President Obama’s actions in Libya were already suspicious for a number of reasons. First, during Obama’s presidential campaign, he asserted that his priority was to get America out of the two wars it was already fighting. Second, Obama was a staunch critic of the Bush administration for unconstitutionally embarking on a war without congressional approval — an action of which President Obama is now guilty. Finally, as the economy is teetering on collapse, one would assume the last thing the President would want is to have to fund a third war.
And yet here we are. However, once we delve into some of the key players behind the President’s ultimate decision to embark on military action in Libya, things become clearer, and more frustrating.
President Obama cited the “Responsibility to Protect” doctrine as a justification for bombing Libya. The initiative is a doctrine of the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect. The American Thinker explains:
There is one influential group that has been in the forefront of efforts to promote the idea that the international community is obligated to take measures (including military ones) to protect civilians. That group is the Global Center for the Responsibility to Protect.
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The Global Centre was created in February 2008, according to its website, “to catalyze action to move the 2005 World Summit agreement on the responsibility to protect populations from genocide, ethnic cleansing, war crimes and crimes against humanity from principle into practice.”
On Thursday’s Glenn Beck program, Beck explains that the International Coalition for the Responsibility to Protect and the Global Centre are both advocates use of the R2P doctrine, which contends that once a government no longer protects its people from any of those evils, it is the role of the international community to take steps against the government. Those steps can range from sanctions, to prosecutions in the International Criminal Court, to military action.
Board members of the Global Centre include former UN Secretary Kofi Annan, former Ireland President Mary Robinson, and South African activist Desmond Tutu. Robinson and Tutu have made a number of visits to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.
The doctrine of the R2P is also often drawn upon by the International Crisis Group, a group whose major donor is none other than Leftist billionaire George Soros, who serves on the board and executive committee.
WND reports that the ICG has “been petitioning for the U.S. to normalize ties with the Muslim Brotherhood,” and includes on its board Egyptian opposition leader Mohamed ElBaradei, as well as others who “champion dialogue with Hamas.” The group has also “petitioned for the Algerian government to cease ‘excessive’ military activities against Al-Qaida-linked groups.
Soros’s Open Society Institute has funded a number of opposition groups across the Middle East including those involved in the current Libyan crisis.
According to Beck, the idea for the Responsibility to Protect came directly out of a book called The Problem from Hell, written by a woman named Samantha Power, which focused on the United States’ inability or unwillingness to respond effectively to genocide and mass atrocity.
Power’s book is heavily anti-Israel. Discover the Networks explains, “Power has a long record of antipathy towards Israel. In 2001, she attended the United Nations’ World Conference against Racism, even after the U.S. had withdrawn most of its diplomatic participation once it became apparent that the gathering would give prominence to anti-American, anti-Israel, and anti-Semitic perspectives.”
During a 2002 interview with Harry Kreisler, director of the Institute for International Studies at UC Berkeley, Power said that “alienating a domestic constituency of tremendous political and financial import” (Jewish Americans) should not prevent the United States from investing money “In the new state of Palestine” rather than in “servicing Israel’s military.”
It’s worth noting that Power is now President Obama’s influential foreign policy adviser and one of the key people responsible for Obama’s decision to attack Libya under the Responsibility to Protect policy.
Leftist billionaire George Soros was so heavily influenced by Power’s book that his Open Society Institute became one of the two foundations that is funding the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect; the other funding source is the John D. and Catherine MacArthur foundation.
WND best sums up the convoluted trail that led the United States into Libya:
“Activist Gareth Evans, who sits on the global group's advisory board, is widely regarded as the founder of the Responsibility to Protect principle.
The activist who founded and coined the name of the doctrine, "Responsibility to Protect," sits on several key organizations alongside Soros.
Also, the Soros-funded global group that promotes Responsibility to Protect is closely tied to Samantha Power, the National Security Council special adviser to Obama on human rights.
Power has been a champion of the doctrine and is, herself, deeply tied to the doctrine's founder.
According to reports, Power was instrumental in convincing Obama to act against Libya.”
Ironically, up until relatively recently, George Soros believed Qadhafi to be misunderstood, and even convinced the London School of Economics to accept Libyan money, on the grounds that Qadhafi’s son, Saif, appeared to be a believer in an open society and claimed to be working to move Libya in that direction.” A spokesman for Soros later indicated that Soros viewed his advice to LSE as “a mistake in judgment, which he now greatly regrets.”
Furthermore, a number of others worked on a campaign to improve Muammar Qadhafi’s image in the world. An organization called the Monitor Group leaked a 2007 memo that named prominent figures that would travel to Libya and meet with Qadhafi “as part of the ‘Project to Enhance the Profile of Libya and Muammar Qadhafi.” The campaign was ultimately cancelled in 2009 after Libyan leaders gave a “hero’s welcome” to the convicted Lockerbie bomber upon his release from a Scottish prison in August 2009.
However, it is worth mentioning that one of those prominent figures who worked to improve Qadhafi’s reputation and Libya’s relations with the United States is Cass Sunstein, President Obama’s current regulatory czar and husband of none other than Samantha Power.
So we have George Soros, who is disappointed in Libya’s rejection of an open society, and who is now funding some of the opposition groups in Libya. We have the anti-Israeli Samantha Power and Cass Sustein supporting the R2P and encouraging President Obama to embark on military action in Libya under that doctrine.
What is so dangerous about the Responsibility to Protect, advocated by Soros, Power, Obama, and Sunstein, is how the doctrine can be used against Israel in calls for international intervention in the conflict between Israel and Palestine.
For example, Dr. Richard Falk of the UNHRC, the UN Representative for the Palestinian people, recently spoke at a UN Human Rights Council as it prepared a resolution to condemn Israel for its occupation of East Jerusalem and the West Bank. Falk said that “the continued pattern of settlement expansion in East Jerusalem combined with the forcible eviction of long-residing Palestinians are creating an intolerable situation” that Falk contends “can only be described in its cumulative impact as a form of ethnic cleansing.”
Falk now seeks to use R2P against Israel. CNS News writes:
As the United Nations-backed concept known as ‘responsibility to protect’ enjoys renewed prominence because of the crisis in Libya, a critic of Israel has launched a fresh bid to make a case for outside intervention on behalf of the Palestinians.
Richard Falk, the U.N.’s ‘special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories,’ said in a report delivered to the Human Rights Council in Geneva on Monday that Israeli policies amount to “ethnic cleansing” and “crimes against humanity.”
It’s no coincidence that Falk happened to refer to two of the four criteria specified in his report to advocate using the concept and argued that intervention under the doctrine is necessary against Israel’s actions in Gaza.
Falk said, “An urgent effort should be made at the United Nations to implement the agreed norm of a ‘responsibility to protect’ a civilian population being collectively punished by policies that amount to a crime against community.”
Falk is not the first to call for this. The Deputy Prime Minister of Turkey, Bulent Arinc, has called for the use of the R2P against Israel, and even called for the bombing of Israel.
Addressing the military action in Libya, Arinc said, “We wish that the United Nations had made such resolutions and countries had taken action in the face of incidents in Gaza, Palestine, and other regions.”
As the American Thinker predicted, “It is not hard to envision that this R2P concept, swirling through the United Nations and in international foreign policy circles, can one day be applied against Israel when that nation is forced to respond from attacks coming from the West Bank, Gaza, and Lebanon.”
Not only does America’s military action in Libya under R2P bear the risk of justifying all sorts of potential military endeavors in the future, but it bears the fingerprints of anti-Israeli, anti-American proponents like Samantha Power and George Soros.
The situation begs the questions, where will this lead the United States, and how will Israel be impacted?
Related articles:
Where Gingrich and Romney Stand on Libya
Libya Costs Will Undermine GOP Savings
Paul, Kucinich Seek to Defund “Impeachable” War on Libya
Democrat Calls Obama’s Actions in Libya “Impeachable”
Obama, Clinton, and Biden Agree: War on Libya Is Unconstitutional
UN Trumps Constitution, Congress in President’s Undeclared War on Libya
Rep. Amash Calls Libya Action Unconstitutional
A Real Cost/Benefit Analysis of Libyan Intervention
On Libya, It’s the Beltway Interventionists vs. Ron Paul and the Founders
