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Politico...
‘Kinetic military
action’ or ‘war’?
By Jonathan Allen
3/24/11
Police action, conflict, hostilities and now “kinetic military action.”
They’re all euphemisms for that word that this White House and many
before it have been so careful not to say: War.
Administration officials told congressional aides in a closed briefing
earlier this week that the United States is not at war with Libya, and
Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes danced around the question
in a Wednesday exchange with reporters aboard Air Force One.
“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. But again, the nature of our commitment is that we are not
getting into an open-ended war, a land invasion in Libya.”
Those kind of verbal gymnastics to avoid calling a sustained bombing of
a foreign country a “war” aren’t flying with members of Congress.
“This is an act of war,” Rep. Don Manzullo (R-Ill.), a member of the
Foreign Affairs Committee told the Rockford Register Star. Speaker John
Boehner (R-Ohio), in a letter to the president on Wednesday, said that
he was “troubled that U.S. military resources were committed to a war”
without a clear goal — or the consent of Congress.
So while a United States-led coalition hammers Libya with Tomahawk
missiles and precision bombs in support of a rebel challenge to
strongman Muammar Qadhafi, a shadow war over the semantics of armed
conflict has erupted in the domestic political debate.
There’s even a peanut gallery: Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart headlined a
segment “America at not-war.”
Rep. Michael Capuano (D-Mass.) told the Dorchester Reporter that he and
his colleagues should have had an opportunity to weigh in on what he
said is definitely a “war.”
“I take the Constitution kind of seriously and it’s very clear. It
doesn’t presume I wouldn’t support it, but I don’t see how you can say
shelling an independent country is not an act of war,” Capuano said.
In an interview with POLITICO earlier this week, Republican Rep. Walter
Jones, who represents thousands of Marines deployed from Camp Lejeune
to support the current action in Libya, repeatedly referred to the
hostilities as “war.”
Barry Carter, an expert on international law at Georgetown University,
says that the word “war” has lost its meaning — and not just in recent
decades.
“The term war has really, in the last few centuries, become a very
subjective concept. People use it or don’t use it depending on the
circumstances. This isn’t just the U.S. It’s other countries,” he told
POLITICO, citing “legal, political or constitutional needs” that make
“war” a taboo term for many world leaders.
Read the rest of it at Politico
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