西班牙斗牛士吉他谱17:Obama: Nobel prizewinner goes to war - Focus ...

来源：百度文库 编辑：九乡新闻网 时间：2024/05/01 02:12:32

Obama: Nobel prizewinner goes to war






Vigorously defending the first war launched on his watch, President Barack Obama declared Monday night that the United States intervened in Libya to prevent a slaughter of civilians that would have stained the world's conscience and "been a betrayal of who we are" as Americans. Yet he ruled out targeting Moammar Gadhafi, warning that trying to oust him militarily would be a mistake as costly as the war in Iraq.


1. Military intervention 'in America's interest'?

Seeking to justify military intervention, the president said the U.S. has "an important strategic interest in preventing Gadhafi from overrunning those who oppose him. A massacre would have driven thousands of additional refugees across Libya's borders, putting enormous strains on the peaceful - yet fragile - transitions in Egypt and Tunisia." He added: "I am convinced that a failure to act in Libya would have carried a far greater price for America."


Obama did not wait to make that case to Congress, despite his past statements that presidents should get congressional authorization before taking the country to war, absent a threat to the nation that cannot wait.


"The president does not have the power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation," he told The Boston Globe in 2007 in his presidential campaign. "History has shown us time and again ... that military action is most successful when it is authorized and supported by the legislative branch."


Obama's defense secretary, Robert Gates, said Sunday that the crisis in Libya "was not a vital national interest to the United States, but it was an interest."


Obama also said, "some nations may be able to turn a blind eye to atrocities in other countries. The United States of America is different. And as president, I refused to wait for the images of slaughter and mass graves before taking action."

Mass violence against civilians has also been escalating elsewhere, without any U.S. military intervention anticipated.

More than 1 million people have fled the Ivory Coast, where the U.N. says forces loyal to the incumbent leader, Laurent Gbagbo, have used heavy weapons against the population and more than 460 killings have been confirmed of supporters of the internationally recognized president, Alassane Ouattara.


The Obama administration says Gbagbo and Gadhafi have both lost their legitimacy to rule. But only one is under attack from the U.S.


Presidents typically pick their fights according to the crisis and circumstances at hand, not any consistent doctrine about when to use force in one place and not another. They have been criticized for doing so — by Obama himself.


In his pre-presidential book "The Audacity of Hope," Obama said the U.S. will lack international legitimacy if it intervenes militarily "without a well-articulated strategy that the public supports and the world understands."


He questioned: "Why invade Iraq and not North Korea or Myanmar? Why intervene in Bosnia and not Darfur?"


Now, such questions are coming at him.


2. Is it another Iraq war?

In his speech, Obama vowed to work with allies to hasten Gadhafi's exit from power but said he would not use force to topple him -- as former U.S. President George W. Bush did in ousting Saddam Hussein in the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.


"To be blunt, we went down that road in Iraq," Obama told an audience of military officers in Washington. "But regime change there took eight years, thousands of American and Iraqi lives, and nearly a trillion dollars. That is not something we can afford to repeat in Libya."


Obama did not specify how long U.S. forces would be involved and how they would eventually exit the conflict.


Asked Tuesday whether his concerns were addressed in Obama’s speech, House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) said, “Some of my questions were answered by the president, I think, but others were not.


“The fact that the plan appeared to be a humanitarian mission to stop the slaughter of innocent people in Libya is certainly something I think most of the Congress would support. But the second part of the plan is ‘We hope Gaddafi leaves.’ I just don’t think that that is a strategy,” Boehner said. “And when you listen to all of what’s going on and all the words, it really is about . . . hope. So if Gaddafi doesn’t leave, how long will NATO be there to enforce a no-fly zone? That’s a very troubling question.”


Richard Myers, former U.S. chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff, also doubted that the United States can really keep a limited role, as U.S. involvement in the past often "escalated."


Citing the example of Iraq, Myers said eight years after Saddam Hussein was forced out of power, the government largely formed by opposition is still weak and U.S. forces are still there.


"U.S. leaders don't seem to know much about the political dynamics in Libya or how the situation will likely turn out," said Ted Carpenter, expert with the Cato Institute.


"Perhaps most surprisingly -- and something that is very worrisome -- policy makers know little about the rebels the coalition is supporting, the tribal divisions in Libya, the possible geographic split between eastern and western Libya, and the extent of Islamist strength in that country. Any one of those factors could prove to be a big problem," he added.


3. America's role, how limited?

Obama: "Our most effective alliance, NATO, has taken command of the enforcement of the arms embargo and no-fly zone. ... 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. In that effort, the United States will play a supporting role."


As by far the pre-eminent player in NATO, and a nation historically reluctant to put its forces under operational foreign command, the United States will not be taking a back seat in the campaign even as its profile diminishes for public consumption.


NATO partners are bringing more into the fight. But the same "unique capabilities" that made the U.S. the inevitable leader out of the gate will continue to be in demand. They include a range of attack aircraft, refueling tankers that can keep aircraft airborne for lengthy periods, surveillance aircraft that can detect when Libyans even try to get a plane airborne, and, as Obama said, planes loaded with electronic gear that can gather intelligence or jam enemy communications and radars.


The United States supplies 22 percent of NATO's budget, almost as much as the next largest contributors — Britain and France — combined. A Canadian three-star general was selected to be in charge of all NATO operations in Libya. His boss, the commander of NATO's Allied Joint Force Command Naples, is an American admiral, and the admiral's boss is the supreme allied commander Europe, a post always held by an American.

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