Marcy Wheeler, responding to reports that suggest the Obama administration is considering arming the Libyan rebels, says the attempt to get around material support for terrorism laws becomes a real brain teaser:
After all, according to Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project any help to a terrorist group–even counseling on how to make peace–is material support. And no matter how we try to spin arming rebels as an act of peace, it’s a good deal more help than legal counsel.
I've got another one: If we start arming the rebels, some of whom may have ties to extremists, and some impressionable American Muslim goes abroad to assist them in battle, have they broken the law? Or are they just complying with the U.N. resolution to help protect civilians?
The question of whether or not we should arm the Libyan rebels seems really academic. Despite the questionable legal basis for doing so, I assume we will. This was one of the objections people raised prior to intervention -- there was no way the no-fly zone was ever going to be enough to achieve regime change, which was ultimately what the U.S. and its allies were going for. But let's not pretend -- this is a strategy that has worked out really, really badly in the past.
UPDATE: Oh wait, we already did.
