American Thinker Blog: Not a war: A 'kinetic military action'

March 24, 2011
Not a war: A 'kinetic military action'
Rick Moran
A "war" is a war, is a "war," right?

Not if you live in the Rabbit Hole and have to answer to Alice as commander in chief.

Byron York:

In the last few days, Obama administration officials have frequently faced the question: Is the fighting in Libya a war? From military officers to White House spokesmen up to the president himself, the answer is no. But that leaves the question: What is it?

In a briefing on board Air Force One Wednesday, deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes took a crack at an answer. "I think what we are doing is enforcing a resolution that has a very clear set of goals, which is protecting the Libyan people, averting a humanitarian crisis, and setting up a no-fly zone," Rhodes said. "Obviously that involves kinetic military action, particularly on the front end."

Rhodes' words echoed a description by national security adviser Tom Donilon in a briefing with reporters two weeks ago as the administration contemplated action in Libya. "Military steps -- and they can be kinetic and non-kinetic, obviously the full range -- are not the only method by which we and the international community are pressuring Gadhafi," Donilon said.

Rhodes and Donilon are by no means alone. "Kinetic" is heard in a lot of descriptions of what's going on in Libya. "As we are successful in suppressing the [Libyan] air defenses, the level of kinetic activity should decline," Defense Secretary Robert Gates said in a meeting with reporters in Moscow Tuesday. In a briefing with reporters the same day from on board the USS Mount Whitney, Admiral Samuel Locklear, commander of Joint Task Force Odyssey Dawn, said, "The coalition brings together a wide array of capabilities that allow us to minimize the collateral damage when we have to take kinetic operations."

Why can't they just say we're at war and leave it at that? Probably didn't want to put Alice's Nobel Peace Prize in jeopardy. That, and the knee jerk liberal opposition to war in any form - even if it's for self defense, which this war is decidedly not.

What we are doing in Libya is making war whether the Obama administration admits it or not. People aren't getting killed by "kinetic" anything. They are dying the old fashioned way - they are getting blown up.

This gives a whole new meaning to "KIA."