Listen up people – President Obama and his mindless, power-hungry minions have a few short months left to tie us down and remove our freedoms. One area where he is desperate to solidify his liberal schemes is the take over of our nation’s independent and market based health care. Just this week a pliant judge apparently put the finishing touch on a hidden Obamacare ‘feature’ that forces senior citizens into Obamacare, or else lose their Social Security. Worse yet, if they do not enter into Obamacare, they will be forced to pay back all social security benefits received to date:

Yet last week, federal Judge Rosemary Collyer did just that.

The ruling has ominous implications for ObamaCare, enacted one year ago but not yet in full effect: This decision would allow the “health reform” law to become even more Orwellian than it already is, without any action from Congress.

In a case where I served as chief attorney for the plaintiffs, Judge Collyer allowed to stand three internal rules of the Social Security Administration that make receipt of Social Security retirement benefits contingent upon enrollment in Medicare. Plus, a person who withdraws from Medicare would not only have to give up Social Security retirement benefits, but repay all benefits previously received.

All the plaintiffs had paid into Social Security and Medicare throughout their working lives. They were eligible for both programs, but they didn’t want to enroll in Medicare because they had their own savings and health-insurance programs that they preferred.

…

Indeed, all seniors now must enroll in Medicare, Part A, whether they want it or not. If they don’t, their Social Security retirement benefits will be taken from them.

Now to understand how desperate these bureaucrats are to force people into Obamacare, it is important to understand how illegal this specious penalty is, and how out of bounds the judge’s ruling is.

You cannot be penalized for past actions that were performed under a different set of legal conditions:

An ex post facto law (from the Latin for “from after the action”) or retroactive law is a law that retroactively changes the legal consequences (or status) of actions committed or relationships that existed prior to the enactment of the law. … Ex post facto laws are expressly forbidden by the United States Constitution.

You would think these bureaucrats and the judge would know this basic tenant of US law. In fact, they probably do. The hope is to force so many people off their personally chosen health care and into Medicare (the precursor pool for Obamacare) that they can pull off the fiscal miracle they need. Without these forced ‘beneficiaries’ Obamacare is unable to pay for all its out of control promises.

I find it abhorrent anyone would be this callous and uncaring, but hey – they are liberals. What do we expect from self proclaimed, omnipotent, superior beings!

It is really time to take the gloves off here. This is an illegal act on the part of the administration and a rogue judge. We are going to have to enforce the rule of law on these lawless bureaucrats – or else let America die. When you have the CBO proposing all taxing travel (seems almost communist, doesn’t it) and some idiot state official wanting to tax toilet paper (bringing a whole new meaning to a shitty idea) we have to face facts. We have let politicians and bureaucrats skate around the rules while they impose ever more restrictive ones around our collective necks.

The answer to bloated and expensive government is to cut out the waste – which means everything we could live without.

When the state threatens senior citizens with life ending poverty, a line has been crossed. One of many crossed by the mad liberals now rampant in DC (Libya, Obamacare, Energy, Terrorism, National Debt/Deficits, etc). The House GOP better start getting their act together ASAP. We need hearings to expose all this madness in time for the 2012 election cycle.

Update: Ed Morrissey bores in on the endless stream of ‘dumb ideas’ from DC – like a travel tax. Question: Does that include my mileage on my bicycle trips? How about sail or power boat nautical miles?

Yes, I have been obsessed with the disgusting trashing of our Constitution as Emperor Obama ignited an uprising in Libya, and then pretended an emergency existed that required we protect the rebels he so cleverly manipulated into open, armed action in the first place. Post upon post upon post have communicated my concerns and why this is not a time for complacent rationalization and inaction.

But as usual, I spend too much time and too many words discussing a very simple and basic problem, unlike others who distill it down to the essence of absurdity it really is:

Let me ask President Obama … to define “civilian” for me. What does it mean, folks? Does it include fairly well organized groups of Libyans attacking in formation with machine guns mounted on flatbed pick-up trucks?

…

As far as the authorizing UN resolution and President Obama have said, the mission is to protect civilians. This is a humanitarian action. But the civilians compose a political opposition locked in a literally life-and-death struggle with a frightened and ruthless regime—and it was the opposition, let us remember, that started this fight last month.

Excellent focus here. If al Qaeda was able to ignite a terrorist uprising here in the US, using US citizens, could they then claim to be protecting US citizens against our oppressive law enforcement efforts? Of course we are not Qadaffi, nor are we frightened. But in all actions one must assess the precedence that may be established, and challenge the ‘logic’ to see if there are serious flaws. In when applied to other examples, the exaggerated claims behind this action become starkly ridiculous.

This is why we have checks and balances. This is why Presidents must come to Congress (not the UN or the Arab League) to use our vast military might against others on this planet.

The flim-flam game being played here, with its Goebbels-like propaganda, is stunning. There is no humanitarian aid, we are just in a civil war with a group of rag tag Muslims from a different tribe than Qadaffis. There is no putting lipstick on this pig folks.

Time now for the Congressional hearings to begin.

Americans don’t like their intelligence insulted. And right now blundering team Obama is shotgunning alibis and excuses so fast that they sound more like a kid caught doing something they promised their parents they would never do, instead of leading some mythical and pure humanitarian rescue. Every parent right now is cringing over the lameness of the BS dripping from DC.

For example, is trying not to say the word ‘war’ by replacing it with ever more twisted euphemisms really going to remove the illegal and immoral taint that soaks this staged attack on Libya?

In the last few days, Obama administration officials have frequently faced the question: Is the fighting in Libya a war? From military officers to White House spokesmen up to the president himself, the answer is no. But that leaves the question: What is it?

In a briefing on board Air Force One Wednesday, deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes took a crack at an answer. “I think what we are doing is enforcing a resolution that has a very clear set of goals, which is protecting the Libyan people, averting a humanitarian crisis, and setting up a no-fly zone,” Rhodes said. “Obviously that involves kinetic military action, particularly on the front end.”

Are we using bombs and missiles to force Libayns to shuffle off their mortal coils prematurely? Are we using deadly coercion to accelerate the demise of homo sapien sapiens on the surface of planet Earth?

Or are we executing mass killings using overwhelming military force to kill people with stand off weapons. Are the sands of Libya red with the life blood of people?

This is pathetic and disturbing. It is clear Obama and his 3 EU Amigos have violated the UN Charter and the US Constitution in instigating the uprising in Libya, and then claiming they have no choice but to militarily come to the aid of the people they instigated into an insane and doomed uprising. Circular reasoning at its finest and most blatant.

The level of unease is rising here in the US, rising to a level of concern and disgust as more and more coherent challenges are voiced in response to the lame PR muttered incoherently across the halls of DC. For example, who can argue with these sentiments:

On Saturday I had space to flag the basic difficulty of the allied Libya “strategy,” namely, that it is no strategy at all, and we don’t know what we’re doing. We cannot articulate what we want to achieve, beyond preventing the “humanitarian disaster” to which we are now substantially contributing. Western statesmen can’t even agree if they want Gadhafi to be gone. Nor, apparently, have their generals been briefed coherently on the purpose of this war. They could not even explain if missile strikes on Gadhafi’s compound were intended to hurt him.

We are realizing the ship of state is being run by a ship of fools. How hard is to simply get on message? But it much worse than lousy message control. We have been duped and are now exposed:

Russia and China waived their vetoes on the Security Council, granting us permission to score an own goal, then immediately launched their rhetorical opposition. The Arab League has said it never approved of bombing, just “no fly.”

We have lost the meager international support this mad endeavor was supposedly founded on. So now we have to investigate what went wrong and why checks and balances were unconstitutionally tossed aside in a rush to ‘do something’. Now we have burning questions that are brutal and precise – just the opposite of how this action has been executed:

His homecoming gift is a barrage of questions about the military action Obama aides refuse to label a “war.”

…

As attacks on Libya entered their fifth day, American aircraft have been increasingly bearing the brunt of front-line combat operations – flying 113 of the 175 sorties conducted over the last 24 hours — despite repeated assurances from the White House and State Department that the U.S. was about to take a back seat.

The Obama administration prides itself on moving quickly in times of crisis, but this time they have moved so quickly to counter Qadhafi’s threat to rebels they were forced to create a command structure “on the fly,” in the words of Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

The problem is that U.S. partners – France, Britain and Turkey – have spent the past two days squabbling about a new organizational structure to replace what Obama calls the U.S.’s “unique” capacity to quarterback command-and-control functions.

In other words, we’re ready to turn in the rental car, but can’t find anyone to take the keys and contract.

To summarize, is there even an exit available, let alone a strategy to use it? Worse yet – who’s in charge?

“It is very dangerous to have confusion about command and control. If people’s lives are at risk and you’re using military forces, you need to have a rather clear understanding as to who’s in charge and who’s making the decisions,” former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who knows a thing or two about the hazards of poor planning, told POLITICO.

“And these unusual debates that are taking place about who’s going to be in command, what military official is going to be in command, which country, I think has to be worrisome for people.”

….

While the U.S. is insisting NATO take charge, France, with an assist from Turkey, has thus far blocked NATO from assuming overall command of the mission.

The French argument: A NATO takeover would westernize the effort, discouraging already nervous Arab League countries from stepping up to take combat risks and to defray no-fly zone costs, estimated to be as high $100 million per month.

What? This whole Libya thing was actually concocted and created in the West? Are the French really that clueless?

This is getting so bad there is no choice now but for leadership in Congress to either step up to their oaths and protect this nation and our Constitution from this bumbling rabble – or else pay the price for being spectators as we allow some liberal know-nothings to send us into a quagmire filled with Islamist land mines. Time to call Obama to the carpet on this one.

Update: Ed Morrissey dives into the “kinetic action” lunacy.

Tags: Congress, France, Libay, Obama, Turkey

Juxtaposition – a wonderful yet underestimated concept. Also sometimes known as “split-screen optics”. It can be really damning, like today. It seems the NEA is the only group in America actually at war – and of course they are at war with America:

Though reasonable arguments can be made that the collective bargaining measures in Wisconsin, Ohio and Idaho aren’t significantly different from the status quo in other states, there should be no mistake about it – NEA sees them as a threat to its very existence.

…

“We are at war,” incoming NEA executive director John Stocks told the union’s board of directors last month, outlining a plan to keep NEA from joining the private sector industrial unions in a slow, steady decline into irrelevancy to anyone outside the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee. And like any good war plan for an army under siege, it allows for a defense-in-depth while preparing for a decisive counterattack.

Which means the NEA has a better war plan against the rest of the nation and our fiscal needs than President Obama has against Libya:

Adm. Gary Roughead, the Chief of Naval Operations, said that he has received no guidance on the path ahead for command and control of the no-fly zone, no-drive zone, no-sail zone, arms embargo enforcement, and any other missions currently being managed by U.S. Africom Commander Gen. Carter Ham, who is in Germany. NATO has been battling internally over whether to take command, while the French government’s latest proposal is to set up a “political steering committee” made of Western and Arab foreign ministers…

Geez, should we hand over Libyan operations to elementary school teachers?

Oh the humanity!

Tags: Libya, Obama, Teachers Unions, Wisconsin

It seems the world is learning what it means to institute military action under the umbrella of the “international community”, as opposed to the tried and true American-led coalitions we have seen for the last three decades. President Obama’s naive and lazy approach to this entire debacle has underlined why some real leadership experience is not just a ‘nice to have’. Especially in a President.

As I noted yesterday, the entire endeavor was not only ill conceived, but illegal. The UN violated its charter, and Obama violated the US Constitution.

Some may not know it, but this is not the first time Emperor Obama has discarded the rule of law to flex his limp muscles. He has also initiated an assassination order against a US citizen without bothering with a trial and verdict. Thus Emporer Obama has declared himself judge, jury and executioner (via Executive Order) of a US Citizen who has clearly become a traitor. The target is so clearly a traitor it would seem only laziness bars Emperor Obama from upholding the constitution, obtaining a guilty verdict on treason and sedition – and then ordering the hit.

Or is it truly another sign of the depth of which Obama is in over his head?

The headlines today are looking horrible for Obama. Just look at the top bullets in this one UK Article:

• Who’s in charge? Germans pull forces out of NATO as Libyan coalition falls apart
• # Tensions with Britain as Gates rebukes UK government over suggestion Gaddafi could be assassinated
• # French propose a new political ‘committee’ to oversee operations
• # Germany pulls equipment out of NATO coalition over disagreement over campaign’s direction
• # Italians accuse French of backing NATO in exchange for oil contracts
• # No-fly zone called into question after first wave of strikes ‘neutralises’ Libyan military machine
• # U.K. ministers say war could last ’30 years’
• # Italy to ‘take back control’ of bases used by allies unless NATO leadership put in charge of the mission
• # Russians tell U.S. to stop bombing in order to protect civilians – calls bombing a ‘crusade’

Goodness, if this had been a war against a strong enemy we would be at risk of losing outright.

Even worse, word started spreading that the rebel strongholds we are protecting where also the source of Jihadi fighters sent to Iraq and Afghanistan to kill our people and terrorize the locals. Is the incompetence so deep here that the Three Amigos (Sarkozy, Cameron and Obama) did not know who they were providing Humanitarian Aid to?

I really hate to say this, but this much digression from the rule of law begs for an impeachment process. It needs to happen at least through the House stage – the investigative/indictment stage.

A serious line has been crossed here. There is no way to avoid facing the fact we need to go through the process of determining whether the President has the freedom to bypass the procedures in the Constitution at a whim or not. Emperor Obama’s acts are now so egregious and obvious he demands the nation to call his bluff.

Lack of action now means surrendering our country. This debacle is the best example of unchecked power we have seen in recent memory. If we want checks on the powerful so they cannot use all us normal folks as pawns and cannon fodder, now is the time, the event, to take a stand.

Update: Yep, we are now aligned with Al Qaeda’s goals. We have hit an all new level of FUBAR!

Tags: Impeachment, Libya, President Obama, UN Charter, US Constitution

America has lost its moral compass over Libya. I watched The Factor last night (probably for the last time) and reacted in revulsion as Bill O’Reilly made the same claim all dictators and mass murderers begin with – the end justifies the means. He went on and on about the Lockerbie bombing, a terrorist act from over two decades ago, and how this act was sufficient reason to trash the UN’s Charter and America’s Constitution.

Short sighted, arrogant and stupid. And then to watch someone I admire follow ‘Ol Bill down the tubes (Karl Rove) I realized that America had lost its moral bearing in another slickly crafted ride down the slippery slope.

As I mentioned before, the Libyan emergency was ignited by loose lips in Berlin, Paris, London and Washington DC. The leaders of these so called beacons of democracy called for Qadaffi to step down – in essence giving the green light for protesters to turn into armed rebels. George H. W. Bush made this same mistake once in Iraq, igniting an uprising in the South which culminated in a bloody crack down by Saddam Hussein while we sat by and watched the carnage.

Sadly, President Bush knew better than to compound his loose lips mistake with military invasion of a sovereign country. I knew it probably ate his soul to see what transpired. He had hoped the masses would be strong enough to throw off the tyrant. Sadly we have not learned much from Nazi Germany, Communist Russia and China, Pol Pot, Hussein, the Balkans and every other example of totalitarian rule. A strong and brutal leader can easily muster enough carnage to hold back the people of Main Street.

Today it seems even easier to stand by and watch the country so many fought and died for disappear in a sea of inaction. Let me be clear here, the manufactured (accidentally or deliberately) calamity in Libya is not sufficient excuse to throw out our constitution. There is no end that justifies assassinating our country. Mass murderers, child rapists, greedy businessmen and terrorists have all been dealt with under our constitution. The mess in Libya is not a legitimate exception.

The Washington Times has a good read on this, at least from violating the UN Charter:

Under its own rules, however, the United Nations cannot legally authorize military action to shape the internal affairs of member states. Article 2 section 7 of the U.N. charter states that, “Nothing contained in the present Charter shall authorize the United Nations to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state or shall require the Members to submit such matters to settlement under the present Charter.” Chapter VII of the charter, which enumerates U.N. intervention powers, applies only to international breaches of the peace. The December 1981 U.N. “Declaration on the Inadmissibility of Intervention and Interference in the Internal Affairs of States” reaffirmed this principle with its solemn declaration that, “No State or group of States has the right to intervene or interfere in any form or for any reason whatsoever in the internal and external affairs of other States.”

That’s right sports fans, UN Resolution 1973 authorizing military bombardment in Libya is illegal. Except there is no UN Supreme Court to take this violation to, nor are there any other checks or balances on the UN. It just rewrote its rules by fiat in a rush to fix a mess started by France, Germany, Britain and American leaders. Just because these loose lips ignited the carnage does not mean they can use the UN to take over Libya. But that is what is happening.

And then what? We don’t even know what the rebels are fighting for!

Worst yet, President Obama (supposed law professor) used an improper UN resolution to illegally commit our nation to war without due process or due cause. There was no imminent threat to the US or its citizens, the imminent threat was to the Libyan rebels. Therefore there is no way to invoke the war powers act. Thus Obama had to go to Congress to get support for this bombardment of a sovereign nation.

I tend to agree on many fronts with Josh Marshall at TPM on this:

It’s not clear to me how the best case scenario can be anything more than our maintaining a safe haven in Benghazi for the people who were about to be crushed because they’d participated in a failed rebellion. So Qaddafi reclaims his rule over all of Libya except this one city which has no government or apparent hope of anything better than permanent limbo. Where do we go with that?

…

I’ve heard people saying well, we took too long to stop the ethnic cleansing in the Balkans and we didn’t lift a finger to stop the genocide in Rwanda, so let’s not make the same mistake this time. But these seem like preposterous comparisons. This is ugly and it’s brutal but a lot of people getting killed in a failed rebellion isn’t genocide. It’s not.

…

So let’s review: No clear national or even humanitarian interest for military intervention. Intervening well past the point where our intervention can have a decisive effect. And finally, intervening under circumstances in which the reviled autocrat seems to hold the strategic initiative against us. This all strikes me as a very bad footing to go in on.

…

But it strikes me as a mess, poorly conceived, ginned up by folks with their own weird agendas, carried out at a point well past the point that it was going to accomplish anything. Just all really bad.

This is why we have checks and balances. This is why a President cannot play Emperor of the Free World and use our military on ill conceived ideas. This is why the UN Charter does not allow for vigilante groups forming and destroying their neighbors on concocted incidents. This is why there is a cool down period for the President to come forward to the People’s Representatives to make his case and get a vote of support.

Sadly we have allowed an impending massacre of protesters turned rebels to throw out our Constitution in a rush to CYA loose talk from a few weeks ago. There is no uglier way to lose our nation than at the hands of incompetent buffoons. Congress needs to step in and demand the administration follow the due process and scrutiny required to make sure we don’t randomly and carelessly destroy human lives. Obama at one time understood the restrictions on a President to wage war. He threw that understanding to floor this week, demonstrating once again why inexperience can be so damaging.

We cannot let the goal of removing Qadaffi to be an excuse to throw out what makes our country unique. Once you make exceptions there is no putting that Genie back in the lamp. If Karl Rove has succumbed, then I don’t see how we can reverse this run down the slippery slope.

We may look back on this moment and see when it all fell apart finally.

Which leads me to what are clearly impeachable offenses (which does not mean we need to initiate an impeachment process). I hate impeachment and recalls because they eat away at our democracy. They should be used in rare and extraordinary situations (not lying about affairs). But if there ever was an incident were the President violated his oath to uphold the Constitution – this is it. I am not there yet, but I can see why it would not be a bad move. Something has to pull us back from the brink here.

Update: We are already seeing mission creep, where we have moved from defending civilians to participating in the rebellion as partners:

Allied forces expanded their air campaign over Libya to thwart Muammar Qaddafi’s fighters and enable rebels to regain control of cities, as leaders debated who should be in overall control of the operation.

We are at war in a country we have no business being in.

Addendum: And don’t even get me started about how a legacy-obsessed Secretary of State orchestrated her Swan Song exit. We have all been manipulated by egos so large they can’t help but remind us why the founders of America limited the role of government in the first place.

Update: When Russia makes more sense than our liberal leaders, you know it is bad.

Tags: Impeachment, Libay, UN Charter, US Constitution

The Sunday talk shows are meant to be the ‘world stage’ were the reigning politicians parade around their reasons and rationales for current policies. Today, the Obama administration paraded out how deeply clueless they are on Libya:

Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen, in a series of Sunday morning television interviews, stressed that the U.S. military mission in Libya is “limited.”

But he also indicated that based on his orders from President Barack Obama, the mission can be considered “accomplished,” even while Moammar Qadhafi remains in power.

As I noted earlier, the implied purpose for all of this was to remove Qadaffi from power, but apparently not anymore. Before the first weekend of the war is completed our firm and resolute young president has once again changed his mind. Something he apparently does many times a day.

It seems someone in the White House thought it might be a good political move to start a war against an evil enemy to shore up Obama’s image. An image which is in tatters due to his screwing up the economy and sending the nation spiraling into endless debt. And image being eroded due to his restricting access to our own energy resources so that we now are suffering through another energy crisis. An image on display when his party took historical losses in the midterm elections.

Not to mention the fact his recent lack of a caring and determined response on Japan has exposed his inner coldness and self absorption.

It would seem some genius thought the leader of the Peacenik Party should set up an evil (Muslim) straw-man enemy for the Warrior Obama to knock down.

The strategy was simple. First, you exploit the revolutionary streak currently washing across the Arab world to ignite the sleeping opposition – possibly with help from in-country intelligence assets to affirm the Wests’ willingness to provide military support. You do this by signaling, along with other world leaders, the demand that Qadaffi must step down.

Following criticism over its response to the Libyan crisis last week – and after sidestepping the question as recently as Friday – the Obama administration on Saturday for the first time called unambiguously for Muammar Gaddafi to step down.

On this signal civil protests then turn into rebellion and civil war. As the dictator Qadaffi fails to fall from power, he gathers his forces and nearly wipes out the rebels. Thus an international incident is created. The UN votes to fight Qadaffi and the next thing you know America is in another war.

The final spin is how Qadaffi is actually and enemy in the war on terror. This propaganda piece from the NY Times is riddled with BS and misinformation (or is it mis-recollection of historic events), but it completes the picture painted by the Obama administration and the EU to portray Qadaffi as an immediate threat to America – something he was not a month ago.

Asked if American officials feared whether Colonel Qaddafi could open a new terrorism front, Mr. Brennan said: “Qaddafi has the penchant to do things of a very concerning nature. We have to anticipate and be prepared for things he might try to do to flout the will of the international community.”

Among the threats the United States is focusing on is Libya’s stockpile of deadly mustard gas, he said.

Note the lack of any thing specific, just a bad feeling. When did US military action become triggered by unsubstantiated concerns? At least President Bush had evidence of WMDs in Iraq (as in actual weapons). It gets worse. The Time piece mixes it history to pretend Qadaffi had recently become a terrorist, when in fact he was more ally than anything else, since his turn during the Iraqi invasion:

After renouncing its nascent nuclear weapons program in 2003, and enjoying a brief interlude as Washington’s partner in combating Al Qaeda’s branch in North Africa, Libya has reverted to its status as a pariah government whose intelligence operatives blew up Pan Am Flight 103 above Scotland in 1988.

Emphasis mine. That last bit of awkward propaganda is a serious ‘tell‘ about what is really going on here. To connect the 1988 bombing of a passenger airline to Libya since 2003 is an enormous and transparent stretch. This is coming from the White House and dutifully put out by the suppliant NY Times.

The White House has figured out it has stepped into a political nightmare, where it has rattled its left wing base. So it can only find legitimacy with the Hawks – where there will be no great applause for getting America into another war. This is not a war to defend America, no matter how much Obama’s minions gin up the NY Times cheerleaders.

The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were due to direct attacks on America and Americans. We paid a heavy price to turn al Qaeda from being the future of Islam to being the enemy of main stream Islam.

Libya is not Afghanistan or Iraq. And it won’t fall in days, and it won’t fall quietly.

If you think GITMO is a rallying cry for Islamo Fascists, what do you think Libya will be? Typically capturing terrorists frustrates the forces of evil, but it is an expected part of their efforts. GITMO has never been that much of a rallying point – Iraq and Afghanistan is what sticks in the craw of Osama Bin Laden. Invading another Muslim country – now that will rally the terrorists to the cause!

Update: Speaking of rallying cries:

There, hundreds of supporters offered themselves up as human shields, cheering to newly minted dance songs about their adoration for their leader. “House by house, alley by alley,” the catchiest song went, quoting a Qaddafi speech. “Disinfect the germs from each house and each room.”

The crowd included many women and children, and some said they had family in Colonel Qaddafi’s forces. They said they had come to protect Colonel Qaddafi’s compound from bombing by volunteering to be shields. “If they want to hit Muammar Qaddafi, they must hit us because we are all Muammar Qaddafi,” said Ghazad Muftah, a 52-year-old widow of a soldier from the Warfalla tribe, who said she was there with her six grown children.

Yeah, this will be a cake walk.

Update: LOL! Calls for Impeachement! From the left. And an update from Ed Morrissey on how America is killing Libyan soldiers.

Update: An excellent retrospective on how the White House stumbled into war:

When Muammar el-Qaddafi first struck back against protesters, Obama hoped that tough sanctions and material support to the opposition would be enough to force the dictator from power. Defense Secretary Robert Gates warned him that a “no fly zone” would be ineffective and essentially commit the country to war. By Monday night, it was clear to Obama that this policy wasn’t working. Countries like Iran were getting the wrong message. The Libyan military was selectively testing the patience of the world by striking opposition strongholds. The opposition was pinned down in the port city of Benghazi, swelled by tens of thousands of refugees. Qaddafi kept using a phrase that stuck in Obama’s head: “no mercy.” And France, smarting from seeming to abandon Egyptians during their time of trouble, along with the U.K., were champing at the bit to use force.

…

Gates wanted to game out scenarios, knowing that any effective no-fly zone would necessitate a cascade of other military actions that would look a heck of a lot like an invasion, no matter how carefully it was done.

None of this sounds like a morally sound reason to go to war – looks morr like a lot of bruised egos trying to ‘man up’.

Update: More sound reasoning that uncovers the reactionary thinking behind the war with Qadaffi.

Sarkozy’s France has, without consulting her European allies, already recognized the rebels in apparent control of Benghazi as an alternative government. No one else knows whom they are supporting, and in point of fact, the most promising internal opponents of Gadhafi’s regime are thuggish tribal chiefs and Islamist ideologues we have no reason to prefer to the monster with whom we are overfamiliar.

And as we have already seen, both the strength and ruthlessness of Gadhafi’s Libyan regime, after more than four decades in power, have been underestimated. We cannot foresee, even to the degree we could over Serbia in 1999, the likely results of our “experimental bombing.”

We don’t know what we are doing. We only know that we have moral support for it on paper, from an international organization that is utterly corrupt, wherein members who do not wish us well are pleased to grant us permission to blunder.

That about sums up this incompetent war. These people screwed up a national economy, an international emergency care effort (Japan) and produced historic losses for their party. We expect them to know how to wage war?

Update: This war reeks of hypocrisy

What I really despise to transparent lies. While I would very much like to see Qaddafi out of power, if the UN is planning on taking out military targets in Libya then it should stop pretending and just declare war. This crap about a ‘no-fly’ and ‘no-drive’ zone being imposed through targeted bombing is a farce.

And it insults the intelligence of Hawks and Peaceniks alike. The Hawks will not respect Obama’s Hillary-War simply because he waited for the UN to give him cover to make the hard decisions. Nor will the liberal left be snookered by the fact the US is imposing its will using massive blood shed.

War is war. It is horrible and bloody and final. Peace through strength is the best way to avoid the final option of war. Lame word-smithing, slippery labeling, etc insult those who must fight and die in the wars. How can we de-humanize the Libyan fight for freedom and our new role in it using such crass and immature labels? We are either fighting for a worthy goal or not.

A ‘no-fly’ zone is not a worthy goal. A ‘no-drive’ zone is even more pathetic. Freedom for the oppressed people of Libya is the minimal reason to blow bodies apart and destroy individuals and families alike.

Hillary may have gotten her chance to make a moral stand, but its morality is now lost behind the slippery and idiotic language of the UN.

I am, like a rapidly growing number of Americans, horrified by how incompetent and crass our young President is looking in the face of the historic natural tragedies unfolding in Japan. His first press conference on the matter this past weekend was terrible. He spent a few brief minutes spewing canned ‘concerns’ and then spent most of an hour talking gasoline and oil. Finally he awkwardly called on a Japanese reporter (in a lame effort at stagecraft) who asked him a softball question he still flubbed. I was hoping that was just a bad moment in a tough day, but since then President Obama has simply been stunningly detached and lost.

Many of us have experienced this jolting disgust with our leader. For example, this was in the Politico today:

With Japan’s nuclear crisis teetering on the verge of catastrophe, with Libya and Bahrain in violent turmoil, and with financial markets crashing in response, President Barack Obama has been adamantly sticking to his own political and policy playbook.

That has meant muscling past the red-siren headlines to hammer away at the jobs-and-education message that will be the centerpiece of his 2012 campaign, the kind of discipline that is a hallmark of his new senior adviser, David Plouffe.

And it also meant refusing to scrap a five-day trip to Latin America on Friday that will take him to sun-dappled Rio de Janeiro, among other places, rather than staying home to focus on the increasingly disastrous international news confronting his crisis-weary White House.

Is this discipline or fear based avoidance? Is this a strength, or a blaring warning sign that our incompetent-in-chief cannot act beyond his zone of self absorption? There are tens of thousands of people dead, millions without the basic necessities of shelter, food and water, and the triple whammy of earthquakes, tsunamis and nuclear reactor meltdowns – while a totally oblivious President Obama is golfing and making is final four picks.

Our president is AWOL at a moment of historic human devastation and suffering. His coolness has transformed from a level head into a person frozen in place by the sudden gap that has appeared between his skills and his responsibilities. I don’t think I have ever been so embarrassed by a national leader as I am right now. A massive humanitarian disaster is playing out and our President is taping his final four picks for ESPN.

You could never script such a monumental blunder as this.