Posts by glennd
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Hard News: Libya, in reply to andin,
So the one thing Obama is good at, speechifying from a text, is worthless anyway. Huh, interesting.
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Hard News: Libya, in reply to Pete,
Hmm the same Russians calling the "bombing" a crusade now? Really, this stuff is just a gift that keeps on giving to the Russians et al.
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Or the current Secretary of State back when she had different agendas:
"No one wants to sit by and see mass killing,” she added. “It’s going on every day! Thousands of people are dying every month in Iraq. Our presence there is not stopping it. And there is no potential opportunity I can imagine where it could. This is an Iraqi problem — we cannot save the Iraqis from themselves."
A Libyan problem, clearly they cannot be saved from themselves.
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Also remember Obama's own professed policy on petty dictators who butcher their citizens:
"Now let me be clear: I suffer no illusions about Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal man. A ruthless man. A man who butchers his own people to secure his own power…. The world, and the Iraqi people, would be better off without him.
But I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors…and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history."
No, not like Iraq at all...
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There is one alternative no one seems to want to discuss and that is that Obama has made a gargantuan error by committing the USA to a war of no defined objective (at least Bush and co went to enormous lengths to sign up other nations and get the full vote of congress), with no clear strategy, with no clear command, with key NATO members standing back (Turkey and Germany are keeping their mitts well clear). Russia and China will always stay well clear of an operation led by NATO or the USA.
Italy and France have clear interest in removing the dictator on their doorstep, Britain as well to some extent. But the USA? Ghadaffi has been playing nice, publicly removing his nuclear program after the invasion of Iraq, his military does not threaten the USA. His sponsorship of terrorism is about the same as Saddam's, so the threat to the USA national interest is much the same. His Arab pals are of course keen to see him gone, their is no honour among thieves and they will all be jockeying for influence in whatever results in the break-up of Libya into its tribal factions (no ethnic dimension my big fat ass).
It seems quite clear that what no one is prepared to say is that Obama's foreign policy is a mess with even Hillary running a mile from the job after this term. The Europeans will play the US involvement for all it is worth to their own end, as they would. The American public quite rightly has no interest in pursuing another entanglement in the region and unless Obama suddenly discovers a hidden talent for actual leadershop and strategy this is going to cost him dearly in 2012.
Can other oppressed nations expect such "aid" in their uprisings? You bet your ass the answer is no. North Korea can murder and starve millions, Myanmar can brutally repress its nation, etc etc, but Ghadaffi suppressing an uprising is somehow a nobel and shinng cause to expend a few tomahawks on.
Nup, the only reason Juan Cole, the Guardian and all the rest are backing this is because they cannot yet bring themselves to admit what is glaringly obvious about Obama. But give it a few months to turn sour with the USA left holding the baby and just watch how this will be rewritten.