In a remarkable act of chutzpah, the administration sent to Congress its response to the growing concern over its abuse of war powers. Its argument, in a nutshell, is that the War Powers Resolution is not relevant because US armed forces are not actually engaged in hostilities because Libya is so militarily weak it cannot fight back! This explanation would be laughable if not so horrific. The administration wants us to believe that there is no real violence because the victim cannot fight back? Imagine if this standard was applied to criminal law in the United States! I am sure Libyans on the receiving end of US and NATO bombs feel hostilities are quite definitely taking place.
We must recall the origins of these attacks on Libya. The Obama administration made no claim that Libyan leader Gaddafi was killing his civilian population. Rather, the claim was that Libya might begin killing its civilians in the future. One need not defend Gaddafi's regime – and I most certainly do not – to object to this flimsy and dangerous rationale for violating the sovereignty of another country. Imagine a scenario where the UN approves military action against the United States as a preventative humanitarian measure over US enforcement of its immigration laws, for example!
Now in Libya we see the possible use of depleted uranium shells, we see infrastructure destroyed, we see universities bombed, we see all the "collateral damage." Yet, this is a "humanitarian intervention”? Remember, we were told that this attack would last "days, not weeks" and we are already three months and likely nearly a billion dollars into it. As the bombings obviously target Gaddafi's houses, even killing some of his family members, we can see that the real goal is regime change rather than protection of civilians. Do we know much about the rebels whose side we have taken in what is, in fact, a civil war?

This comes days after the the pentagon said “A response to a cyber-incident or attack on the US would not necessarily be a cyber-response, All appropriate options would be on the table.” A White House statement also said the US plans to “respond to hostile acts in cyberspace as we would to any other threat to our country,” implying that computer hackers could soon face retaliatory attacks by the US military.
So when the US decides to invade foreign nations, often times without necessary congressional approval, it is just a simple act of exerting kinetic energy. But when a computer hacker correctly guesses a password and breaches the security protocols of the US government or one of its contracted companies, this is an act of war. And so it goes in the arbitrary world of the military-industrial complex, where definitions of war are applied only when it benefits the corporate oligarchy.

In truth, this latest cyber fear mongering out of the Pentagon is just another excuse for those running the US government to widen the scope of those it considers to be terrorists and enemies of the state. And now that the announcement has been made, you can expect to hear about many more “cyber-attacks” that will predicate convenient excuses to launch new kinetic military actions against nations, groups, and perhaps even fellow American citizens.