Two things besides bowing to foriegn "dignitaries" and making excuses for American intervention that President Obama is known for are is fist bumps and swagger. These two things don't make a president. Perhaps image isn't everything, sorry Sprite. Like a parent who is afraid to raise their child correctly by acting more like their friend than a parent, he should stand up and take action. But the problem is when he does he gets ambushed from both sides.It's not so easy is it Mr. Obama? After getting angry with former President Bush about getting us involved with wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (he and Hillary that is) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1552715/Hillary-and-Obama-vote-to-cut-off-Iraq-funding.html, now all of a sudden they say it is okay to get involved with Libya. Why the change? Both had a dictator. Both had groups wanting independence and both defied the United Nations international laws. So why the sudden change? Perhaps they are finally seeing that sometimes you can not deal with a dictator.
What is the difference? One that President Bush went after attacked us (bin laden). The other we tried to negotiate with for 6 months (hussein). We tried to work with the UN for six months. But hardly anyone had enopughguts to do anything about it. Remember appeasement? It didn't work in the 1930's. It won't work now. Thank you to all the British, Italians, Australians, Japanese, and Spaniards by the way for sticking up for freedom. This one (quadaffi) we did in 31 days. There is no exit strategy; another argument from the left against President Bush, and the leading words coming from the horse's (or something related to a horse) mouth itself. The speech tonight really gave us nothing new to learn or cleared anything up.
However, with all that said, the President is actually in the right here. Bombing Libya is a correct action but it needs to be more if it is going to be effective. Thumbs down to the Republican-held Congress for arguing about using military action. The Constitution gives him full range of the military for 60 days then he has to ask for more permission. It's called being commander-in-chief. But unlike Bill Clinton versus Somalia, or Bosnia, or Rwanda, or Kenya, or anywhere else he might have hit and failed as he let genocides of thousands of people to continue because it took months perhaps years to even make a decision on what to do and then waste opportunities to hit when needed, it should be more like what Bush said: http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/blbush-quote.htm. Be patient but hit the right thing. Now maybe, you will understand that you have to stop fist-bumping, apologizing, and bowing and start shaking hands, stand up and be bold like a real leader. And whatever you do, don't swagger like a cowboy.
Thumbs up to the commander-in-chief. No one likes war but a dictator is someone you can not deal with, remember that in your next health care bill, hidden taxes, and stimulus packages next time.
15 comments:
As someone on the left (the real left, not the "left" that is actually centre right) who supports the use of force to remove tyrants there is a distinction to be made between iraq and libya. In 1990 when we first entered iraq there was a legitimate mandate to do so, that was the murder of civilians by the state, that is the situation we're facing now in libya. in 2003 the reasons for going into iraq were either not made clear or were completely fictitious (WMDs etc), there was no mandate to invade, and as i said even though i support the removal of saddam it wasn't a bosnia situation where you can ignore the UN to save civilians.
Also the USA is no longer conducting air strikes, in fact you haven't been flying planes over there for almost 2 days, only the french and the UK are still bombing and NATO are controlling the airspace. Lastly and this is slightly off topic, but there's been some speculation in the US about arming the rebels with weapons, this is the worst thing we could do. Assist in humanitarian efforts, bomb anti air guns and airports, other places of tactical significance, but we shouldn't get drawn into a cival war which could last decades, though i think it'll last about another 2 weeks.
Hi JonathanHitch,
"In 1990 when we first entered iraq there was a legitimate mandate to do so, that was the murder of civilians by the state, that is the situation we're facing now in libya. in 2003 the reasons for going into iraq were either not made clear or were completely fictitious (WMDs etc), there was no mandate to invade,..."
Sure there was a mandate. The reason for going to war in Iraq was two-fold and made very clear:
1. To eliminate Iraq's WMDs and thier capability to produce them.
Unfortunately, WMDs and their support structure were not found as of today. Keep in mind, Saddam was notorious for hiding things out in the desert. We are still finding equipment today.
Therefore, it could have been really bad intelligience or they are still there, waiting to be found or they were shipped off to his neighbors like he did during the 1st Iraq war. Most dictators are idiots, Saddam was no different.
2. To eliminate Iraq's support for Al Qaeda.
The press loves to center on the fact that no WMDs have been found. They also love to play down how much of a success it was in hurting Al Qaeda's support system.
As for the Bosnian conflict, the main reason for involving ourselves can be illustated by history. Most conflicts in that part of the world has a tendency of getting way out of hand, ie: WW1.
Johnathan,
I don't think we are disagreeing here on many issues at all. But before I begin. I would like to call attention to the fact that I hit the "publish" button before I intended. So this post has changed. I was going to post about some things you mentioned but decided to just go ahead and address them here instead.
The second time we entered Iraq was also legitimate. There was a mandate but they refused to adhere to their own laws. For 15 years the UN watched Hussein violate UN resolutions of no fly zones, claiming he had WMD's and other biological and chemical weapons, and denying access to facilities deemed as dangerous per UN counsel. We should have gotten rid of him in 1990 but didn't. We chose to go back to the status quo ante bellum. But that throughout history has shown doesn't work. His first violation the UN and the coalition forces should have went back in and deposed of him. The objective was clear. Get rid of Hussein. The timetable was not clear. The WMD's was thought to be true by most of the world including your own leaders. It was better to make sure that he had none than to find out later he did, after he used them again.
Now Bush did make it part of the war on terrorism, which is what part of anyway before he decided this act. They had long been suppliers of these acts before this got started.
As for us not bombing anymore are you okay with that or upset with that? Either way I think we shouldn't have stopped if that is indeed a fact.
I agree with you on the action needed to be taken and the precautions but it will be a difficult task to balance. It will not be over until Quagoofi is eliminated one way or another.
As always, good to hear your viewpoint.
" But unlike Bill Clinton versus Somalia, or Bosnia, or Rwanda, or Kenya, or anywhere else he might have hit and failed as he let genocides of thousands of people to continue because it took months perhaps years to even make a decision on what to do and then waste opportunities to hit when needed..."
Honestly, how do you fight genocide when it is not one person or organization perpetrating the act?
In Bosnia, General Ratko Mladić was used as a scapegoat to represent the serbian army and its ethnic cleansing campaign against muslims. However, the serb/muslim conflict has been a timebomb waiting to happen.
In Libya, Gaddafi and his cohorts are the clear perpetrators. Even though something had to be done, I feel a covert surgical strike against Gaddafi would have been better than bombing, which leaves far too much colateral damage to clean up afterwards by whoever follows. Also, bombing can be used by extremists for propaganda against the west.
@ no doubt are you insinuating that the reason we didn't find wmds was because they weren't there? As I said I support the removal of tyrants and thus support the continued efforts to bring democracy to all areas of the middle east but in all seriousness the reasons we were given for entering iraq are not the ones we are being presented with now, there was no nuclear threat and even if there was this spurious 45 minute launch claim was certainly a lie. The fact of the matter is that weapons inspectors were not given enough time in iraq and in actuality to this day there is no link between iraq and al qaeda, end of. I agree on bosnia, and as I said I support intervention in all countries where civilians are being murdered by the state. On iraq, either we were lied to or intelligence was incorrect, my suspicion is that we were lied to and that once Hussein had complied with his obligation to allow weapons inspectors into the country and they had come to the conclusion he was clean there could have been no attack so the only option for the coalition was to engage in military action prematurely.
@Gozreht I completely agree, Hussain should not have been left to continue to govern a country where he had been responsible for genocide, similarly now colonel mustard should be removed from power.
I think it's appropriate for the US to distance itself from the operations in libya, people often forget that because places like libya don't have a free press leader like gadaffi use the US as their focus point for hatred so the public, no matter how obliging the US are in aiding reconstruction or the rebel effort there, will have this innate desire to reject them.
There's still this bad smell hanging in the air as well in the international community about bush's crusade speech which is why i think france were so quick to act. If the US had gone in first, bombing airfields etc it would have lost a lot of support internationally from russia etc, and then when it came to imposing similar sanctions on other dictatorships the UN security council would almost certainly turn them down. Obama saying today he's not ruled out arming rebels is a mistake, he should know better and back away from the conflict.
" I feel a covert surgical strike against Gaddafi would have been better than bombing" No matter how one feels about the actions of dictators I would never condone the assassination of a head of state, that's why we have the hague.
Jonathan
First of all, the reason why I had an issue was your comment,
“ in 2003 the reasons for going into iraq were either not made clear or were completely fictitious (WMDs etc), there was no mandate to invade,...”
which is not true as I laid out for you in my first comment.
Whether or not the reasons were actually factual is another issue which brings me to:
are you insinuating that the reason we didn't find wmds was because they weren't there?
No. You read too much into my comment. Let me remind you of what I said:
“Therefore, it could have been really bad intelligience or they are still there…
The continued editorial about the POSSIBILITY of the WMDs being hidden was in response to your erroneous and biased comment:
in 2003 the reasons for going into iraq were either not made clear or were completely fictitious (WMDs etc)
”The reasons …were completely fictitious (WMDs etc)” is an irresponsible comment. We don’t know what the final outcome will be. We will have to take a wait and see position unless you know something the rest of the world doesn’t know or you have an agenda.
” ‘ I feel a covert surgical strike against Gaddafi would have been better than bombing’ No matter how one feels about the actions of dictators I would never condone the assassination of a head of state, that's why we have the hague. “
Once again, you misunderstood. No one said anything about assassination. Let me put it more plainly. Instead of indiscriminate bombing of infrastructure, I’d rather do more covert operations from sneaking in and nabbing Gaddafi to bombing something closer to him in order to get his attention.
As I read this back to myself, it sounds harsh, but it is not intended as such. I ask your forgiveness it you are offended by the inferred tone.
My question is: who lied?????
Bush? or Hussein?
Clinton? or Blair?
CIA? MI-5?
If any of these, I would choose Hussein. But he said he had them, so that enough says "warning sign". If Hitler said he had WMD's...I would have believed him and not used appeasement. We learned from Davalier and Chamberlain not to do that with any more dictators.
It was known even before the invasion that the intelligence was deeply flawed, there's a multitude of intelligence agencies that made mistakes but the difference is between the UK and the US and let's say France is that France recognized the intelligence was inherently flawed, where as administrations like the ours who had made regime change in iraq a priority glossed over it in order to invade. A number of subsequent cover ups and exposes into how poor the intelligence was and the methods used to obtain it shows clearly the public were woven a lie so I stand by my comment that the 2003 invasion of iraq, on the back of intelligence on WMDs, was a mistake. In the time it's taken to create stability in iraq the UK and US could have destroyed that regime the good old fashioned way, by passing sanctions to tie the regime down and force husseins hand, thus creating a legitimate invasion policy and winning over hearts and minds, something that's been notoriously difficult to do there.
Based on what you said I would most definitely agree. But there is more to the story. For 15 years, the UN tried to put sanctions on Iraq, tried to "enforce" 15 resolutions (including the inspections of facilities that were known to house such weapons). And all he did was get stronger.
Back in the 1930's the League of Nations tried the same thing with Mussolini after he invaded Ethiopia. Sanctions didn't work. All he did was take from the people and sign an alliance that made him stronger.
Don't get me wrong, I believe in diplomacy first and with the most emphasis. But one problem is we always assume that dictators can be talked to since they are human. We made that mistake with Hitler, called appeasement. Dictators can not be talked to or with. That assumes they have rational thoughts. Dictators do not use rational thinking. Most of them became dictators in irrational ways.
I will give you the point that if we were lied to go get WMDs and we knew they weren't there AT ALL, then yes, the war is illegitimate. But if any information claims that a dictator has WMDs (flawed or not, notice I said flawed not false) then he needs to be dealt with. And based on the prior 15 years the UN did not do their job. They wimped out a la League of Nations (there is a reason why the League is no longer around).
If Ahmadinejad says he has WMDs...bomb him! Of course we won't have to if Israel hears about it.
Good dialogue.
"My question is: who lied?????
Bush? or Hussein?
Clinton? or Blair?
CIA?" MI-5?
Do you really want me to answer that? LOL
I think the big question is:
Would have President Bush found a way to go after Hussien if Hussien had come clean?
"It was known even before the invasion that the intelligence was deeply flawed..."
Gozreht stole my thunder. There is a major difference flawed intelligience and lying.
There is however no difference between lying and deliberately covering up the fact that intelligence was flawed in order to justify invasion. Here it was the case that the dossier used to justify invasion contained passages from a university graduates dissertation written several years earlier. Hussein was being co-operative at the time of invasion, he had allowed weapons inspecters to travel around unimpeded. The thing that should have been done in my opinion is for an international arrest warrant to be issued by a spanish judge for his arrest on genocide charges, because anyone can enact it. Civilians have lost their lives in libya and the same thing should be done there.
WMDs. I am so tired of hearing that. One of the weapons that was considered a WMD was the SCUD missile. Hussein was not supposed to have these and yetr he shot at least three off in 2002/2003 during the last Gulf War. If I remember right one hit Saudi Arabia and another went into Israel. The US had to convince Israel to let us handle it and show some resolve. If he shot theses off then that gave us "enough information" to go after him. He had them! Even if those were his last three, he had them, breaking international UN laws. The inspections were not working since he refused to let the inspectors in a lot of places with a game of cat and mouse, hide and seek, whatever you want to call it.
Nothing was as fictitious as you think.
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