As Americans ask pointed questions about our military actions overseas, a letter on Wednesday asked, “What would George W. Bush do?” Not surprisingly, that set off a spirited debate.
The Letter
To the Editor:
What would George W. Bush do? If he were still president, his administration would not be on the defensive about American participation in the NATO military action against the Libyan government (“White House Defends Continuing U.S. Role in Libya,” news article, June 16).
He and his cabinet and aides would fan out across the country, demanding time on every media outlet, to denounce the reign of terror carried out by Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi and to scoff at opponents who question American involvement as cowards. Opponents in Congress would effectively be silenced.
So why can’t President Obama and the people around him make a more forceful argument for a military engagement that is absolutely defensible, putting Republicans on the defensive?
Is there any issue on which the Obama administration will make a real stand?
DANIEL GRANT
Amherst, Mass., June 17, 2011
Readers React
Of course, running around denouncing Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s “reign of terror” is precisely what President Obama should not be doing. We are in Libya because our NATO allies foresaw in Libya’s turmoil an interruption of their oil supplies and an onslaught of terrified refugees into a very fragile region and asked for our help. These circumstances made the pacification of Libya very much in Europe’s and therefore our interest.
Mr. Obama’s approach has been carefully crafted to match the extent of our involvement with the extent of our interest. That includes our interest in obtaining allied assistance in the continuing work of shrinking the number of failed or rogue states and increasing the number of states seeking freedom and prosperity, but always conscious of the moral and material limits on our power.
The difference between Mr. Obama and former President George W. Bush is that between the épée and the broadsword, or the rifle and the blunderbuss.
BRUCE A. McALLISTER
Quogue, N.Y., June 22, 2011
President Obama’s “stand” was never a mystery. His mistake regarding military action in Libya was his continued indulgence of both parties in Congress in their desire for a theatrics of control without the risks of responsibility. He has done his presidency a disservice by not confronting Congress with the discomforts of making and owning difficult decisions, framed as the country requires them. Instead, we end up with the play-acting we saw in the House on Friday.
ROGER B. BLUMBERG
Providence, R.I., June 24, 2011
Daniel Grant asks, “What would George W. Bush do?”
I contributed to the presidential campaign of Barack Obama in the hope that he would not model himself after George W. Bush. I expected that President Obama would respect laws that limit his power to engage in war. I also assumed that he would have implemented policies by now that would have gotten us out of Iraq and Afghanistan, curtailed F.B.I. power to spy on American citizens, and developed a more humane policy with regard to the complex undocumented-immigrant problem.
Mr. Grant is correct that the president has not appealed enough to the American people to obtain support for his policies, but I am not even sure what his policies are.
GERALD STERN
White Plains, June 23, 2011
While it is true that former President George W. Bush would have cowed his critics into silence, I disagree that President Obama should follow the same path. Our wise founders wrote a system of checks and balances into our government precisely to guard against ideologues running roughshod over the will of the American people.
Such a system demands that the citizens, through their elected representatives, have a say in how and when we engage in armed conflict. It is about time that members of Congress spoke on the record about whether or not they would leave a brutal dictator like Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi in power. With the debate in the House on Friday, we now know which of our representatives would walk away from our allies in NATO and turn their backs on a request for help from the Arab world.
ANNE-MARIE HISLOP
Chicago, June 24, 2011
Daniel Grant’s question “What would George W. Bush do?” is easily answered: Mr. Bush would have done exactly what President Obama has done, and therein lies the problem. Mr. Obama is acting militarily as if he were Mr. Bush.
If it were Mr. Bush instead of Mr. Obama ignoring the advice of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel and Pentagon lawyers regarding the application of the War Powers Act to Libya, I and other like-minded liberals would be calling for the president’s impeachment. Our use of military personnel and equipment against Libya, and the casualties inflicted by their use, put us within the definition of engaging in hostilities, by any reasonable definition.
Mr. Obama’s failure to seek Congressional authorization after the 60-day deadline puts him in the position of having broken the law.
MARTIN MAGID
Bloomfield Hills, Mich., June 22, 2011
Daniel Grant asks, “Is there any issue on which the Obama administration will make a real stand?” The answer is “Yes, health care.” The much-maligned health care reform legislation passed last year offers great benefits to consumers of health care and shows that President Obama is indeed willing to take political risks for a cause he believes in.
Personally, I much prefer the reasoned, thoughtful approach to foreign policy exhibited by this administration to the my-way-or-the-highway, shoot-first-ask-questions-later, wanted-dead-or-alive approach to the world that exemplified George W. Bush’s tenure and resulted in a vastly diminished level of respect and prestige among our allies.
BILL GOTTDENKER
Mountainside, N.J., June 22, 2011
The Writer Responds
Martin Magid is absolutely correct that, abiding by the War Powers Act, President Obama should have asked Congress to approve our participation in NATO’s Libya operation. Instead, the president has been largely silent, allowing Republicans and even some liberal Democrats to dominate the discussion with their objections. Unwilling to rally his supporters, the president permitted his critics in the House to reject a resolution on Friday giving him authority to continue military action in Libya. Who can understand such passivity?
President Obama, the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, is the right person to argue that a military response is sometimes necessary to bring peace. But he has allowed the Republicans to turn a very defensible military action—arguably, our only current military engagement that seems to make any sense—into an attack on the Obama administration for abuse of executive power.
When Republicans are in the White House, they make the case that every fight—from Grenada to Iraq—is the good fight. I wish President Obama had taken a lesson from his opponents and argued in the media and in Congress for the rightness of his actions.
Had he done so at the outset, I believe that Anne-Marie Hislop would have seen Congress support American involvement in the NATO campaign. Instead, because of his unwillingness to fight hard for what he believes in, President Obama allowed our Libyan initiative to sink into the usual morass of partisan bickering.
I also would like to see President Obama in the way that Bill Gottdenker does, as the antidote to George W. Bush—thoughtful rather than impulsive, inclusive rather than partisan, a source of respect around the world rather than a target for anti-Americanism.
However, on one issue after another—regulation of financial institutions, supporting the Environmental Protection Agency, ending our involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, enacting measures to counter climate change, stimulus spending, removing tax breaks for wealthy individuals and Big Oil, opposing the Defense of Marriage Act, closing Guantánamo, to name a few—President Obama says the right things but won’t fight for anything.
The president can easily distinguish himself from former President George W. Bush, but he needs some of the zeal and the willingness to take the offensive that the Republicans have never shied away from.
We can admire the fact that President Obama wants to be seen as post-partisan, someone who will bring us to reason together and build consensus, regardless of race, class, gender, sexual orientation and political affiliation. What we need right now, however, is someone who is willing to fight.
DANIEL GRANT
Amherst, Mass., June 24, 2011
Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D. 