Pulitzer Prize Winning Iraq War Critic: 'All Obama Is Saying Is Give War A Chance'

Pulitzer Prize Winning Iraq War Critic: 'All Obama Is Saying Is Give War A Chance' By Noel Sheppard Created 03/27/2011 - 5:42pm

Barack Obama sure is getting support for his Libyan attack from what on the surface would seem a lot of unlikely sources.

On Sunday's "Meet the Press," Pulitzer Prize-winning Iraq war critic Tom Ricks told David Gregory, "All Obama is saying is give war a chance" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

DAVID GREGORY: Well, and, Tom Ricks, look, we began the broadcast this morning, Richard Engel's reporting on the progress of the rebels. They're getting closer to Tripoli. Then what? That's the moment we leave? Or are we going to supply the rebels? Are we--I mean, if Gadhafi stays, can we really say this is mission accomplished?

TOM RICKS, CONTRIBUTing EDITOR "FOREIGN POLICY": Yes. I think what they'll say is we gave it a chance. All Obama is saying is give war a chance. Not our war. All we did was kick the door down, let the Brits and the French and the others do it. And I think his notion is we're going to be out of there long before this is resolved. That's the hope. That's the best-case scenario.

For those unfamiliar with Ricks, he is the contributing editor to Foreign Policy magazine as well as a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, a national security think tank with very close ties to the Obama administration.

Ricks used to be a special military correspondent for the Washington Post, and wrote "Fiasco" in 2006 which was highly critical of the Iraq war.

He was staunchly opposed to the 2007 troop surge, and said in 2009, "I think that invading Iraq preemptively on false premises, at the time that we already were at war elsewhere, was probably the biggest mistake in the history of American foreign policy."

Now, two years later with the United States involved in its third military incursion, Ricks is on "Meet the Press" stating, "All Obama is saying is give war a chance."

Concerning national security Alexander Hamilton said, “Because it is impossible to foresee or define the extent and variety of national exigencies….no constitutional shackles can be wisely imposed on the power to which the care of it is committed. Since Libya poses no national exigency (emergency), Obama cannot espouse that statement for war.

Next as criteria for war come natural rights where Thomas Jefferson writes all men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Eleanor Roosevelt defines our U.N. commitment to collective security by writing the equal and inalienable rights for the human family encompass rights to life, liberty and security of person. John Kennedy reinforced this commitment saying, “We shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.” Finally, Ronald Reagan said we cannot escape our destiny as the last best hope of an afflicted mankind.

However, Barack Obama cannot claim natural rights as criteria for Libyan action, because he considered preventing genocide inconsistent reasoning for deploying troops to Iraq; pointing out our un-involvement in the Congo and Darfur. (1)

This leaves John Kerry’s international test making the U.S. subservient to worldwide conscience. Under that criteria Libya becomes more equal than the Congo, Sudan, Rwanda, and Uganda. Uninterrupted European access to natural resources seems the paramount reasoning, with humanitarian protection a random outcome.

Such reasoning definitely required Congressional debate.

(1) http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,290073,00.html

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