By: Michael Tuosto

The Orwellian vision of a perpetual war going on “over there” is becoming eerily relevant. Elisabeth Bumiller and Kereem Fahim reported in The New York Times that, “Pentagon officials are eager to extract the United States from a third armed conflict in a Muslim country as quickly as possible.” Whether it is the bias of the reporters or, more likely, the bias of the Pentagon, I don’t care. The three armed conflicts being referred to are the ones in Afghanistan, Iraq, and now Libya and it is troubling to me that the drone attacks taking place in multiple other nations including Pakistan simply don’t count. How about we just lump it all into one “war on terror” and then no matter how many nations we attack or invade, Americans can rest assured we are just in one war. Absurd.

If President Barrack Obama had resisted the pressures from foreign nations to become involved in Libya with military actions, he would have immediately won my vote next time around. Make no mistake that is where the pressure came from that dictated his actions, from without, not within. Sure, some war hawks would have criticized the President for being weak on national defense, but that age-old tactic would not have resonated with Americans like it would have if America were not currently involved in two other large wars.  Not to mention Libya presented an imminent threat to America.  As Elisabeth and Kareem reported in their article entitled “U.S.-Led Assaults Hit Tripoli Again; Objective is Near”, not only is America involved in supporting the United Nations resolution; but our policy take it one step further. “The [United Nations] resolution demands an immediate cease-fire by Colonel Qaddafi’s forces and an end to attacks on civilians…” They write, “ ‘It is U.S. policy that Qaddafi needs to go,’ Mr. Obama said…” One might ask, “Should we allow those two, perhaps unjust, wars dictate what we do in Libya?” In an ideal situation the answer is. “No”.  We should judge the morality of military action in Libya in a vacuum. We don’t live in a vacuum though and practically, America just shouldn’t engage in more war.

It is actually naïve to assume that all of the pressures for U.S. action came from foreign nations and foreign groups. I am not unaware of the military apparatus functioning in America that has leaders who welcome the opportunity to do what they are trained and paid to do. For the sake of my being able to sleep at night, I prefer to ignore the strong possibility that the “war-machine” in America has become more powerful than the executive branch of government; and no matter who is president, Republican, Democrat, liberal, or conservative, they can always be persuade to error on the side of war.

I am encouraged by one thing this war in Libya is doing to the political scene in America. The political discourse surrounding the issue involves people I put in two categories: people who believe in something and people who believe in nothing. The war in Libya is making it clear who is in which category. Dennis Kucinich, a Democrat Congressman from Ohio, has been appearing on political talk shows voicing strong opposition to President Barrack Obama’s commitment to a war without Congressional approval as well as the interventionist policy that is the nature of the war. These are some of the same criticisms the Congressman had of President George W. Bush. This man believes in something. Karl Rove, former advisor to President George W. Bush, has also appeared on talk shows voicing support for the President’s actions. Allowing partisanship to slip in a little when only when he says America should have become involved sooner. This man believes in something.

While I agree ideologically with Dennis Kucinich on this issue, I respect both men for standing by their beliefs. Those desperately trying to draw distinctions between the interventionist policies of former President George W. Bush and President Barrack Obama are doing so in order to justify their continued support of their political party. They believe in nothing.