Ted Rall for April 11, 2011

Mr. Rall, when Muammer Gadhafi bombs his own citizens, what would you have the world do?

In addition, the U.S. has joined an international effort. President Obama is hardly behaving like a military tyrant.

The US ruling class turns against its man Gadhafi cuz he and his gang of thugs can no longer control the working class of Libya. And so a new gang will be found who can do the job better!

Perhaps the point of the cartoon lies in the congress’s “Post consultation rubber stamp” inference rather than BamBam’s reaction to it.

jmattadams, well said.

Pavlov needs to check his facts. He may be referring to the 1973 War Powers Act. In 1973, an irate Congress passed the War Powers Act in response to President Lyndon Johnson and President Richard Nixon’s prosecution of the war in Vietnam without a congressional declaration. Under the War Powers Act, the president has 90 days after introducing troops into hostilities to obtain congressional approval of that action. It looks good on paper, but presidents have generally ignored the War Powers Act, citing Article II, Section 2 as their authority to send soldiers into combat. There is no restriction limiting his powers to the Marines, and there is no Constitutional limit to his powers as CIC of the Armed Forces.

jmattadams said; “Mr. Rall, when Saddam Hussein gases, tortures and slaughters his own people and invades other countries and ignores 17 UN Resolutions, what would you have the world do?”

You have the World not care at first then dust off the evidence from the attic twenty years later to justify the convenient war du jour?

Our mission in Libya is to help enforce a NATO-led no-fly zone. Bush-Dick’s intent in Iraq entailed sending in 100,000 troops to slaughter Iraqis and overrun the country.

The current mission in Libya has countries large and small, European & Arab, participating. The Republicans’ bloody boondoggle in Iraq involved 90% U.S. troops and money, 8% British, and 2% a handful of other nations.

These two situations are comparable only if you are really stupid.

jmattadams,

Bush Sr already played those cards in 1991.

Since when is imperialistic war hereditary? (that’s a joke)

Unless you want to rewrite 2 month old history already, France started the no fly zone bomblngs in Libya, joined by Britain, then the US.

Actually, there’s very little about Obama that is inconsistent with a LOT of other Democrat presidents…the only thing that a lot of libs are upset about is the “hope and change” thing that was immediately forgotten the moment he won the election.

With regard to Libya, there have been dozens of instances where bloody tyrants have blood-baths using their own human cattle that were a LOT worse than the one that’s happening in Libya, and all that happened was that the world yawned. The difference now, that I can see, is that with Libyans, they are light-skinned North Africans, and the OTHER places are populated with darker-skinned Africans, or there is an element of Muslims who want to slaughter their “kafir” population. When Muslims are slaughtering THEMSELVES, “naturally” we MUST stop it…

Plenty of other countries are killing their citizens, yet we’re not in them.

BrianCrook said “The current mission in Libya has countries large and small, European & Arab, participating. The Republicans’ bloody boondoggle in Iraq involved 90% U.S. troops and money, 8% British, and 2% a handful of other nations.”\

So there are more non-US jets flying than US? Good news indeed, the State Run Media has yet to publish that tidbit.

^ The US still has the largest number of aircraft active in Libya, but they are less than half the total.

From http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/factbox-nato-operations-against-libyas-gaddafi

The following NATO countries are participating for now in the alliance’s operation UNIFIED PROTECTOR, including approximate number of aircraft and maritime assets at their disposal (in brackets):

Belgium (6,0), Bulgaria (0,1), Canada (11,1), Denmark (4,0), France (33,1), Greece (2,1), Italy (16,4), Netherlands (7,1), Norway (6,0), Romania (0,1), Spain (6,2), Turkey (7,6), United Kingdom (17,2), United States (90,1)

If we are not trying to win, get out.

That’s all right, Tigger. I’m stil waiting for the arrest & trial of Bush-Dick.

Why did you vote for him TWICE???

^^ And Republicans read the “Constitution” aloud and said we should abide by it, while defending DOMA. Politicians contradict themselves often.

Actually, Tigger, Vice-President Biden didn’t say that. It’s no more true than Bush-Dick’s claim that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

Oh, and President Obama hasn’t started a war. Unlike Bush-Dick’s invasion of Iraq, Obama joined a coalition in order to protect lives, not slaughter people.

For whom did you vote in 2000, 2004, & 2008? In those first two elections, we both–and the nation–lost.

Oh, and by the way, even if Biden wanted to impeach Obama, he can’t. BIDEN IS THE VICE-PRESIDENT. IMPEACHMENTS START IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, which, by the way, is in Republican hands. Ask THEM why they haven’t begun impeachment hearings.

Churchill, As I recall, after the US, the next largest contingent of troops in the “coalition of the willing” was Great Britain with about 45,000 troops -which dropped to about 4,000 very quickly after the initial invasion, Australia with about 2000 (to our 150,000 +another 150,000 paid contractors). Then the remaining support troops from coalition countries were in the hundreds, not thousands.

The coalition consisted of every country whose arm the US could twist, with carrots or sticks. It was called the “Coalition of the Billing” by some, because we paid countries in foreign aid to put their name on the “Coalition list)—The descriptor, “Coalition” was more PR than functional…but it was clearly effective PR, because here you are touting the “48 countries in the coalition” as if it meant real support.