I’ve just begun reading Tom Brokaw’s latest book, The Time of Our Lives. Each chapter begins with a fact and a question followed by three sections termed the Past, Present and Promise covering such subjects as education, government and social considerations.
I was brought up short on page ten with this paragraph: “The seething of the underclass [Arab Spring?] spread to Libya, where Moammar Gadhafi responded with vicious military attacks on the insurgents that drew international condemnation and resulted in NATO military help for the Libyan rebels.” (bold face mine). Whoa! Libya was attacked via executive order almost exclusively by President Barack Hussein Obama, who announced while beginning a vacation in Brazil on 19 March that he had ordered Americans to bomb the bejesus out of Libya (military targets, but what do bombs know?).
There followed intensive bombing of Libya primarily by the United States for ten straight days at a cost of $55 million per day, after which NATO was supposed to take up the action with Obama “leading from behind,” explaining that the U.S would merely continue to “support” the effort, which he said would be over in days, not months. The effort lasted for seven months and the U.S. wound up providing the lion’s share of everything such as the ammo and logistics, not to mention actual warfare. Cost to the U.S.: $1.1 billion.
In other words, Brokaw grossly misrepresented the truth. The Libya affair was exclusively an Obama project from the get-go, for reasons apparently known only to him since Libya, population two million less than that of New York City, with a troop-strength of only 76,000, has never been a threat to the United States or NATO, which, like the Pentagon, wanted no part of the affair but, also like the Pentagon, was bullied into it. Defense Secretary Gates described Obama’s massacre as done “on the fly,” i.e. with no planning, certainly not by the Defense Department. Both he and Joint Chiefs Chairman Mullen publicly announced their opposition in a Congressional hearing before Obama did anything. The president overruled them.
Obama instigated his own attempt at genocide by executive order, completely bypassing Congress, which was not consulted. Instead, State Secretary Clinton, U.N. Ambassador Rice and White House apparatchik Samantha Power took the project to the United Nations and bullied that bunch of screwballs into approving a resolution to establish a no-fly zone (done in about four days) and the catch-all mandate, “use all means necessary short of foreign occupation to protect civilians.”
The women’s case ostensibly had to do with Qaddafi mistreating his people, an everyday occurrence in the Muslim countries throughout the Middle East. For instance, this is from Voice of America on 21 December, “The United Nations says at least 5,000 people have been killed during the nine-month uprising against the government of [Syrian president Bashar] al-Assad.” In the early 1980s, some 20,000 Syrians were killed by the government of Assad’s father, then the president. This is everyday stuff where Muslims kill each other over religious matters and deciding who will run the country! One wonders if Brokaw thinks another NATO action in Syria might be forthcoming. Perhaps he will ask Obama.
Did Brokaw drink the Kool-Aid concerning Libya? Not likely! He’s smarter than that. The logical conclusion is that he spread the propaganda provided by the White House in the willful destruction of a sovereign nation, never mind that Qaddafi was a tyrant. Most Muslim head honchos are tyrants. His misrepresenting of the Libya matter is on about the same level as that of Dan Rather, his counterpart at CBS at the time, in Rather’s monstrous lie in 2004 concerning George Bush and the Texas Air National Guard.
On page 13, Brokaw wrote this concerning Richard Nixon (or Tricky Dick, as Brokaw called him): “His oval office was a bunker stocked with illegal conspiracies and presidential high crimes and misdemeanors.” Nixon, besides never attacking another nation (Cambodian incursion in 1970 was to interdict supply routes during Vietnam War), finally did bring an end to the Vienam War. Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution requires that Congress declare war, but Obama made war against Libya without even consulting Congress. He committed a high crime or misdemeanor, and the War Powers Act was not a factor since Libya had not in any way threatened this nation.
This is the appropriate requirement of the War Powers Act of 1973 for the deployment of the military: “into situations where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances, and to the continued use of such forces in hostilities or in such situations.” The U.S. was not involved in any hostilities in Libya or anywhere near Libya when Obama ordered U.S. military action. When Congress declares war, the commander-in-chief prosecutes it, according to the Constitution. In the case of Libya, the United Nations declared war and President Obama prosecuted it. Shameful!
Brokaw, who no doubt took/takes pride in himself as an honest journalist, should have written that President Obama had committed an impeachable offense. Instead, he advanced the well-known agenda of NBC, his former employer, i.e., he provided cover for Obama. The U.S. didn’t even buy Libyan oil, but European NATO nations such as Britain and France did, so those nations had every reason not to disturb the status quo. To satisfy Obama, they spent their own resources for seven months…and for what? No one knows now who/what the government is in Libya.
Rewriting history is not attractive or honest. Brokaw should be ashamed.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
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