that his military binges were somehow connected to national security.   He also had sufficient sense of the separation of powers to exploit the War Powers Act of 1973 and manipulate Congress into writing him the blank check—the Authorization for Use of Military Force (aka “AUMF”) of Sept. 18, 2001—that gave him legislative leave to mitigate mayhem through weaponized wizardry at any place or time against anyone who he unilaterally deemed in need of shock and awe therapy. 

Obama’s Libyan bender doesn't feature either of these political niceties. 

Muammar Gadhafi posed no threat to the United States.  He’s pretty much kept his trap clapped shut since 1986 when The Great Communicator (aka Mr. Nancy Reagan) bombed his house and killed his daughter during Operation El Dorado Canyon.  The apple of Barbara Bush’s eye normalized relations with Gadhafi’s government in 2008.  Ghadafi has destroyed his weapons of mass destruction program and he has not only denounced al Qaeda, he has pledged his commitment to combat the terrorist group.  If we actually believe the cost of oil is bottle-rocketing because of the situation in Libya (as opposed to the situations in Egypt and Saudi and the rest of the Middle East), then it’s in our best interest to step in to restore Libya’s legitimate government, which would be Gadhafi.  It’s highly likely that the rebel crowd is, as Gadhafi claims, another al Qaeda franchises.  Whoever the they are, if they end up in charge of Libya the world will be a more dangerous place than it was before. 

The Pentarchy’s media suck ups—like the utterly despicable war wags at The Atlantic—are helping Team Obama sell its farcical reality by hyping our strikes on Libya as “humanitarian intervention.”  I’m wondering if there’s a neocon pundit in the world, including Bill “I’m Going to Hell” Kristol, who would claim that any of our military interventions of the New American Century did anything other than create humanitarian crises or make existing ones worse.  By anybody’s count, we’ve caused more injury, displacement and death of innocents than any ten supposed bad guys we’re blowing the globe to smithereens to keep it safe from.   

And we don’t have a plausible justification for the likely hundreds of thousand of innocents whose lives we’ve destroyed.  The best excuse anyone in the warmongery manages to come up with has something to with denying sanctuary to what might add up to a few hundred al Qaeda dudes who may or may not have been holed up the nosebleed seats in the mountains along the border between the Bananastans where, for some inexplicable reason, the best-trained, best-equipped military in the history of humanity can’t get at them. 

Gadhafi has all the excuse he needs for conducting military actions—he’s suppressing and insurrection, and while he’s at it he’s also repelling an invasion, one that we’re leading.  Don’t fall for the claptrap that halfwit John Kerry tried to feed us about a no-fly zone not being a military intervention (It’s just a wafer-thin no-fly zone.  It’s only a tiny little thin one. Oh, just…just one.  Voila!  Bon apetit!). 

Bon apetit indeed.  It’s feeding season for War Inc., and mongrels on both sides of the chasm—from state secretary and AIPAC hag Cruella Clinton to John McCain’s poofter-hawk paramour Lindsey Graham—are downright giddy about their shiny new war of opportunity.  Kerry’s minty no-fly zone has turned into a full bore air campaign against Gadhafi’s forces and their infrastructure, and don’t think the involvement is going to stop with air power. 

Obama is still playing the tape about “days rather than weeks,” but we’re not likely to get out of Libya any sooner than we’ll leave Iraq or the Bananastans.  Even Mullen, our military’s most senior bull feather merchant, doesn’t give false hopes for a swift exit.  “I wouldn't speculate in terms of length at this particular point in time,” he told ABC’s Christiane Amanpour in his own sweet convoluted way during his rounds of the big brainwash broadcast last Sunday.  Translated into wise-acre-ese, Mullen is telling us that the last plane out of Tripoli will take off when brown cows give chocolate milk.

Sen. Lindsey Graham on
FOX News Sunday

And who gave Obama permission to get us follicle deep in yet another quagmire?  Not the Constitution.  Not Congress.  Hell, congressional democrats are wringing their hands over whether or not to ask Obama to ask them for permission to start the war in Libya he already started without their permission.  And congressional Republicans like Mayberry Boy Graham doesn’t think Obama is doing enough.  Graham said on FOX News Sunday that Obama acts as if “leading the free world is an inconvenience.”

Don’t worry, Senator Opie.  Obama is leading the free world right where you want him to lead it, and the cliff is just around the corner we’re about to turn.

*The Pentarchy is that cabal of sandbox generals, bathtub admirals, beltway bandits, AIPAC rats, Warlord Fauntleroys, New American Centurions, Long War legislators, Dr. Strangeloves, G.I. Joe Six-Packs, Pavlov’s dogs of war, patriotic psychopaths and other oligarchs whose narrow self interests and well-funded efforts have made the long dreamed-of permanent American security state a reality. 

Commander Jeff Huber, U.S. Navy (Retired) is author of the critically lauded novel Bathtub Admirals, a lampoon on America’s rise to global dominance.