Shea writes:
Ever since Bashir seized power in a 1989 military coup, with support from the National Islamic Front, he has waged perpetual, total war against his own people — first the Nuba, then South Sudan, then Darfur in the west, then the Beja people in the east, and now again the Nuba.Col. Qaddafi has to be asking himself, "Why me? Why not al-Bashir, or Bashar Assad (Syria) or Ali Abdullah Saleh (Yemen) or just about any of the multitude of tyrants in the Middle East or North Africa?" Indeed, there's scarcely a Muslim country that doesn't live under a barbarous tyranny, so we might ask along with Qaddafi, why are we killing Libyans to save the Libyan people from their leaders, but essentially doing nothing while other despots in that part of the world exterminate their people?
Since fighting broke out in Southern Kordofan on June 5, Khartoum has made it impossible for foreign aid groups to go there, and the region has never been on foreign journalists’ beaten path. Nevertheless, we have glimpses of the atrocities now taking place thanks to leaked U.N. reports and intermittent accounts by church representatives.
Those atrocities include aerial bombardments resulting in destruction of property, forced displacement, significant loss of civilian lives, including of women, children, and the elderly; abductions; house-to-house searches; arbitrary arrests and detentions; targeted killings; summary executions; . . . mass graves; systematic destruction of dwellings; and attacks on churches.
Perhaps I should make clear that I'm not saying we should bomb Khartoum (although I would not object to a decapitation of their horrid leadership). What I'm trying to get a handle on is why we're bombing Libya. What is the Obama Doctrine on the use of force? Does he have one?
