Obama Speech on Libya: Close, but No Cigar

By Matt Kane

Last night President Obama addressed the nation about the "kinetic military action" in Libya. In his half hour speech he hit on a few points that should have been made more than a week ago in the lead-up to war in Libya. As I discussed in yesterday's podcast, Obama had his work cut out for him thanks to the horrendous and confusing interview that Secretary of State Clinton and Defense Secretary Gates gave over the weekend on Meet the Press.

One thing that I really liked about the speech was that President Obama came right out and said that the United States led the mission in Libya. I was quite frustrated on Sunday when Clinton said that the United States would be joining the international community, as if the U.S. had not been leading the charge in Libya from the word "go."

One phrase kept popping up in the speech that went directly against what Defense Secretary Gates said on Sunday. Obama said that our "values and interests" are at stake in Libya. That simply is not true. Like Gates said on Sunday, Libya is not in America's vital interest. And talk of values will remain empty as long as Guantanamo is open and Bradley Manning continues to be mistreated. It is akin to Newt Gingrich talking about the sanctity of marriage.

Along the same lines, the whole "stain the conscious of the world" rhetoric is just as empty. If every humanitarian crisis necessitated Western intervention a lá Libya, we would see allied forces on nearly every continent. At the very least we would see a large Western force in places like the Sudans, Zimbabwe, Mexico and Belarus, to name a few. It simply is not realistic.

In all fairness, Obama did bring up other countries going through changes that have been met with violence by the ruling regimes. His answer to this? Libya happened at a very specific time with very specific interests (which, for the record, were not listed) and it differs greatly from other places like Yemen or Syria. Without specifics about what makes Libya different, we would have to take Obama's word that American/allied interests in Libya made it more pressing than other civilian tragedies in other Middle Eastern countries. At this point in his presidency, however, only a fool would take Obama at his word.

Finally, Obama hinted that American and allied involvement in Libya will last much longer than anticipated. Even if Qaddafi steps down, Obama said, Libya will need help and support to transition to a truly democratic nation responsive to its people. This open-ended commitment to democracy in Libya should make anyone who has followed the Iraq War very nervous. Obama praised what we have done in Iraq in terms of bringing them democracy, but in reality we still have about 47,000 troops there. He explicitly stated that regime change is not the goal in Libya, but he wants Qaddafi out. Pick a goal and stick to it, Mr. President. You cannot have it both ways.

Obama made a promise similar to the one he made during this year's State of the Union. He said, "Wherever people long to be free, they will find a friend in the United States." *Offer not applicable in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Yemen, Syria, Bahrain, China or any other country not meeting an unspecified rubric of the United States Department of Defense and Department of State. Unless those seeking freedom feel buoyed by Secretary Clinton's mumblings about restraint and peaceful dialogue while Libyan rebels get first-class Tomahawk missiles and air support, I do not know how valued American friendship will truly be.

Questions or comments? Leave them in the comment section or email The Second Age: admin(at)thesecondageblog.com.

Free Julian Assange?

When Julian Assange was arrested in London to face charges of sexual molestation against two women stemming from a trip to Sweden in August many supporters showed up with signs regarding free speech. That kind of irked me. I mean, in my mind at least, rape and free speech have nothing to do with each other. One is a horrific crime that strips a woman of her ability to choose what she does with her body and the other involves being able to say what you want.

Many will argue that these charges are trumped up and that an international conspiracy involving the CIA and other intelligence agencies. Sadly, this would not surprise me, but there simply is no evidence of that at this point. What is significant is that these charges come after much more serious charges of rape were alleged against Assange and then quickly dropped. That already creates a shadow of a doubt of the validity of the current charges, even though they are from separate cases. It may not be right, but if a person is accused of rape by someone and then it turns out that the accuser was lying, it creates a cloud of suspicion over any other allegation brought by anyone else against that same person. Especially if the accused has had multinational talking heads openly calling for his assassination.

So I say, if the evidence is not there, free Julian Assange. If there is concrete evidence of this let's hand this over to the legal system to sort out. But to be clear, this has nothing to do with free speech; instead it involves allegations by two Stockholm women. If it comes to light that these women are lying, then shame on them for denigrating Assange and undermining true rape/molestation victims.

What does relate to free speech is the utter idiocy of America's elected officials. Take Senator Dianne Feinstein, for instance. She penned an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal calling for the prosecution of Julian Assange under the Espionage Act of 1917. Of course this would be a waste of government resources because history has shown us that this is nearly impossible. First of all, Assange did nothing illegal when he released these files because he did not steal them from the government, Bradley Manning allegedly did that.

So if we're to compare this to the Pentagon Papers, Bradley Manning is Daniel Ellsburg and the government should try to prosecute him, not Assange. If the government wants to try to get an injunction against WikiLeaks to stop publishing the cables they can do that, but they haven't because New York Times v. United States outlines what would happen. They may have a case with Manning, if they don't bungle it like they did with Ellsburg in the 70s. On other words, the vitriol directed at Assange is a classic case of shooting the messenger.

In summation, I'm all for defending Assange in the name of the first amendment, but I'm not going to blindly defend him against these molestation allegations until evidence comes out that the accusers are lying. I have a hunch that the charges won't stick, but a hunch is not enough for me to yell "Free Julian Assange." I'll wait until the United States detains him to do that. The truth about the molestation allegations will come out eventually and if it's not through the justice system then we'll just have to wait for WikiLeaks to release the documents.

Photo - Free Julian Assange? (Mataparda's Flickr)

Reactionary Response to WikiLeaks Afghan Papers

The fall out from the WikiLeaks disclosure of numerous classified military documents continues today, with one Congressman legitimately calling for Pfc. Bradley Manning's execution and Congress as a whole alienating bloggers and new media from a pending "media shield" bill. In other words, just a bunch of folks not getting it.