As an antidote to partisan Republican mutterings that hope to confuse the Obama administration's current commitment to a limited American military action in Libya with the grievous mistakes of Little Bushie's protracted land war in Iraq, please consult this short list from Professor Juan Cole's Informed Comment site.

Here are the differences between George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the current United Nations action in Libya:

1. The action in Libya was authorized by the United Nations Security Council. That in Iraq was not. By the UN Charter, military action after 1945 should either come as self-defense or with UNSC authorization. Most countries in the world are signatories to the charter and bound by its provisions.

2. The Libyan people had risen up and thrown off the Qaddafi regime, with some 80-90 percent of the country having gone out of his hands before he started having tank commanders fire shells into peaceful crowds. It was this vast majority of the Libyan people that demanded the UN no-fly zone. In 2002-3 there was no similar popular movement against Saddam Hussein.

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This is the best thing on American politics I have read in a very long time.

The Surreal Politics of Premeditated War
by R.W. Behan

Published on Sunday, December 3, 2006 by CommonDreams.org
blogged here with the permission of the author R.W. Behan

George W. Bush, who proudly claimed the mantle of “war president,” was keenly rebuked in the recent mid-term election. The event was notable, but it merely continued the surreal politics of premeditated war—a politics that has dominated the last six bizarre, hideous years of our nation’s history.

PRESIDENT B

FREE IS EASY