6 June 2011 - a Day with a Lot of News

There’s so much going on today that it’s difficult to know which topic to choose to write about. Here’s a sampling of news that we ought to be paying attention to.

1. The International Monetary Fund has granted a US$1 billion loan at a low 1.5% to Egypt’s new government. This means that the IMF has acted faster than the US which, in the form of a President Obama promise, has said that it will relieve $1 billion of loans by converting them to Egyptian development projects. The IMF is a useful institution, but it seems to me that America’s vital interests in Egypt would have produced faster action on economic aid. International Bureaucrats 1 - Obama 0.

2. Yemeni President Saleh is in Saudi Arabia, where he underwent surgery for injuries that are described by his staff as minor, but reported to be major. The Yemeni vice president is now in charge and he is supported by the opposition. Can we hope that the Yemen bloodshed will soon be over? Maybe, but it would be very helpful if Saleh troops stopped breaking the new cease fire by firing from rooftops on street demonstrators.

3. Libya has become the subject of a US House of Representatives resolution condemning President Obama’s waging war in the country for more than 60 days without seeking congressional agreement. The American Congress, not the President, has the power to declare war, and it is a power jealously guarded. Remember President Lyndon Johnston’s problems with Congress over the Bay of Tonkin, followed by a strict congressional resolution that so tightly controlled his war-making in Vietnam that it spelled the end of the war for America? Watch this new fight over Libya because it could do more damage to President Obama than anything that has come before, even his Obamacare health care overhaul.

4. And, finally, it is D-Day, the day on which, on 6 June 1944, the allied invasion on the Normandy beaches signalled the end of Hitler’s control of Europe. It may seem long ago now, but it was the most significant event of the 20^th century, creating the alliance that is still the single most powerful force for peace in the world. Perhaps one day, we will have a day of celebration for the Arab Spring initiative, when it has freed 450 million Arabs from oppression at the hands of dictatorial regimes.