"Hey. I was just along for the ride. I didn't know there was gonna be no shootin'."
It looks like our erstwhile friends in the Arab League are bailing out on us after only one day. After calling for a no-fly zone in Libya, now they are condemning the aitr strikes that have reportedly killed almost 50 people.
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/03/20/arab-league-criticizes-allied-airstrikes-libya/
What did they think was going to happen?
Meanwhile, it turns out that out of 124 missiles launched against Libya, 122 have come from the US and 2 from a British sub. But we're just providing our "unique capabilities" to back up our NATO allies. In addition, Admiral Mike Mullen has now stated that removing Qaddafi is not necessarily the goal here, rather to protect Libyan civilians. In the end, says Mullin, Qaddafi may actually remain in power.
That'll do wonders to protect those Libyan civilians.
It seems to me that we have our priorities backwards. The number one goal should be to kill Qaddafi. Period. The number two goal should return to base, drink some beer, and let the Libyans sort it out. As it is, if the UN had waited one or two more days to act, Qaddafi would have cleaned up Benghazi by now, and it would have been like July 21, 1944 in Germany (the day after the attempted assassination of Hitler failed). Had they acted a couple of weeks ago, the rebels might have won already. Well, no use crying over spilt oil as Gordon Brown might say.
Meanwhile, Yemen looks like the next hell hole to fall and Madame Clinton has warned our friends in Bahrain not to harm protesters. And the Heroic Egyptian People? They destroyed another Coptic Christian church last week.
If I may quote yet another Brit, in this case, Nigel Farage,
"It's all quite a shower."
Whatever that means in British.
Saying that "the heroic Egyptian people" burned down another Coptic church is rather like saying that "the white people in America" bombed the black community of Tulsa Oklahoma, or that "the American Negroes" burned Detroit, or that "America's Beatle fans" killed Sharon Tate. It is also a bit like saying that "the Lebanese Christians" massacred the refugees at Shattila in Lebanon (anyone remember the American GI from Menasha, WI, who subsequently held off an Israeli tank with his pistol?), or that "the Jews" committed the murders at Deir Yassin.
ReplyDeleteYou are correct that everyone who thought they might perhaps find some moral imperative to intervene, a little, dithered for far too long. We should expect that our government will either conclude that we are willing to live with what might happen if we stay out, OR that we have both the duty and the ability to intervene, and do so early and rapidly.
The USA can't base its foreign policy either on intervening because the top military brass is itching to show what they can do (an error made often in the past), or declining to get involved when our principles and interests require it, because the generals are suffering combat fatigue. It seems pretty clear that the Joint Chiefs are not anxious to get anything more on our plate, but the President of the United States is correct that we can't just stand by while the man with all the heavy guns slaughters his own people.
The Arab League? It was an accomplishment to get them on board at all. Did anyone really think they were going to be steadfast? They are a comically diverse group that can seldom agree on anything, and had reason to be all over the map on this one.
If they complain about deaths, we should simply tabulate how many civilians its member states are killing in their own countries, and how many bodies Qadaffi is piling up.
As constitutionally dubious as the War Powers Resolution is, it is the standing law on the matter. So long as Obama either wraps this up in 60 days, or gets a new AUMF out of congress, he’s on legal ground that would rather difficult to shake. The only people that would have standing would be aggrieved members of congress, and if they went to court, eventually a relatively executive power friendly supreme court might just as well wash their hands of it as a political question. Personally, feel the War Powers Resolution has the same constitutional problems that the Line-Item Veto has, but there has yet to be a situation where a member of congress would challenge it. Depending on what happens in the next week or so, the current situation may bring the problems with the WPR to a head, or not.
ReplyDeleteAll I'm saying is that we owe Qaddafi for PA 103. Beyond that I don't care what happens in Libya. It's not worth the life of one US soldier.
ReplyDeleteSo who was it that burned down the Coptic church, Siarlys, the Amish? Perhaps Mossad trained dolphins or birds?
ReplyDeleteIt seems that every Israel bashing anti-Semite knows about and somehow weaves in Deir Yassin. None of their self-educated, independent, research ever stumbles across any of these Arab massacres which are ONLY those from when the UN passed the partition plan (11/29/47) and May 15, 1948.
December 1947 – Small kibbutzim were subjected to attacks – Gvulot, Ben-Shemen, Holon, Safed, Bat Yam and Kfar Yavetz. Sixty-two Jews were murdered by Arabs around Palestine.
December 30, 1947 – 39 Jews were killed by Arab rioters at Haifa’s oil refinery
January 16, 1948 – 35 Jews were killed trying to reach Gush Etzion
February 22, 1948 – 44 Jews were murdered in a bombing on Jerusalem’s Rehov Ben-Yehuda
February 29, 1948 – 23 Jews were killed all across Palestine, eight of them at the Hayotzek iron foundry.
January and February 1948 – Rishon Lezion, Yehiam, Mishmar Hayarden, Tirat Zvi, Sde Eliahu, Ein Hanatziv, Magdiel, Mitzpe Hagalil and Ma’anit were all subjected to attacks. Arab attackers also bombed The Palestine Post
April 13, 1948 – 35 Jew were murdered during the Mount Scopus convoy massacre
March and April – Assault on Hartuv by 400 Arabs based in the village of Ishwa and an attack on Kfar Darom by members of the Muslim Brotherhood. The Jewish Agency, the Solel Boneh building in Haifa and an Egged bus were bombed.
May 15, 1948 – 127 Jews were massacred at Kfar Etzion, after 30 others had died defending the Etzion Bloc.
During this timespan(November 29, 1947 to May 15, 1948), a total of 1,256 Jews had been killed, most of them civilians. These deaths were caused by Arab militias, gangs, terrorists and army units which attacked every place of Jewish inhabitation in Palestine. During this time, all Jewish villages in the Negev were attacked, and Jews had to go about the country in convoys. In every major city where Jews and Arabs lived in mixed neighborhoods the Jewish areas came under attack. This was true in Haifa’s Hadar Hacarmel as well as Jerusalem’s Old City.
The above list does not include Jews killed and synagogues burned in Arab countries during the timespan in question. However, it is known that more than 100 Jews were massacred and synagogues were burned in Aleppo and Aden, driving thousands of Jews from their homes.
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Well Miggie, you can add all of those to the list. It doesn't change what I said one whit. To take any atrocity committed by people who are identifiably members of any given demographic group, and impose a "blood libel" on ALL those similarly demographically situated, is fallacious. Your tired brain needs a memory and CPU upgrade so you can process all this information.
ReplyDeleteP.S. Deir Yassin is a part of history. Its not the entire history of the world, nor of Israel, but it happened. Deal with it. The Stern Gang was a terrorist organization, and racist. They were not the Irgun -- it is a closer call whether Irgun should be characterized as a terrorist organization, and neither one were the Hagganah. All three put together do not add up to "The Jews," or even 5% of "The Jews." Clear now?
You missed the point again Siarlys. It was that all Israel bashing anti-Semites know and manage to wedge in Dier Yassin and the Stern Gang but they don't seem to ever know about the Arab massacres that were about 50 times worse.
ReplyDeleteLike all demagogues you start with an agenda and search for facts to back you up rather than do the research and come to a position thereafter. That's one of the things you learn in college but you wouldn't know about that either.
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I know about all of them Miggie. Your "point" is a petty piece of persiflage. I rather specifically said that Deir Yassin was NOT an act committed by "The Jews" but by a rather small and specific gang of people who were indeed Jewish. If I were into Israel-bashing, I would pose to you the question "Who did you think did it, the Amish?" That would be in the spirit of your curmudgeonly smoke and mirror system.
ReplyDeleteOnce again, MY point is that assigning blame by demographic blood libel is ALWAYS wrong, whether it is assigned by The Pope to "The Jews" or by Gary Fouse and Miggie to "The Muslims," or "The Egyptian People."