Invasion Inchorence More Yet

John Judis supports the intervention/invasion of Libya. His

would have preferred Obama to have taken leadership several weeks ago in assembling a coalition, and building support, for intervention.

At the same time he asks

[s]hould Obama, as some critics have charged, have gone to Congress for a war powers resolution?

And answers:

I am not sure there was time for a full-scale debate. He should certainly have consulted with the legislature, but the fact that he didn’t is not a reason to call the planes back to their carriers.

In all that dithering of several weeks there wasn't time for a debate and even though Obama should have consulted bombs away.[1]

And then there's this:

Critics of the intervention have warned that if it succeeds in getting rid of Qaddafi, the new Libyan government may not embrace democracy. That’s very possible. Oil economies are susceptible to authoritarian rule, and Libya does not even have Egypt’s prior experience with a parliament. But there is reason to be hopeful about a post-Qaddafi Libya. It will have become part of an experiment in democratization that is now taking place across North Africa. Its resources will remain under its control, and in contrast to a triumphant Qaddafi, they are not likely to be used geopolitically. And there is no evidence that global terrorist movements will find a welcome there.

 My argument is that we have no real idea[2] of who the rebels are and, consequently, no clue as to what happens next. The list of assertions about the hope-filled outcomes are from cloud coo coo land. His argument boils down to claiming that if everything goes exactly right everything will end up exactly as "we" want it.

[1]This last one gets my goat, as the kids say. I know Congressional cowardice over challenging the extent of President's bomb dropping powers  made it a complicated issue and, it is no doubt the case, that over literal reliance on a document of such great antiquity might makes us all as mad as Scalia, but having to at least consult with his co-equal branches on the dropping of bombs seems like a very low hurdle to hop.

[2] On a guess, I would estimate that are  most likely a number of academics, graduate students and professors, who have been studying Libya for sometime now.  They probably know a great deal of its history, who Gaddafy is, was, or might become. I would imagine that they could shed some light on the issue of who the rebels are. I bet my bottom dollar that not one of them is consulted, shows up on the HDTV, or finds the pages of the nation's papers and magazines open to them, while Max Boot, Bolton, Freidman, and related hacks babble away.