Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Legal Commentary Blogs -> Althouse

Legal Commentary

: Althouse

"Did you notice Obama kept using the words 'hope' and 'change' in the address on military action in Libya?"

That's an IM from my son Chris. Here's the text of the speech. 4 "hope"s. 9 "change"s.

What Meade noticed was the failure to talk about Congress. Searching the text, I see he said Congress once:

[N]ine days ago, after consulting the bipartisan leadership of Congress, I authorized military action to stop the killing and enforce UN Security Council Resolution 1973.

So... the leadership. Who, exactly? Boehner and Reid?

What I noticed was the implicit disrespect for George Bush:

In this effort, the United States has not acted alone....

When did we act alone? Is he trying to make us misremember what Bush did? 

Going forward, the lead in enforcing the No Fly Zone and protecting civilians on the ground will transition to our allies and partners, and I am fully confident that our coalition will keep the pressure on Gadhafi's remaining forces....

How clean and breezy, compared to what Bush did to Saddam.

And while the United States will do our part to help, it will be a task for the international community, and ? more importantly ? a task for the Libyan people themselves....

We .. had the ability to stop Gadhafi's forces in their tracks without putting American troops on the ground....

Of course, there is no question that Libya ? and the world ? will be better off with Gadhafi out of power. I, along with many other world leaders, have embraced that goal, and will actively pursue it through non-military means. But broadening our military mission to include regime change would be a mistake....

If we tried to overthrow Gadhafi by force, our coalition would splinter. We would likely have to put U.S. troops on the ground, or risk killing many civilians from the air. The dangers faced by our men and women in uniform would be far greater. So would the costs, and our share of the responsibility for what comes next.

The implicit comparison is to what Bush did in Iraq.

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

Now, it's explicit.

We have intervened to stop a massacre... We will... work with other nations to hasten the day when Gadhafi leaves power. It may not happen overnight, as a badly weakened Gadhafi tries desperately to hang on to power. But it should be clear to those around Gadaffi, and to every Libyan, that history is not on his side. With the time and space that we have provided for the Libyan people, they will be able to determine their own destiny, and that is how it should be.

Isn't that what the United States said to the Iraqi people after the Gulf War?

Full post as published by Althouse on March 28, 2011 (boomark / email).