House of Eratosthenes

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.”

Rhodes’ words echoed a description by national security adviser Tom Donilon in a briefing with reporters two weeks ago as the administration contemplated action in Libya. “Military steps — and they can be kinetic and non-kinetic, obviously the full range — are not the only method by which we and the international community are pressuring Gadhafi,” Donilon said.

Rhodes and Donilon are by no means alone. “Kinetic” is heard in a lot of descriptions of what’s going on in Libya. “As we are successful in suppressing the [Libyan] air defenses, the level of kinetic activity should decline,” Defense Secretary Robert Gates said in a meeting with reporters in Moscow Tuesday. In a briefing with reporters the same day from on board the USS Mount Whitney, Admiral Samuel Locklear, commander of Joint Task Force Odyssey Dawn, said, “The coalition brings together a wide array of capabilities that allow us to minimize the collateral damage when we have to take kinetic operations.” On Monday, General Carter Ham, head of U.S. Africa Command, said of the coalition forces, “We possess certainly a very significant kinetic capability.” And unnamed sources use it too. “In terms of the heavy kinetic portion of this military action, the president envisions it as lasting days, not weeks,” an unnamed senior official told CNN Saturday.

Like I was just telling you: The election of 2008 went exactly the way it was supposed to go. We got together and chose the candidate with the greatest salesmanship ability, hoping that this would reflect the very best the nation would have to offer — and it worked. We’ve got a “leader” who can sell anything to anybody.

That’s the problem.

His policies are absolutely wretched, since there’s no need for them to to be well-thought-out, good, quality policies. There would be effort involved in that. If it was a requirement, which it isn’t. Forget about selling ice to Eskimos. Forget about selling that ice to living snowmen. This guy could sell them hairdryers.

Awesome salesman == reprehensible policies. Not a new formula by any means.

It sounds Clintonesque.

“It’s not sex, it’s rapid pelvic movement.”
- Rich Fader | 03/24/2011 @ 10:26
Now Rich, that all depends on what the definition of the word “is” is. 🙂

And you know, a lot of kinetic energy is produced when you launch a tomahawk missile, and yet more is produced when the thing actually explodes. Things flyin’ everywhere. So, see, they got theirthemselves one of them … “point” thingies.

Are you dropping bombs? Shooting things? Blowing things up? And your not involved in mining? Or huntin’ game?

Kinda sounds like “war” to me. But what do I know. I’m just a dumb … what was that word again? Starts with a “T”.

Oh yeah. “Tea Partier”. That thar’s two wurds, ain’ it?

One thing we know for sure now. Apparently Peace is not “the answer”, either.
- philmon | 03/24/2011 @ 19:04
A bowel movement is afoot
🙄
- Kini | 03/25/2011 @ 00:31
Kinda sounds like “war” to me. But what do I know. I’m just a dumb … what was that word again? Starts with a “T”.

Not so fast, Philmon. I have heard that the military actually has a category labeled, “Conflicts Other Than War.”

It’s a legal distinction. Using it, the last true war that this country fought was World War II, noting that Dec 8,1941 was the last time that Congress actually issued an official declaration of war against a foreign country. The closest we’ve come since then was the joint resolution that Bush obtained prior to invading Iraq in 2003, and probably a few other times before that.

All the other uses of the US military – Korea, Vietnam, Desert Storm, Operation Just Cause (Panama 1992) and so forth…have been termed “police actions” or some other variant on “conflicts other than war.” It is my understanding that the president does have the authority – or at least he claims to have it – to deploy American military assets outside of an actual wartime declaration. At least in the short term…and Obama is hardly the first president to so deploy.

This is, of course, not to be confused with defending the Libyan action on its merits, and a lot of good questions are still looking for answers – what’s the endgame, why are we doing this, what do we really know about these “rebels,” why is it Obama found time to ask the UN but not Congress, and so forth. (It smacks of all the rudderless, pointless entanglements Clinton got us into back in the 90s.) I’m just sayin’…officially at least, it’s not a “war” just because ordnance was expended or aircraft got sent on sorties or even always when troops got deployed.
- cylarz | 03/25/2011 @ 02:51
Yup. That’s right. It’s a legal distinction. Like it’s a legal distinction that it was McDonalds’ fault that the lady scalded her lap with MacDonalds coffee.

Doesn’t mean it’s not war.

As a thought experiment, imagine if you transported King Arthur in time, and there he was, suddenly animated, standing there in Tripoli when the bombs started falling.

“No, no, sire, it’s not a war. It’s a humanitarian kinetic action.”

Nonsense.

Here’s another thought experiment. Imagine a Republican were in the White House and started this “kinetic action”.

Would the Left call it “war”?

You bet your ass they would.
- philmon | 03/25/2011 @ 06:37
You know, I’m not even really saying big “O” isn’t completely in the right here.

But all the “WAR is NOT the answer”, “No Blood for Oil”, and “Iraq did not attack us” crap that got him in there, and here we are attacking an oil country that did not attack us with bombs and such under the very guy who was supposed to be “saving” us from all that “unilateral” action.

What it does is expose the duplicity of the Left (now it is true that there are those on the far left that are very upset by all this… but not your rank and file Democrats who were only too happy to cater to them over the last two election cycles) “Y’all’r sadistic, racist, war-mongering people only interested in cheap oil and profit ’cause you’re droppin’ bombs on brown people”.

Mmmm. And what are you doing?

“Oh, it’s a humanitarian kinetic military action. It’s totally different.”

And its this very kind of obfuscating language that they employ as a matter of course that allows them to get away with it. I’m just callin’ ’em on it.
- philmon | 03/25/2011 @ 06:46
You’re absolutely correct on all counts with those last 2 posts, Philmon, and I’m sorry if I came across as splitting hairs.
- cylarz | 03/25/2011 @ 12:30
No biggie, cylarz — I was just making sure nobody misunderstood my point. 🙂
- philmon | 03/25/2011 @ 13:00

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“Kinetic Military Action”Thursday, March 24th, 2011

“Kinetic Military Action”
Thursday, March 24th, 2011