Been Ladin

Ron Paul has been getting a lot of flak for saying he wouldn't have ordered the SEAL raid that killed OBL. Well, retired US Army Ranger John T. Reed (one of my heroes) also would not have ordered the raid, for several reasons; instead, he said it should have been done by the Air Force with three 2,000-pound bombs spaced 30 seconds apart. A "SWAT-type" raid (as he aptly describes it) was irresponsible grandstanding by our Incompetent-in-Chief.

The SWAT approach was simply too risky—again, assuming the fix was not in with the Pakistan Air Force and that the U.S. knew there were only three guys protecting Obama and they were not well armed and booby trapped and all that.
If I were in the military now and were offered the chance to be on or command this operation, I would have said, "No way. This is totally unnecessary. It’s strictly an Air Force operation."
Bin Laden was a symbolic military mission, not a valid military target like, say, Adolf Hitler would have been during World War II. Bin Laden was a financier and leader back in the day, but lately he seems to have evolved into a sort of elder statesman/philosopher with a Just-For-Men colored beard and an intermittent, lame TV show on al Jazeera. You do not risk men’s lives to kill such a person. If the chain of command wanted not only me but also my men to go on this mission, I would have gone to war with my chain of command fighting all the way to the president if necessary and resigning my commission in protest. I went to war with my chain of command over a lot less when it came to mistreating my men when I was an officer.

The Task Set Before Us

First, I believe that the president's power as commander-in-chief of the military is very simple to understand. He has the power to give any (lawful) order to anyone in the military, and it must be obeyed. That includes things like ordering the military to blockade, bomb, or even invade Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Iran.

However, the definition of a lawful order is limited by both international law -- which means treaties that the U.S. has signed, and more importantly the "law of war" that says things like you're not allowed to harm, and in fact have a duty to protect, civilians, prisoners, and anyone else who doesn't try to harm you or disobey your orders.

Furthermore, lawful orders are restricted by the specific rules that the U.S. military follows, such as the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and that's set by Congress, as specified in the U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 8, Paragraphs 10-16 and especially Paragraph 14, "To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces."

That means if Congress wants to specify that "No member of the armed forces of the United States shall enter Libya," they can do it. And they can certainly specify the various conditions listed in the War Powers Resolution.

That being said, I am all in favor of intervening in Libya as long as we do it good and hard. In fact, I'm in favor of intervening in Syria even better and harder, since Assad is worse than Qadaffi. And if Iranian Revolutionary Guard units are in Syria, that gives us a really good excuse to attack those units.

On the other hand, I will also repeat what I warned about before we went into Afghanistan and Iraq, which is that we need to have a clear plan, including a clear objective. Glenn Reynolds is right: "Waging war halfheartedly, on the cheap, and by committee is not a formula for success."

What are the consequences when the powerful are impervious to justice?

Bernadette Atahuene's post at Blackprof poignantly asks "

What are the consequences when the powerful are impervious to justice?"

I oppose the Occupation of Iraq, and I am in favor of equal justice for all.

BT posted: Iraq - Genocide of entire religious sects.

I agree with you: the world should definitely demand that the Sunni and Shiite terrorists who are slaughtering civilians be punished for those crimes.

Mwafrika posted: Bush and Co. will never answer for the more than 0.6 million Iraqi (according to some estimates) and 3600 American soldiers.

That's true, because the 600,000 Iraqi civilians were killed (deliberately) by insurgents, and not killed by Coalition forces.

According to the Iraq Body Count project, Allied forces killed about 9,000 Iraqi civilians in the two years from 2003 to 2005. So I agree that Dubya and his gang should be held responsible for those deaths and punished, while the insurgents should be held responsible for the remaining 591,000+ deaths and punished proportionally.

Mwafrika also posted: Presidents Mugabe, Chavez, Castro get away with human rights abuse and dismantling of democratic structures in the guise of fighting imperialism.
Their "fighting imperialism cred" win them massive support among the oppressed people in their respective countries and the world, hence imposible to dislodge from power.

I agree that Mugabe, Chavez, and Castro are guilty of crimes against humanity and should be brought to justice as soon as possible!

Would You Like Freedom Fries With That?

Eurasia is allied with Oceania.
Eurasia is at war with Oceania.
Eurasia is at war with Oceania.
Eurasia is at war with Oceania.
Eurasia is allied with Oceania.
Eurasia is at war with Oceania.
Eurasia is allied with Oceania.
Eurasia has always been at war with Oceania.
Eurasia has always been allied with Oceania.
Eurasia will always be allied with Oceania.
Eurasia has always been at war with Oceania.
Eurasia has always been allied with Oceania.

Duke W. Nukem, Part 2

Brian Reynolds Myers -- whom I was familiar with only through his brilliant polemic "A Reader's Manifesto" -- has an article at OpinionJournal explaining why the South Koreans aren't particularly happy with our efforts to "protect" them from North Korea. This lends even more support to the policy (which I support) that we should disengage from the Korean situation: withdraw all our military forces immediately, with a clear statement that we have no further commitment to giving military (or other governmental) aid to South Korea.

It is absolutely insane to have military forces to "protect" or "help" people who do not want our protection or help, whether in Korea or Iraq. Anyone who espouses such a policy is either an idiot or a liar, depending on whether or not he believes what he says. (And it is immoral to use military force for any reason other than to protect people.)