In Libya, I mean. When you’ve got an international effort going on and it’s the French who are leading the charge, then basically it’s Anything Can Happen Day.
Like they’d say in Texas (or some other state where they say such things) Gadhafi is like a turd that just won’t flush. But I don’t see the international community having the nerve to go in and oust him or charge him with war crimes. On the other hand, one of his own command saying, “Enough’s enough” and putting a bullet in his brain…that I could see.
UPDATED 6:53: And what the hëll is with the guy’s surname?! The New York Times has Qaddafi. The Daily News has Khadafy. This guy is like the Doctor Who of names: Every time you see it, it looks different. From now on, I’m just calling him K’Daffy.
PAD
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I could get behind the ousting of Khadaffi Duck, but…
America’s military is already getting spread kinda thin and we don;t really have the money to support yet another war
Plus, where does it stop, when the cries of “You guys got rid of Hussein and Ghadaffi, why are you helping “X” start…
We still haven’t managed to fully extract ourselves from Bush’s war; we’re hardly in a position to put boots on the ground in Libya.
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Really, Peter? You’re part of the “France surrenders all the time” brigade?
France is the most underestimated military force in the world, with the third highest military spending on the planet and an estimated 300 nuclear warheads at their disposal.
Since 387 BC, France has fought 168 major wars against such badasses as the Roman Empire, the British Army and the Turkish forces. Their track record isn’t too shabby, either: They’ve won 109, lost 49 and drawn (or as close as you can “draw” a war) 10 times. Professional boxers have been crowned world champions on šhìŧŧìër records than that.
Uh huh. Would you care to list wars that France has won in the 20th or 21st centuries? (And the two World Wars don’t count.)
Ribbing France is a fun, not-particularly-serious sport rather than an actual charge of incompetency, so statistics on the might of the French army aren’t really apt here. Think of a time you did something really stupid, like run into a telephone pole, and how years later people still advise you to look out if they see you’re coming close to one (a lame example, but you get the picture).
The rebels don’t want America and the others to put boots on the ground. They can do this for themselves. They just want someone to provide air cover so they don’t get pounded by the Libyan air force. And if the air cover can take out some of the armour while they’re at it, so much the better. You’ll note no one seems to have suggested sending a couple of cruise missiles into an open window at the palace, or wherever that lunatic hangs his hat.
As for France, yes, they’ve generally acquitted themselves well in war. Not so much in WW II, but they’d already been practically bled dry in the Great War and just didn’t have as much left to fight with. You don’t lose 1.4 million soldiers (not to mention 4.2 million wounded) and recover that much loss overnight. As for their nuclear ‘force de frappe’, for quite a while what they had as delivery systems were obsolete Pluton missiles ringing Paris. With their range the best they could do was nuke the hëll out of Belgium. Now, I’m not crazy about Brussel sprouts, but that’s ridiculous.
France always gets çráppëd on. I guess my question is, where do they have to run to if they have to retreat? Doesn’t strike me as a strictly fair criticism.
How does this end?
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To quote Kosh, “In Fire.”
Dang, that’s what I was going to post.
You nerds!
… wish I’d thought of it…
With another Nobel Peace Prize?
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“So How Does This End?”
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Badly.
That’s a given. The real question is “Badly for whom?”
It COULD be ok. If the “days rather than weeks” claim is one promise not broken. We go in, we break things, we leave. If the rebels can’t win with the world making the bad guys fight with one hand tied behind their back maybe they just don’t want it enough. But if this was the plan then we should have done this a few weeks back when momentum was against kadaffy.
I’d be a lot happier if we had a clear endgame. Do we stay until Gadhafi is gone? Until Libya gets split in two, with a new country and government completely separate from Libya? Or do we just hang around until the violence against civilians is down to an “acceptable” level, at which point we leave, stop caring, and Gadhafi can once again crack down on all who oppose him? When is the (sorry for the phrase) mission accomplished?
As for the idea that one of Gadhafi’s own people will kill him… don’t count on it. From where we sit, he’s a lunatic dictator whose people hate him and whose time to leave has arrived; but he hasn’t managed to maintain complete control over Libya for decades without both intelligence and loyalty — and I don’t see those changing anytime soon.
Do we stay until Gadhafi is gone?
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What definition of ‘we’ are you working from here?
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As far as I can tell, about all we’ve done is launch some cruise missiles, and the UN has helped evacuate some people. Neither of which is a particularly remarkable turn of events in the grand scheme of things.
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There are no troops on the ground seeking to occupy the country or anything like that (which is why I find the quick comparisons of this to Iraq or Afghanistan to be rather absurd).
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But if Gadhafi really thinks he can stand up to a “long war” against the West? Well, nobody ever said he didn’t have delusions of grandeur.
Suddenly I’m reminded of Centauri Emperor Turhan and Vorlon Ambassador Kosh in the BABYLON 5 episode “The Coming of Shadows”…
“How will this end?”
“In fire.”
And cheers to Tim Lynch for being reminded of it first…
The pleasure was all mine.
Two weeks ago, I was in a credit union with a TV on that was showing coverage of Libya. The man in front of me said we just needed to send over a Navy Seal sniper to take out Ghadafi. And, besides, Libya’s oil isn’t that high of a quality.
Not long before that, someone wrote into the local newspaper that, if Lara Logan had had a gun with her, she wouldn’t have been sexually assaulted by the mob in Egypt.
And, last December, when I mentioned the anniversary of John Lennon’s death to the people I sit with during lunch, the first thing out of anyone’s mouth was “But I don’t want them taking our guns.”
That’s Wichita. The city I’ve been living in for just over a year now.
At least they have a nice bed and breakfast (the Castle Inn Riverside).
I actually had a conversation about the spelling recently; apparently his name doesn’t have a direct translation in to english so different papers use different spellings. There’s been some controversy going around in the poly sci department about chosing a specific spelling for everyone to use.
From what I’ve read (there was a column about this on the Economist website recently), the standard transliteration of Classical Arabic (which is how Arabic is usually written, though nobody still speaks it) spells it as Qaddhafi or Qathafy. But if you follow the Libyan pronunciation, it’s more correct to say Gaddafi. I’ve always preferred Qaddhafi, because I love those Arabic Qs. (In Arabia and the Levant, Q is pronounced similar to K, but much farther back in the mouth, which gives it a G-like sound. So it’s not surprising that it becomes a G in some dialects.)
@Peter: uncalled for, the whole thing about Mr. Libya’s name. You know as perfectly well as I do that names like his do not translate well into English.
As far as what other posters are writing regarding your supposed shot at the French and the bizarre American joke about their history of military failure; I was more frightened than anything to learn the French had launched their attack prior to the ending of the UN meeting given their history of ruthlessness in international affairs, i.e. their role in the Rwandan genocide. But, then again, you don’t like to talk about stuff like that in the US, do you?
Wait, you’re giving Peter grief for mocking Kadaffy? This seems like a case of misplaced priorities.
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And if I understand your point you think we are not hard enough on the French? We should take them seriously as a military might to be feared?
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I have to say, in all the years I’ve heard people from other lands tell us what’s wrong with the USA not being sufficiently antagonistic to the French is a brand new one
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No, I think he’s giving a grief because we’re picking in the French. He threw out the Rwandan genocide example to show how wrong we are about these tough, rough, ready to fight and “ruthlessness in international affairs” these fighters are.
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Of course, when you’re fighting someone who is smaller than you, weaker than you and has military technology that’s inferior to yours; it’s easy to be ruthless. His next example will be about how he personally saw a French soldier successfully take a lollipop away from a two year old on only the fourth try.
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I kid. The French aren’t that bad. Usually they can get it done in two tries.
I understand that the streets of Paris have trees on both sides so that the Germans can always march in the shade.
My only objection is that this should have been done a week or so ago, when the rebels were on the verge of taking Tripoli. We shouldn’t have waited till he almost crushed them.
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The French have more stomach for this than us, at this point; I think they’re willing to take this thing to Gadhafi’s doorstep. They want him out, badly.
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And you’re kind of behind the curve on the name thing. From SNL’s Newsbreak, December 12th, 1981:
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Brian Doyle-Murray: Good evening, I’m Brian Doyle-Murray.
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Our top story tonight: This man, Libyan leader, Col. Moammar Kadaffi, has been the study of intense news coverage this week by every major news origanization in America. However, every time his name appears in print, it has a different spelling. The Chicago Tribune spells it K-H-A-D-A-F-Y; The Los Angeles Times spells it K-A-D-A-F-I; Newsweek Magazine, K-A-D-D-A-F-I; Time Magazine, G-A-D-D-A-F-I; The Wall Street Journal, Q-A-D-H-A-F-I; The Washington Post, Q-A-D-D-A-F-I; The New York Times, el-Qaddafi. My personal favorite is from the comic book publishers – Kadaffy Duck.
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Brian Doyle-Murray: How do you spell Kadaffi? Let us know. [ news screen scroll many weird spellings of Kadaffi ] Our news research department has determined that no two people spell it alike. Send us your spelling of Kadaffi, and remember, it can’t be the same as any of these spellings you’re seeing on the screen right now. The most original spelling of the Libyan leader’s name will be awarded a one-way ticket to Tripoli – that is, if your passport allows you to go there. so, send that in, let us know how you spell Kadaffi!
How does this end?
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Well, personally, I’m hoping for a “Duck Season/Rabbit Season!” shouting match, right before K’Daffy gets shot in the face . . . .
You spell his name (1) M u/o Ø/’ a mm/m a/e r (2) al/el/Al/El/Ø -/Ø (3) Q/G/Gh/K/Kh a/e/u d/dh/dd/ddh/dhdh/dth/th/zz a f/ff i/y. Basically, you take one letter/character from each grouping in each of the three sections and string them together for your own personalized spelling of Libya’s very own looney tune. Anytime you encounter a Ø symbol, it literally represents nothing. You simply don’t use any character at that position. As an example, from (1) start with “M” then add “u” then Ø then “a” then “mm” then “a” then “r” for the result of Muammar (selecting the apostrophe instead of the Ø would give Mu’ammar). From (2) we’ll select “el” and the “-” which gives us el-. Section (3) we’ll go with “Gh” then “e” then “dhdh” then “a” then “ff” then “y” which gives us Ghedhdhaffy. All together, we wind up with Muammar el-Ghedhdhaffy.
Or we could stick with the Arabic form معمر القذافي.
And yet we stand by undisturbed while Bahrain and their Saudi allies massacre the protestors in Manama (using the weapons we continue to give them.)
Actually, I thought the whole English spelling of the name was settled over 20 years ago. An online search verified it:
“The man himself responded in May 1986 to a query on the topic by a class of second-graders at Maxfield Magnet School in St. Paul, Minnesota. At the bottom of a letter in response to the class, he signed his name in Arabic script and beneath it was typed, ‘Moammar El-Gadhafi.’”
from http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/142507
Given that the name of the mission is “Odyssey Dawn” maybe we will still be asking this 10 years from now.
Maybe they should have gone with a name that implied a mission with a shorter timeframe– “Operation Wham Bam Al Salam” or something.
At least it means that it’ll be 10 years trying to get home, rather than 10 years of brutal all-out war.
You can translate a name like this in a number of ways. The first is simply phonetically. That immediately presents multiple options as the preference for certain letters to represent certain sounds changes over the years.
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The second is to reach back and attempt to figure out, using linguistic research, what spelling would most accurately correspond to a particular letter in the original language.
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The problem is that “G,” “K,” and “Q” are all attempting to represent a sound we don’t have a set way to reproduce in English.
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I would note that a lot of people took an about face on how they treated Quadaffi (and that’s typically how I go with spelling his name). Prior to the uprising, he was a comical figure that we laughed at as he gave outrageous speeches at the UN and other events. As the rebel forces began to mobilize, Quadaffi quickly became “Colonel Quadaffi.”
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Personally I’m not a fan of making fun of the man. He’s a murderer. He should be mocked, yes, but not to the point that people forget that he’s slaughtering innocents and is, in fact, very, very dangerous.
Hey do you all recall when Obama went Congress and the UN to discuss the specifics of this military confrontation….
oh no sorry that was EVIL Bushhitler who apparently did things unilateraly.
Ha..ha…BWAHAHAHHAHAHAH.
Oh my! That was tasty.
I wish Obama had spoken to Congress first just to watch the contortions of pro-unitary-Executive GOP hawks suddenly becoming doves, only because it’s Obama proposing military action.
Yea, but he didn’t so you can only imagine.
But this chickenHAWK is commenting on what I am seeing.
AS the great Glenn Reynolds has said:
By all means, rub their whole faces in the facts of this latest intervention. To be clear: if the left and Democrats generally do not savage this President in much the same manner they savaged Bush, if they are not out in the streets protesting, if they are not opposing his reelection, if they are not demanding his impeachment and trial, if they are not hoping for his very death, then they will have shown themselves to be every bit the craven hypocrites that many have long claimed.” I have not yet begun to rub it in.
If (1) the circumstances that led to and (2) the administration of Operation Odyssey Dawn were remotely identical to that of Operation Iraqi Freedom, you and Mr. Reynolds might be making a valid point.
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They’re not, ergo, you aren’t.
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Now if you want to make comparisons with Clinton and the Kosovo War, you might find some traction there.
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“I have not yet begun to rub it in.”
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Nor, apparently, have you begun to fully know what you’re talking about before you post.
hence, correctly arguing that the president has no CONSTITUTIONAL authority, but not bothering to mention that he does have LEGAL authority
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Biden was saying that it would be grounds for impeachment. That means it must be illegal. You’re giving him much too much credit for cleverness.
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Unfortunately, as a society we abandoned our expectations about government accountability (among other things) during the last administration. I fear it will be a while yet before we can to properly reclaim them.
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What’s this “we” kimosabe? I’m aware of no mechanism by which such a thing could occur. We can raise or lower our expectations at any moment we choose. Of course, if people want to allow “their” guy to abuse things as much as the “other” guy did just to even things up, well, ok, I guess that’s a philosophy.
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I don’t envy Obama’s position at all and I imagine that he doesn’t like it much either. The one thing that I do appreciate in this whole mess is that Obama seems truly reluctant and displeased about using force. It’s a refreshing change from Bush’s transparent glee.
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I think taht’s one of the things I find rather astonishing about the die hard Obama supporters…they will look the other way when he does the very things they condemned when Bush did it, just because he does it with better style.
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Look; either bombing brown people for oil is bad or it ain’t. yeah, I know, it’s a far more complicated issue than that…but it always was. Yet it was always “Blood for Oil!”. Yet in this situation it’s suddenly no big deal that we are getting involved in a civil war in a Muslim country with an ill defined mission, one that just HAPPENS to be in a country that produces oil…well, connect the dots.
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Now, I personally think that’s BS but the people who told me we were just in Afghanistan to protect pipelines, seems to me they ought to be just a tad suspicious of this venture. But their facebook pages are mostly videos of kittens and Palin cartoons.
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he real possibility of reflexively partisan legislature that has difficulty passing a no-brainer like START grandstanding and whittling away valuable time? Eight years of reflexive deference to unitary executive ideology fundamentally altering expectations and protocol? The shift in journalism from actively asking questions to passively accepting statements? Take your pick or come up with your own … they probably all have some traction.
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I’ll take D–Because he can. Because he will not get very much grief from people he needs for re-election. His defenders will do little more than shake their heads and shrug “Well, what do you expect after 8 years of Bush?” Or they will blame the republicans. A dear friend of mine basically blames every wrong thing Obama does as being things he HAS to do lest he be criticized on Fox News. It’s a good thing Obama is a fundamentally decent guy because if enough people had an attitude like that he could pretty much do as he pleased with no fear of consequences.
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Jerry, all good points. I would not think that Libya and Iraq are or ever likely could be the same situation–we could erase the Libyan army with 1 months worth of Iraq campaign. But a lot of the stuff that was said was in regards to the possibility of Bush bombing Iran (remember when that possibility was rated as an almost cosmic certitude?) and how it would be illegal, grounds for impeachment, a violation of the constitution, yadda, yadda.
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And again, I’ll give some of the far left credit for being consistent in talking impeachment right now, even though that credit does not make up for the fact that said opinion is barking mad stupid.
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Biden *is* a gaffe machine. 🙂
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I’m not part of the “we” either, but IMHO, Americans as a whole have abandoned and accepted a lot of things that, pre-Bush, we would have defended and fought for tooth-and-nail (torture, indefinite detention, government surveillance, etc.) and that includes expectations of government accountability. I’m not seeing a great swell from the people to correct the current inertial path we’re on.
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I’m not a O-bot, but you’re making the incorrect comparison that Obama is acting exactly like Bush and for the same reasons. He’s not. Bush was champing at the bit to invade Iraq and took great relish in being a “war president”. It was jingoistic and embarrassing to the nation. There is nothing wrong about being pleased that the current president seems to realize that military action is a deeply serious matter and not an enhancement product taken to look strong and manly (RE: Bush in his flight suit).
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Hey, no disagreement with you that it’s usually a far more complicated issue. I’m not that simplistic (but I am aware that a number of people are). I know of no one who opposed attacking Afghanistan except the most die-hard of pacifists, who should know that Afghanistan doesn’t have oil pipelines (unless you’re talking about Kuwait, which is a far closer analogy).
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From what I’ve seen, Obama has gotten a lot of grief from the left over the action in Libya but I probably don’t go to the same sites as you.
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I just wish there was no need to point out the differences. He was stupid to play up the dump ^%*!# he played up back during the election and he was even dumber to go getting into this mess now. There is no endgame here. This is actually worse than the no-fly zone garbage that was placed on Iraq all those years.
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Bush was so desperate for a PR piece to hold up as an example of his shiny new success with the Bush Doctrine that he lifted sanctions imposed on Libya in return for Khadafy giving the press lip service about having turned over a new leaf and abandoning his essentially non-existent WMD programs. Khadafy has had money coming back into his coffers and been buying new toys and new comforts for himself. He’s in a better position to hold out against the newer sanctions and the other parts of the latest U.N. sanction than he might otherwise have been because of that.
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This is a useless exercise to engage in. The only two options we really have are not getting involved or going all the way and taking him and his people out. It’s too late for the first option, and the second option is a mini Iraq quagmire waiting to happen. One would have hoped that Obama would at least be smart enough to not stick his foot in the same bear trap that he watched Bush dive into blindly with both feet for most of his presidency. Apparently, that was too much to hope for.
oh no sorry that was EVIL Bushhitler who apparently did things unilateraly.
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I don’t recall anybody saying Bush did anything unilaterally. He had a Republican Congress for most of his time in office that was more than willing to do his bidding, after all.
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But then, Obama is the Commander. No, he cannot declare war, but there are many occasions when no such declaration was requested or needed; Obama is not the first, nor will he be the last president to invoke such authority.
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Yet, Republicans get their panties in a knot simply because, as Sasha said, it’s Obama in charge.
Of course this is the very same Obama who said, as a candidate “The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.”
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It’s ok though because I am sure that people can twist themselves into a position where the military attack on Libya is not a military attack and/or Libya posed an actual or imminent threat to the nation.
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One of his dumber statements while playing to some of the base. But, as I said back then, he’s wrong. He’s technically right, but he’s wrong.
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There is no power granted in the Constitution, but we do have a standing law (the War Powers Resolution of 1973) that allows military action to be ordered by the POTUS without a formal deceleration of war. Once such action is called, the POTUS has 60 days(plus 30 additional days for withdrawal) to finish the action started or go before congress and do the whole “war or no war” thing. Also, this is part of a multilateral response authorized under U.N. Security Council Resolution 1973. 1973 sets out what can and cannot be done and under 1973 you can put into place and enforce a no fly zone.
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None of that changes the stupidity of his original remarks or the stupidity of his currant actions, but right now he’s not declaring war, he is doing this with several other nations and the U.N. and the actions are Constitutional. It also doesn’t change the fact that this is a mess that we need not be getting into right now.
You’re right, of course. The Dennis Kucinich gang calling for impeachment are out of their minds.
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I’m just upset that so far nobody is breaking out the Giant Anti-War Puppet heads. I’ve missed them so.
One of his dumber statements while playing to some of the base.
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Agreed. Claiming to not have such authority is nothing but pandering. Several presidents before him used the same authority to initiate similar actions.
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It also doesn’t change the fact that this is a mess that we need not be getting into right now.
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I’m not sure if it’s a situation we should be involved in or not. But for me, much of it is how far we’re going to go with this. Lobbing missiles? Doesn’t bother me so much. Sending in troops? Different story.
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In the end, we pushed for a no-fly zone, and like with Iraq for so many years after the Gulf War, we’re now obliged to enforce it.
Well, even if the anti-war movement is strangely muted we can count on big Media to keep things honest with hard hitting investigative reports like this one: http://www.cnn.com/video/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rss%2Fcnn_freevideo+%28RSS%3A+Video%29#/video/us/2011/03/21/moos.libya.war.souvenirs.cnn
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All it needs is a Jib-Jab video.
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“I’m just upset that so far nobody is breaking out the Giant Anti-War Puppet heads. I’ve missed them so.”
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Give them at least a little more time. They’ve been mothballed for a while now and the things got a little shabby looking. They need at least another week to glue on parts that fell off, fix up the pant jobs and get the materials needed to make one with Obama’s ears. Hëll, that last one alone might take a two week build job right there unless someone has a leftover Prince Charles that they can just throw some spray pant over.
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Hmmm… On second thought, that one might not be such a good idea. A white puppet head in black-face being passed off as Obama? And the Professional Left not being able to knee-jerk the racism card over it? The head explosions in DC and California alone would create a debris cloud large enough to block out the sun for six to eight weeks at least.
Let’s discount any moral arguments and just look at the realpolitiks of it.
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Khadafy is a dictator that seems like he is about to fall if we just lend a little help the very real popular rebellion he is currently crushing cruelly. Saddam was a dictator that had a firm grip on his country facing no big organized opposition.
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Bill, Anthony, and other Conservatives, even you guys should admit that intervening in the first situation seems vastly wiser and simpler than intervening in the second.
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Lybia had most of the world asking the question: “What is the US and Europe waiting for to step in and stop this lunatic?”
Rene, I actually have little problem with toppling Kadaffy. I am beginning to lose faith that this will actually happen now that the coalition is showing signs of becoming The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot (cruise missiles) Straight. I am not entirely clear if the goal is to stick this out until he is gone or just until we lose interest and something else takes over the news.
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Being a better idea than the Iraq War is not enough to convince me this is a good idea. The “Bush was worse” mantra really only goes so far.
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I wish I were more confident in the ability of the Libyans to beat Kadaffy but while they have passion I have seen very little evidence of much strategic or tactical ability. If that’s the case the best we can hope for is to end up with something like the situation in Iraq, pre-war — permanent no fly zones, semi autonomous regions within the country, and kadaffy able to claim he thumbed his nose at the West.
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Why is it so hard to kill these guys? I wish the CIA were as ruthless as the movies make it out to be. People say we will make him a a martyr. I doubt it, nobody seems to be walking around in Iraq with Saddam T-shirts. Getting your ášš kicked by the USA doesn’t earn you much street cred. Surviving all attempts to oust you from the outside seems to work. If we are going to kill the king we’d dámņ well better make sure we kill the king…but I fear we are already looking for an exit strategy that leaves everything potentially worse off.
Bill, the comparision with Bush is apt, because that is how you and Anthony framed the discussion from the beginning.
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You guys were saying: “Hey, the anti-war movement isn’t giving Obama the hard time they gave Bush! Why is that?!?”
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Aside from the obvious fact that this war is weeks-old (and Bush’s wars had big approval ratings when they began too), the fact that this war isn’t a “manufactured” one like Iraq’s is important to explain the different attitudes.
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I am also honest enough to admit that a lot of people in the anti-war crowd is hopelessly partisan, sure. But the situations ARE different. For instance, now the US goes as part of a OTAN operations.
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And passion counts a lot, as it shapes perception worldwide. A major point of contention in the Bush years was imperial capitalist white power intervening in other people’s society. But now the Lybians WANT to get rid of Kadaffy and we’re just helping them out.
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The way we’re going about it, it may still be a bad idea. I’m not a specialist, and these things are hard to predict even if you are a specialist. But yeah, it’s a different situation than Iraq’s.
The anti-war folks were often against both Iraq AND Afghanistan. I am willing to forgive them not being upset that we still have 50,000 troops in iraq since only a total fool would have thought that “bringing the troops home” actually meant he was going to bring all the troops home but Obama has TRIPLED the number of combat troops in Afghanistan, with not terribly great success to show for it. Strange that this does not arouse much passion.
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I certainly agree that these wars are radically different but they also have some things in common, including some factors that a few short years ago were denounced with righteous moral certainty. Now, not so much.
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Aside from the obvious fact that this war is weeks-old (and Bush’s wars had big approval ratings when they began too),
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By “too” do you imply that this new war has high approval ratings? Because that flies in the face of what I’ve seen.
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It isn’t like I expected the media to give as much attention to actual controversies like the photos of rogue soldiers posing with dead civilians as they did to fake stories like the “koran flushed down a toilet” but it’s worth pointing out.
Strange that this does not arouse much passion.
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Well, I can’t explain that one, being that I’m one who has always supported the war in Afghanistan and that Bush’s mistake – compounded by going to Iraq – is that he never fully committed to Afghanistan to begin with.
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In both countries, we got into ‘nation building’ for different reasons, and it hasn’t gone well. In Afghanistan, we didn’t really try for many years, and now it looks like a lost cause; in Iraq, we tried when we shouldn’t have, and egos caused us to entirely miscalculate.
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But then, even the opposition to the Iraq war eventually faded with time, as it’s just hard to sustain the energy for such a long time.
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At any rate, I don’t think ‘nation building’ by means of sending in troops and expecting roses to be thrown at our feet is an action that is going to be taken in Libya.
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The fact that we’re a country that seems to revel in finding itself in one mess of a war or another, regardless of the party in charge, is disturbing.
I have a friend in Afghanistan. Everything he tells me convinces me that we could spend trillions there and maybe, maybe, get it to the level of the 18th century. Even without the added problem of enemies that blow things up as you build them.
That’s probably correct, Bill. When we started out in Afghanistan, we basically carpet bombed them back into the Stone Age. Which might’ve actually been an improvement for them. But on the whole, things certainly aren’t much better (if they’re not worse) than before, and the Taliban is still around.
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The only reason to even support the war in the first place was to rid the world of the Taliban, which many thought was a great idea. Only, we’ve utterly failed to do that because Afghanistan was a means to an end (see: Iraq), and quickly became less of a priority. Just as finding bin Laden himself became less of a priority yet he was the reason we were there in the first place.
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My brother is serving in Afghanistan right now. He’d rather be home, because it just doesn’t seem like anything is being accomplished. It’s not the quagmire that Iraq became, but there’s obviously no end game in sight.
I’m not sure it isn’t even more of a quagmire–Iraq is way different now than it was before the war and during the worst of the insurgency. Afghanistan is…Afghanistan. Some things may not be fixable, or, at least, worth the price it would take to fix them.
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back to what Anthony brought up: it’s altogether fair and expected that there be a certain degree of Schadenfreude on the part of conservatives when they gleefully dig up larf provoking stuff like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Adpa5kYUhCA where candidate joe Biden warns that any president who launches an attack (unless it is to stop an imminent attack) without getting congressional approval should be impeached. I mean, c’mon. You’d do the same.
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But at some point you have to pull back or the only thing that happens is people will double down and no good will come of that. Right now my biggest fear is not that the president and crew are guilty of hypocrisy but that the whole endeavor could fall apart, with a lot of collateral damage to our relationship with our allies (and Kadaffy still alive!). I know beter than to trust everything printed in the British press but this report is kind of…not good.
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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1368693/Libya-war-Germans-pull-forces-NATO-Libyan-coalition-falls-apart.html
Well, fwiw, the Daily Mail is a tabloid, so I’m not sure I would consider them a source for anything.
when even the secretary of defense describes the campaign as “kind of on-the-fly” you start to worry.
Honestly, I still don’t see any hypocrisy here, Bill. Iraq had Bush and his people organizing it, pushing for it, supplying reasons for it, it was Bush’s war from the beginning.
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Libya is an UN operation in response to very real unrest in that country. How could you accuse Obama of acting unilateraly? Liberals everywhere love the UN, it’s conservatives that distrust and despise it. Thus, Liberal support of the Libya operation is totally consistent with their ideology.
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As for the murder squad idea, of course I would not shed a tear if Kaddafy (and a few other dictators) were taken out by a murder squad. But I do worry about any government having a murder squad that efficient. Wouldn’t you? Any suspicious deaths domestically would be fodder for conspiration theorists, when the government has a bunch of super-effective, super-stealthy assassins on the payroll.
Because if you claim that “The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.” and then you, as president, unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation, you are probably going to get charged with hypocrisy.
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If going to the UN and getting resolutions authorizing action makes it not unilateral then how was Bush’s action not also legit? He had more allies with him then we do now and he held them together longer than this currently disintegrating coalition is likely to stand. Granted, he did not have the French. So there’s that.
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Also, Bush got congressional approval. Obama should have gone to the congress. He would have gotten approval as well. That is the aspect that makes it somewhat unilateral–it doesn’t matter really how many allies you rope into supporting you–we can always get Lower Pago Pago or Left Ubekistan to offer cooks and janitors. But You probably ought to get some support from the congress unless, as may be the case, they really think this is a one week operation. So what if the bášŧárd refuses to die? Does Obama go to the congress after the fact?
Oh, c’mon. Don’t be a lawyer. It’s not as if Obama had been planning to invade Lybia for months and was looking for excuses to do so. Quite the opposite in fact, it’s a situation that has developed independently of Obama’s efforts, and he’s mostly reacting to it.
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When the psycho dictator is crushing the last bastions of resistance in his country just as we speak, then to demand that Obama stop everything to get congressional authorization just because he said something when he was a candidate when refering to a vastly different situation… it strikes me as a little petty.
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As has been mentioned before, although he doesn’t have said power under the Constitution, such power is given to him via the War Powers Act.
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Strictly speaking, Obama’s not a hypocrite, but he is being a quibbling lawyer.
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Unlike the current operation in Libya, the Iraq War was never a UN-sanctioned action: The United Nations did not authorize force in Resolution 1441 and never authorized force afterwards. Bush set the timetable and quickly initiated the conflict, shooing out UN weapons inspectors in the process.
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Bush had more allies but many were bribed and served as tokens, offering no real combat or material assistance. Additionally, not as many countries have the ability or resources to assist in enforcing a no-fly zone. Comparing Bush keeping his coalition together with a completely theoretical disintegration of Obama’s is purely speculative and isn’t remotely germane.
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Bush got Congressional approval … by using 9-11 propaganda and criminally flawed information sell the war; after hammering for months how anyone opposed to it was soft on terror, loved Saddam Hussein, and hated America; then forcing the vote to come less than a month before the 2002 midterm election in order to make it a campaign issue.
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I too would have liked Obama to have gone to Congress but, under the War Powers Act, he’s well within his authority to act as he did. As it stands, he has 60 days from the beginning of the operation to get approval from Congress for continued action.
I agree, he has the power to do so…which means that Rene and Sasha have a better grasp of US law than either the president or vice president did as candidates. I love you guys but that’s alarming.
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When the psycho dictator is crushing the last bastions of resistance in his country just as we speak, then to demand that Obama stop everything to get congressional authorization just because he said something when he was a candidate when referring to a vastly different situation… it strikes me as a little petty.
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So, just to be clear, is the objective to eliminate Kadaffy? Because I’m not entirely sure I’m getting that from the White House. What is the definition of success here? I don’t think that is an unreasonable thing to ask before we walk into a civil war and take sides.
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Also worth asking is if this is going to be policy from now on…because I can point out a few places where we could also help out some deserving folks.
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I want this to succeed. The world will likely be a better place without Kadaffy in charge of Libya. But this does not seem all that well thought out and maybe going before congress might have helped clarify the plan–it isn’t like this suddenly sprang to life 3 days ago. Obama had time to go to fundraisers, there should have been time for consultation with congress.
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Is this a war we are in? Depends on who you ask (me, I always figure that if you are bombing other countries you are technically at war with them. I’m sure they consider it a war. If a country bombed us that’s how I would feel about it.). Why is the question of who is in control of the mission still in play? Will we accept Kadaffy continuing as leader? What if taking out his airforce is not enough to let the rebels win? We have ruled out ground troops–how far are we willing to go to defeat the government forces? Do we reserve the right from this point forward to launch missiles at Libya as we see fit? What if the rebels gain the upper hand and engage in tribal payback against those who support the government? It’s not unreasonable in a democracy to expect your government to have answers and at least ACT like they are concerned about answering them.
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This could all work out well for Obama and, far more importantly, for the Libyans, but if it does it really looks like it will be out of good luck as opposed to good strategy. If Kadaffy holds on though, it’s very possible we will see a long bloodbath. Denying him his airforce keeps him from ending the rebellion quickly but that can be accomplished with slow starvation and conventional weapons. Will we be arming the rebels with better weapons? Better hope they are all nice folks or Obama will be tagged with the same “we created the Taliban” claim that his predecessors got.
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BTW, the British were able to find the time to put it to a vote. Why not us?
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“If going to the UN and getting resolutions authorizing action makes it not unilateral then how was Bush’s action not also legit?”
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Obama is following the guidelines of the U.N. resolution. He is committing our forces to create and enforce a no fly zone while stressing that we will be turning the bulk of this duty over to the countries that most pushed for this resolution. He is not declaring that we have the authority to do whatever we please, mount a full scale invasion or topple a government and rebuild one we like in its place.
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Bush and crew (and the chorus of pro-invasion parrots on Fox News and conservative talk radio) declared that we were authorized to make a full scale invasion of Iraq and topple its government based on U.N. resolution 1441. When it was pointed out that neither 1441 or any other resolution after that authorized full military invasion and the removal. replacement and rebuilding of the Iraqi government they shifted their stance to declare Saddam was working with etc., etc., etc., etc…
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Right now, Obama is doing something that I don’t think we need to be doing. But he is doing it with the U.N. and he is not declaring that we can do whatever we want to do in Libya, U.N and the world be dámņëd. He is also not sending his people to the U.N. with cherry-picked intel, computer generated drawings and props representing the evidence of what we “know” Muammar Gaddafi to justify invasion. Obama is not getting on TV and declaring as “facts” things that the live news feeds from that day show are actually anything but “facts.” Obama is not firing Generals and advisors one after the other until he finally gets the one who is willing to play yes man and tell him that this is a good idea. Obama is not… Well, we could go on for another 50 or 60 of these.
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There are parts of the Professional Left that hates any war of any kind for any reason and will protest every war. There are parts of the Professional Left that will protest anything that a Republican POTUS does (just as it seems that a majority the new mainstream Right will protest anything that Obama does; even when that means doing a 180 in a week because Obama is doing what the Right said he should do so that is now the new wrong thing that Obama is doing.) But a large chunk of the middle ground on both sides don’t knee-jerk one size fits all reactions.
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Libya isn’t Iraq. We haven’t had weeks and months of buildup where an administration trotted out transparently bogus evidence and facts. We haven’t seen a President and his closest advisors doing everything they can to promote a full scale invasion based on bûllšhìŧ grounds. We haven’t been subjected to the administration officials and the useful idiots treating us like they think we’re as stupid as they want us to be and telling us how they doubt a full scale invasion will last longer than months and that it’ll all be paid for anyhow when we just turn those pumps in the oil fields back on and the price of oil drops like a rock and the new, oil rich Iraqi government gratefully pays us back the money we spent “liberating” them.
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Of course the anger and the protests aren’t there. The starting point for the two incidents are nothing alike. And, going back to your statement, all of those differences means that the sense of illegitimacy isn’t there.
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This could all still change if Obama’s handling of this lives down to the standards he has set on other things, but we’re not even going to begin to see that until about week six.
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It’s just not the same situation in any way, shape or form right now and comparing the different reactions to the two of them at this point is meaningless.
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“So, just to be clear, is the objective to eliminate Kadaffy? Because I’m not entirely sure I’m getting that from the White House. What is the definition of success here? I don’t think that is an unreasonable thing to ask before we walk into a civil war and take sides.”
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That’s the big problem right there in my book. Bush and crew gave us circular answers for what “success” in Iraq was that were ultimately meaningless word games and hollow rhetoric. Obama and crew haven’t really told us what they see as success here at all.
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Oh, I’m sure as candidates that both Obama and Biden had an excellent grasp of US law. They are politicians though, and talented quibblers (hence, correctly arguing that the president has no CONSTITUTIONAL authority, but not bothering to mention that he does have LEGAL authority).
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No, it isn’t. Unfortunately, as a society we abandoned our expectations about government accountability (among other things) during the last administration. I fear it will be a while yet before we can to properly reclaim them.
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I don’t envy Obama’s position at all and I imagine that he doesn’t like it much either. The one thing that I do appreciate in this whole mess is that Obama seems truly reluctant and displeased about using force. It’s a refreshing change from Bush’s transparent glee.
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The real possibility of reflexively partisan legislature that has difficulty passing a no-brainer like START grandstanding and whittling away valuable time? Eight years of reflexive deference to unitary executive ideology fundamentally altering expectations and protocol? The shift in journalism from actively asking questions to passively accepting statements? Take your pick or come up with your own … they probably all have some traction.
Not with American-driven nation-building hooey, if that’s what you’re wondering, Peter. At least this time people in the theater of war actually want this done.
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As for killing the man, I see no reason not to do it immediately. Normally I’d say it would be unsuitable and against international law, but the “Colonel” holds a military rank, wears a uniform, is commander-in-chief of a standing army, and has admitted to killing innocent civilians in Scotland with state-sponsored terrorism. He is hostis humani generis and can be killed like Yamamoto.
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I really expected you to be behind this one, man. Just because you’ve screwed up badly in the past doesn’t mean it’s okay to ignore doing the right thing in the present.
Oh, c’mon. Don’t be a lawyer.
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Wow. Harsh words.
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Not that I don’t agree with your post, but that’s pretty low.
🙂
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TAC
How does Newt Gingrich avoid whiplash?
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It’s a medical marvel if anyone bothers to investigate.
It’s easy when you have two faces!
And to think this guy might throw his hat in the ring for the GOP.
Either that or he falls back on religion, as he has done with his (lack of) ‘family values’.
Didn’t he and his wife just finish putting a “book” out about that very topic?
Question: As Jerry said, the War Powers Resolution of 1973 allows the president to order military action without a formal declaration of war, with 60 days to finish the action or go before Congress. How and why did this come about in the first place? Why not just retain the constitutional requirement that only Congress can declare war?
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Of course I could see exceptions if we were attacked, or under imminent threat; but then under such circumstances, I suspect Congress would declare war in any event.
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Should we be involved in Libya at all? I don’t know. We’re stretched pretty thin as it is. On the other hand, the country might be better off if someone other than Khadafy (or whatever the correct spelling is) were in charge (though that would depend on who it was, of course). I’d like to see him out of power (and, frankly, in very uncomfortable circumstances). A girlfriend of mine in college had a friend who was on board Pan Am flight 103, and we know of Libya’s involvement with that.
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Here’s another question. Not necessarily related to Libya, but it could be. The U.S. has spoken in the past about bringing (or helping to bring) democracy to certain countries and/or regions. Once said democracy is established, doesn’t that mean, by definition, that we’d have to accept A) the type of democracy a country chooses (parliamentary, constitutional republic, or something else) and B) respect the wishes of said government regarding our continued presence? Suppose the leaders of a newly democratic country say, in essence, “thanks for all the help. We’ll take it from here.”? Would we be obligated to respect their wishes and leave? Would we actually do so?
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I think we would be obligated to leave, once a country has established a reasonably stable democratic government, though, in certain circumstances, we might want to try to persuade the new government that we could still provide help to them. On the other hand, I don’t think we actually would leave. Not right away. And especially if the form of democracy wasn’t exactly like ours.
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I think we’re somewhat contradictory in that regard. We genuinely want to help nations move toward democratic forms of government, but at the same time we want those nations to reflect our version of democracy. Human nature, I suppose.
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Rick
I think the War Powers Act is a compromise between the Executive branch which says that the Commander in Chief can launch attacks at will and the legislative branch that says, no, only we can declare war. The Supreme Court could settle the issue but neither side wants to risk losing.
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I think if a country with a democratic government asked us to leave we would. It would be difficult to do what might have been done before–overthrow the government and install someone more compliant. If Japan asked us to go what could we do about it? maybe insist on some compensation for the stuff we leave behind (or, alternatively,take anything of value, including the lightbulbs destroy what’s left, and sow salt into the rubble.).
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I wouldn’t worry about that overly much since our being in those places lets them not have to spend big money on defense. If they want to shoulder that burden I would give them our blessings and leave before they change their minds.
How does it end? It ends in embarrassment, of course.
It could work out great–if we really just go in, get rid of Kadaffy, and then tip our hats and mosey right on out it will certainly be something we can show off when people accuse us of only doing these things to grab land and take oil.
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Extra points of, as we leave, they play the piano theme from the end of the Hulk TV show.
That ain’t happening, Bill.
There’s nothing in Obama’s words or actions that lends itself to the notion that this will be anything other than an embarrassment at best.
I’m not holding my breath either. That said, that’s pretty much exactly what I (and many others) also thought about healthcare reform and DADT repeal actually happening.
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Obama seems to have a knack for pulling off successes against long odds. Hopefully, his streak will continue.
Screw it. Let’s just send in Batman.
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PAD
I say we send the Merged Hulk. (Not “the Professor,” the Merged Hulk. There’s a difference, folks!)
A lot of pessimism here. Truth is, the outcome of these things almost never can be predicted. Hëll, no one seriously predicted this chain of Middle East uprisings in the first place.
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I never liked Bush, but when he invaded Iraq, my initial reaction was “wait and see.”
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I don’t like Obama very much (but I like him a lot more than Bush), Lybia doesn’t seem quite the same quagmire as Iraq, and I think I owe Obama to adopt the same attitude as I did with Bush.
Oh it can be predicted all right. Accurately, even.
Write it down here how Lybia will be in a year.
We’ll check it out in March of 2012.
Deal?
Accurately, even.
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Do you have anything to back that up?
I’ll go with–Kadaffy or some other strong man still nominally in charge but large sections of the country in the hands of various tribal forces that might win if they could ever stop hating each other long enough to work together. Also, they all agree that somehow the Jews are responsible.
They’ll all blame the Jews? Wow. You’re a real oracle, Bill. 🙂
My turn. I predict that in 2012 the sky will be blue, people will still breathe air, and women will enjoy romantic comedies.