"A War By Any Name"

By ROSS DOUTHAT
Published: March 27, 2011


Tonight, in a speech that probably should have been delivered before American planes began flying missions over North Africa, Barack Obama will try to explain to a puzzled nation why we are at war with Libya.

Not that the word “war” will pass his lips, most likely. In press briefings last week, our Libyan campaign was euphemized into a “kinetic military action” and a “time-limited, scope-limited military action.” (The online parodies were merciless: “Make love, not time-limited, scope-limited military actions!” “Let slip the muzzled canine unit of kinetic military action!”) Advertising tonight’s address, the White House opted for “the situation in Libya,” which sounds less like a military intervention than a spin-off vehicle for the famous musclehead from MTV’s “Jersey Shore.”

But by any name or euphemism, the United States has gone to war, and there are questions that the president must answer...

It’s clear that not everyone in this White House thinks so. Defending the intervention on “Meet the Press” on Sunday, Robert Gates let slip that he believes that Libya is not a “vital interest” of the United States. President Obama’s most pressing task tonight will be to explain why his secretary of defense is wrong — and why, appearances to the contrary, the potential payoff from our Libyan war more than justifies the risks.



http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/28/opinion/28douthat.html?_r=1&ref=opinion

Read it and watch it here:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/03/28/remarks-president-address-nation-libya

http://www.whitehouse.gov/photos-and-video/video/2011/03/28/president-obama-s-speech-libya

But he's just a complaining dissident to you, I am sure.

The problem with Libya as well as Iraq and Afghanistan is that none of these "situations" are in our interests, and that these wars are literally breaking our nation just as the tentacles of the Roman Empire led to its demise.

Initiate a war tax now where banks, corporations and the rich should pay their share to the US Treasury towards the effort.

No one else.

A war tax for war hawks.

Tax the mother fu*ker foaming at the mouth to stop the "genocide" in Libya and Iraq and Afghanistan. Hit them in the pocketbook where it hurts, that should teach them.

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