Libya

I recall that when Obama decided to go into Libya he was following the advice of three women. Hilary Clinton, Susan Rich and Samantha Powers. It was Powers who coined the phrase humanitarian hawk meaning that we could use military force to prevent the mass killing of civilians. In March of 2011 Obama gave a speech in which he outlined his reason for going into Libya. Obama was clear enough, to be sure, about why he chose to intervene in Libya. With Muammar Gaddafi’s army outside Benghazi, Obama said, the Libyan leader was prepared to commit “a massacre that would have reverberated across the region and stained the conscience of the world.” That would have been not just a moral abomination, the President argued, but also a strategic calamity that could have sent droves of refugees into Egypt and Tunisia, straining those countries’ fragile transitions; it would also have sent a message to other tyrants that “violence is the best strategy to cling to power.” Moreover, Obama said that to allow Gaddafi to defy the U.N. would be “crippling [to] its future credibility.” Less than one year after Libya Obama was faced with Syria. A dictator, who has killed thousands of his own people and sent millions into refugee camps in Jordan and Turkey, remains in power while Obama does nothing. The whole situation is very much like Libya including the UN’s credibility but we are reacting in a much different way. Does this send any kind of message