Libya / Qaddafi

<a href="https://www.alternet.org/world/libya-home-21st-century-slave-market-and-un-security-council-wont-act">https://www.alternet.org/world/libya-home-21st-century-slave-market-and-un-security-council-wont-act</a><div>
</div><div>=</div><div>biden: The list of new administration officials includes retired General Lloyd J. Austin III who is being nominated to be secretary of defense. Austin is on the board of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raytheon_Technologies" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Raytheon Technologies</a> and a partner at Pine Island Capital, a firm that invests in defense industries and also includes <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antony_Blinken" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Antony Blinken</a>, Biden's nominee to be secretary of state. Blinken, who was deputy national security adviser and deputy secretary of state, is a strong supporter of the apartheid state of Israel. He was one of the architects of the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq and a proponent of the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi in Libya, resulting in yet another failed state in the Middle East.</div><div>
</div><div><div>=</div><div>aha war is cause and effect of chaos/ system fail, doom spiral?</div><div>
</div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/climate-change-future/">https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/climate-change-future/</a>
war burkina faso, [tigre ...] more drown meditt
...War on (of and for) TerrorOne of the most <a href="https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/files/cow/imce/papers/2020/Displacement_Vine%20et%20al_Costs%20of%20War%202020%2009%2008.pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">dramatic drivers of displacement</a> over the last 20 years, according to researchers from Brown University's Costs of War project, has been that conflict in Afghanistan and the seven other "most violent wars the U.S. military has launched or participated in since 2001." In the wake of the killing of <a href="https://fox8.com/news/on-19th-anniversary-of-9-11-attacks-death-toll-still-rising/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">2,974 people</a> by al-Qaeda militants that September 11th and the decision of George W. Bush's administration to launch a Global War on Terror, conflicts the United States initiated, escalated, or participated in -- specifically, in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, the Philippines, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen -- have displaced between <a href="https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/files/cow/imce/papers/2020/Displacement_Vine%20et%20al_Costs%20of%20War%202020%2009%2008.pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">37 million and 59 million</a> people.
While U.S. troops have also seen combat in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/15/magazine/burkina-faso-terrorism-united-states.html" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Burkina Faso</a> and Washington has pumped hundreds of millions of dollars of "security assistance" into that country, its displaced aren't even counted in the Costs of War tally. And yet there's a clear link between the U.S.-backed overthrow of Libya's autocrat, Muammar Qaddafi, in 2011 and Burkina Faso's desperate state today. "Ever since the West assassinated Qaddafi, and I'm conscious of using that particular word, Libya has been completely destabilized," Chérif Sy, Burkina Faso's defense minister, explained in a 2019 interview. "While at the same time it was the country with the most guns. It has become an arms cache for the region."
Those arms helped destabilize neighboring Mali and led to a 2012 coup by a U.S.-trained officer. Two years later, another U.S.-trained officer seized power in Burkina Faso during a popular uprising. This year, yet another U.S.-trained officer <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/mali-coup-leader-was-trained-by-us-special-operations-forces/2020/08/21/33153fbe-e31c-11ea-82d8-5e55d47e90ca_story.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">overthrew</a> yet another government in Mali. All the while, terrorist attacks have been ravaging the region. "The Sahel has seen the <a href="https://africacenter.org/spotlight/african-militant-islamist-groups-new-record-violent-activity/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">most dramatic escalation</a> of violence since mid-2017," according to a July report by the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, a Defense Department research institution...=</div></div><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://theintercept.com/2020/04/13/erik-prince-russia-mercenary-wagner-libya-mozambique/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">https://theintercept.com/2020/04/13/erik-prince-russia-mercenary-wagner-libya-mozambique/ </a></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://theintercept.com/2020/04/13/erik-prince-russia-mercenary-wagner-libya-mozambique/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">ERIK PRINCE, FOUNDER of the private security firm Blackwater and a Trump administration adviser, has sought in recent months to provide military services to a sanctioned Russian mercenary firm in at least two African conflicts, according to three people with knowledge of the efforts.</a><a href="https://theintercept.com/2020/04/13/erik-prince-russia-mercenary-wagner-libya-mozambique/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Prince, who is the brother of Trump Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, met earlier this year with a top official of Russia’s Wagner Group and offered his mercenary forces to support the firm’s operations in Libya and Mozambique, according to two people familiar with Prince’s offer.</a>Wagner officials said they are not interested in working with Prince, three people familiar with their decision told The Intercept.A lawyer for Prince denied that his client met anyone from Wagner.</div><div data-reactid="228" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;">The Wagner Group is a semi-private military force that operates in countries or conflicts where the Russian government seeks plausible deniability for its activities. It is often equipped and supported directly by the Russian Ministry of Defense, <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/mikegiglio/inside-wagner-mercenaries-russia-ukraine-syria-prighozhin" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">according </a>to <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-russia-casualtie/russian-toll-in-syria-battle-was-300-killed-and-wounded-sources-idUSKCN1FZ2DZ" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">reports</a> and experts who track Wagner’s activities. The U.S. State Department <a href="https://www.state.gov/caatsa-section-231d-defense-and-intelligence-sectors-of-the-government-of-the-russian-federation/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">website</a> also lists Wagner as an entity connected to the “Defense Sector of the Government of the Russian Federation.” Any business relationship between Prince and Wagner would, in effect, make the influential Trump administration adviser a subcontractor to the Russian military.In recent years, the Russian government has deployed Wagner to several African countries, Ukraine, and Syria, where <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/24/world/middleeast/american-commandos-russian-mercenaries-syria.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">the U.S. military killed dozens of Wagner fighters in 2018</a> after the Russians and their Syrian allies attacked an oil facility that the United States was defending.“Wagner Group is an instrument of Russian policy. It works under the GRU, which is the Russian military intelligence,” said Sean McFate, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and a former military contractor who has written about mercenaries.</div><div data-reactid="232" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;">A former Navy SEAL who rose to prominence and notoriety as head of the private security firm Blackwater, Prince has been a vocal supporter of President Donald Trump, serving as an unofficial adviser on military and foreign policy issues in Africa, the Middle East, and Afghanistan. Prince was a Trump donor in 2016 and has worked to support the president politically while proposing private military solutions that would benefit his companies financially.In attempting to do business with Wagner, Prince may also have exposed himself to legal liability. In 2017, the Trump administration <a href="https://www.treasury.gov/press-center/press-releases/Pages/sm0114.aspx" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">sanctioned Wagner</a>, as well as its founder and head Dmitry Utkin, for having “recruited and sent soldiers to fight alongside [Russian-backed] separatists in eastern Ukraine” during the 2014 Russian invasion. The Russian government denied involvement in the invasion, even as its forces occupied and took control of Crimea, also in Ukrainian territory, in violation of international law.The sanctions prohibit individuals or companies from providing “financial, material, or technological support for, or goods or services to or in support of, any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order.” They also forbid anyone “to have acted or purported to act for or on behalf” of Wagner. The 2017 addition of Wagner to the sanctions list builds on a<a href="https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/Programs/Documents/ukraine_eo.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;"> 2014 executive order</a> signed by President Barack Obama.“In my experience, the act of soliciting from a sanctioned party would indeed be an apparent violation,” said Brian O’Toole, a senior fellow with the Atlantic Council and former senior sanctions official at the Treasury Department. “Whether you make that [legal] case is an entirely separate matter,” he said, adding that pitching business to Wagner “would seem to be a fairly egregious thing to do.”“The reason why groups like Wagner exist, and the reason why people like Erik Prince [are] succeeding, is that modern war is getting sneakier and mercenaries and groups like Wagner are a great way to get things done in the shadows,” McFate said.When Prince met with Wagner leadership, he was already under <a href="https://theintercept.com/2020/02/20/erik-prince-fbi-investigation-trump-barr/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; letter-spacing: 0.01em; box-sizing: border-box;">federal investigation</a> for violating arms trafficking regulations. The proposal to the Russian firm also raises questions about whether Trump administration officials authorized the meeting or were aware of Prince’s efforts to work with the group.</div><div data-reactid="240" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;">Early in the Trump administration, Prince proposed privatizing the war in Afghanistan and supplying Trump with a <a href="https://theintercept.com/2017/12/04/trump-white-house-weighing-plans-for-private-spies-to-counter-deep-state-enemies/" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">private spy service</a> intended to circumvent the U.S. intelligence community. Neither proposal succeeded, despite having support for some of his ideas from senior administration officials, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.For years, Prince has tried, mostly unsuccessfully, to win military contracts with governments in Africa and the Middle East. Wagner has become an increasingly visible player in the region as Russia’s influence there has grown, allowing the country to operate under the radar at a time when “plausible deniability is more powerful than firepower,” according to McFate, the mercenary expert.</div><div data-reactid="244" style="box-sizing: border-box;">Libya has been divided and in conflict since the U.S. and NATO allies removed longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi in 2011. The United Nations and most of the international community, including the U.S, recognize the Government of National Accord in the Libyan capital Tripoli as the country’s official leaders. But the eastern portion of the country is led by strongman Khalifa Hifter, who tried last year to take Tripoli. Both sides are backed by foreign powers that have continually violated a U.N. embargo on military support. Turkey and Qatar have supported the GNA, while Russia, the United Arab Emirates, and Egypt have backed Hifter.Last spring, Hifter’s forces, the Libyan National Army, moved to take Tripoli, but were thwarted within days. Hifter turned to <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-09-25/-putin-s-chef-deploys-mercenaries-to-libya-in-latest-adventure" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">Moscow</a> and <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/12/libyan-officials-cite-evidence-russian-mercenaries-war-191205083745552.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">Wagner</a>. Americans are prohibited from aiding either side of the conflict without U.S. government authorization.At the same time, Prince sought to provide a force in Mozambique, where the government has been fighting a small insurgency over the past two years. President Filipe Nyusi of Mozambique flew to Moscow to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in August 2019. The countries signed several trade pacts, and Russia agreed to send military aid. Russian military hardware and Russian nationals working for Wagner arrived in Mozambique in September, <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/mozambique-calls-on-russian-firepower-t2205dxh9" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">according</a> to <a href="https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2019/11/19/in-push-for-africa-russias-wagner-mercenaries-are-out-of-their-depth-in-mozambique-a68220" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">news reports</a>.After Wagner lost more than a dozen fighters in Mozambique, Prince sent a proposal to the Russian firm offering to supply a ground force as well as aviation-based surveillance, according to documents viewed by The Intercept and a person familiar with Prince’s proposal.Prince has also served as an adviser to the de facto ruler of the United Arab Emirates, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed, known as MBZ, for more than a decade. Under bin Zayed’s leadership, the UAE, a close regional ally of the U.S., has intervened militarily in several regional wars in the Middle East and Africa. A pariah during the Obama administration, Prince was taken in by the Emirati crown prince and awarded a contract worth hundreds of millions of dollars to create and train a presidential guard for the royal family. He was later removed for mismanagement, among other reasons.Prince also has ties to China. He is co-chair of Frontier Services Group, a Hong-Kong based logistics company he founded and whose largest investor is the Chinese government. The Intercept has previously <a href="https://theintercept.com/2016/03/24/blackwater-founder-erik-prince-under-federal-investigation/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">reported</a> that the U.S. government has investigated Prince for his ties to China’s intelligence service. The conflicts between Prince’s commercial interests and the goals of the many governments that retain his services have piled up as Prince has tried to sell military and mercenary capabilities around the world. FSG, for example, signed a contract for fishing rights in Mozambique around the same time Prince began exploring defense contracts there. The fishing contract has since been dissolved, according to the company.“The conflicts of interest are deep and threaten democracy when you have a free agent going between the U.S. and its main power rivals,” said McFate. “It would never clear an intelligence community background check. This is a dangerous thing for any democracy. </div></div><div>=<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-11-20/putin-chef-yevgeny-prigozhin-is-now-meddling-in-africa">https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-11-20/putin-chef-yevgeny-prigozhin-is-now-meddling-in-africa</a>
libya?</div><div><div>=</div><div><a href="https://theconversation.com/how-twitter-and-other-social-media-can-draw-the-us-into-foreign-interventions-105539">https://theconversation.com/how-twitter-and-other-social-media-can-draw-the-us-into-foreign-interventions-105539</a></div><div>
</div><div>Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika has <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/algerian-leader-to-resign-from-office-by-end-of-april-after-weeks-of-street-protests/2019/04/01/776ed2f8-549b-11e9-aa83-504f086bf5d6_story.html?utm_term=.54b784295ab8" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">promised to resign by the end of the month</a>. </div><div>
</div><div>That announcement came after thousands of Algerians <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/04/world/africa/algeria-protests-bouteflika.html" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">took to the streets</a> in March to protest his decision to run for a fifth term.</div><div class="grid-ten large-grid-nine grid-last content-body content entry-content instapaper_body" itemprop="articleBody" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 12px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1.8; float: left; width: 754px;">Social media played a crucial role in those demonstrations, allowing protesters to coordinate the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-algeria-bouteflika/thousands-of-algerians-protest-against-bouteflikas-re-election-bid-idUSKCN1QB1QW" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">place and time</a> of the mass gatherings.We do not yet know whether President Bouteflika will keep his promise. Perhaps even more uncertain, will the international community hold him accountable if he does not?The answer might depend on how active Algerians will be on Twitter. In at least one case, Twitter usage had a dramatic impact abroad during a country’s civil unrest.My colleague <a href="http://benjamintjones.com/Home.html" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Benjamin T. Jones</a> <a href="https://www.eleonoramattiacci.com/" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">and I</a> found that during the 2011 Libyan civil war, <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/british-journal-of-political-science/article/manifesto-in-140-characters-or-fewer-social-media-as-a-tool-of-rebel-diplomacy/82518E669A274B26E898A567FE22531F" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">social media</a> helped convince other countries such the U.S. to intervene in favor of protesters.<h2 style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;">Winning support one tweet at a time</h2>The Libyan civil war exploded in February 2011. Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi had been <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Libya" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">in power</a> since 1969, and those who opposed him wanted to <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Libya-Revolt-of-2011" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">implement reforms</a> aimed at reducing government corruption and providing greater political transparency.Protests began on Feb. 15 in Benghazi and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Libya-Revolt-of-2011" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">spread to other cities</a>. By Feb. 27, the opposition announced it had organized itself into the <a href="http://ntclibya.org/" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">National Transitional Council</a>, or the NTC. They claimed to be the true representative of the Libyan people.A few days later, the NTC established a <a href="https://twitter.com/ntc_of_libya?lang=en" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Twitter account to publicize their version of the conflict</a>.Up to the civil war, Gadhafi had <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-12544624" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">meticulously controlled</a> most of the communication coming out of Libya. He sought to project an image of the country as a place where political order prevailed and citizens supported him.Twitter became a powerful instrument to air the rebels’ account of the conflict and present themselves to the international community as a viable – even preferable – alternative to Gadhaf.[twt]Tweets and US policy changesIn our research, we collected data on all the tweets by Libyan rebels. We then used statistical techniques to measure how the rebels’ Twitter feed affected both U.S. behavior toward the Libyan government and relations with the rebels.We found that messages that denounced Gadhafi’s atrocities against civilians were significantly correlated with the decision of the U.S. to adopt more cooperative behaviors with the rebels – for example, to praise their activities and to agree to meet with them.Correlation, of course, does not mean causation.However, even after we accounted for other factors, such as the behavior of the rebels toward Gadhafi and U.S. intelligence on the field, we found that the rebels’ tweets contributed to the U.S. becoming more cooperative with the rebels.This happened despite the fact that President Barack Obama was <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/05/02/the-consequentialist" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">reluctant to intervene</a> at the outset of the conflict.How were they so successful in gaining U.S. support?Rebels tweeted in English to communicate directly to both U.S. policymaking elites and the broader public. They voiced their support for democracy and human rights while <a href="https://twitter.com/NTC_of_Libya/status/78171104727941120" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">publicizing</a> Gadhafi’s atrocities against civilians.Examples provided by the rebels included <a href="https://twitter.com/NTC_of_Libya" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">violations of international law</a> by the regime and <a href="https://twitter.com/NTC_of_Libya/status/72043616331239424" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">attacks on civilian homes</a>. Apparently in response and often just a few days later, U.S. officials voiced public support for the rebels’ cause and aimstwt]When elites have access to privileged information – gained, for example, in private, secret meetings – elites will know something that the public will not. In technical terms, that’s known as information asymmetry.Because the public is not privy to this information, elites cannot use it to justify their <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1540-5907.2011.00567.x" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">foreign policy choices</a>. So elites might make choices that seem arbitrary to the public. This process erodes public support for those policies.Instead, the fact that rebels could communicate to both rebels and elites at the same time via social media enabled rebels to build a coalition of support that included both elites and the public.That support turned into intervention. Beginning in March 2011, NATO countries, including the U.S., staged air and naval strikes against Gadhafi’s forces, who were attacking civilians.The intervention <a href="https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_71652.htm" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">paved the way</a> for the rebels’ victory.<figure class="align-center zoomable" style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; position: relative;">[px]
<figcaption style="margin: 0px; padding: 6px 0px 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; line-height: 18px; cursor: default;"></figcaption></figure><h2 style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;">Does social media rush interventions?</h2>Since Libya’s civil war, the use of social media across the globe to draw attention to foreign crises has only grown stronger.In 2013, dozens of videos distributed via YouTube documenting a possible <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-23927399" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">chemical attack</a>on Syrian civilians shook the international community. More videos on <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/08/world/middleeast/syria-chemical-attacks-assad.html" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">those attacks</a> have been posted since 2013.[vid]S<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/dozens-killed-in-apparent-chemical-weapons-attack-on-civilians-in-eastern-ghouta--rescue-workers/2018/04/08/231bba18-3ac0-11e8-af3c-2123715f78df_story.html?utm_term=.6e9db898266a" style="background-color: transparent; outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">imilar attacks happened in April 2018</a> and <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/04/14/evidence-shows-syria-attacked-people-chemical-weapons-say-us/" style="background-color: transparent; outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">were documented on social media</a>. And just like Obama did in 2011 when intervening in Libya, President Trump bypassed Congress when <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/01/us/politics/trump-war-powers-syria-congress.html" style="background-color: transparent; outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">authorizing strikes</a> in Syria in <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/13/trump-to-address-the-nation-about-syria-nbc-news.html" style="background-color: transparent; outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">response to such attacks</a>.This raises the question of whether social media is rushing U.S. leaders to intervene with very little planning for what comes after.In the process of bypassing Congress, the president had made an important decision on the use of force all alone, without consulting the Congress, <a href="https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/us-foreign-policy-powers-congress-and-president" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">as is required by U.S. law</a>.Here, as with Obama, President Trump was responding to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/01/us/politics/trump-war-powers-syria-congress.html" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">a sense of urgency</a>. Our research suggests that social media helped create that sense; whether it was good policymaking is another question entirely.</div></div><div>===</div>