Farrakhan's Fighting Words Against Obama

Nation of Islam Leader Rev. Louis Farrakhan issued a less than thinly-veiled threat against President Barack Hussein Obama for his decision to authorize American air strikes against forces fighting to defend Qaddafi's grip on power in Libya during an appearance on Chicago radio talk show host Cliff Kelley's show. Farrakhan, a fellow Chicagoan who has spoken approvingly of Obama, has been a closer friend and ally of Qaddafi for an even longer time. I agree we should stay the hell out of Libya but for quite different reasons than those expressed by Qaddafi. Farrakhan warns of a bloody civil war in our own country if Obama is not careful with "how he manipulates the dissatisfaction in Libya and elsewhere around the world." "Who the hell do you think you are?" Farrakhan asks of Obama's opinion Qaddafi should step aside. He suggested Obama was on the virge of ruining his own future in this country as President.

Jonathan Turley more closely reflects my view towards intervention in Libya:

At a time when the American people overwhelmingly oppose our continued military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq, President Obama has responded by committing the United States to another war. Today, the U.S. attacked Libyan forces with over a hundred cruise missiles hitting the capitol and surrounding areas. With the two wars already draining the United States of billions a day, these cruise missile attacks alone will cost hundreds of millions in both the equipment and commitment of forces.

While we go to war against Libya for its crackdown on democratic reformers and protesters, the United States continues to support its allies like Bahrain and Saudi Arabia (which have unleashed tanks on protesters). What is the principled line determining when we go to war to support protesters or reformers? Will the same line apply to our allies?  

Here is what Obama has stated today: ”Today we are part of a broad coalition. We are answering the calls of a threatened people. And we are acting in the interests of the United States and the world . . .”

We are now going to war in a country which seems to be experiencing a civil war. It is also a country that greeted the mastermind of the PanAm terrorist attack as a national hero. Finally, we are once again going to war without a declaration of war. While the Framers were quite clear about the need for a declaration, we are once again simply circumventing that inconvenient principle. The same Democrats who insisted that they were misled in using a resolution to start the Iraq War are again standing silent in the face of another President committing this country to war without a declaration. I consider bombing the capitol city of a nation to be an act of war.

I seriously doubt that the majority of Americans are opposed to the other two wars but would want to go fight in Libya.

While we are clearly not committing to a ground conflict, this is a move that is clearly opposed to the public’s desire to end this foreign military entanglements — and not to add new ones. The political disconnect over these wars is both distressing and dangerous for a system that, while a representative democracy, is still based on the notion of responsiveness to the voters.