"What do we do now?"
If it's Monday, this must be Chile, and that's where President Obama is today and making it "perfectly clear" what our mission is in Libya.
Obama said that "Our mission is in support of an international uh mandate from the Security Council that specifically focuses on the uh humanitarian threat from Qaddafi to his people."
But what about Qaddafi, Mr President?
He said that it is US policy that Qaddafi needs to go, and we have sanctions in place to make that happen.
He also confirmed that he will hand over command and control over to the French/Brits in a matter of "days not weeks".
Oh yeah, those Qatari planes are supposed to arrive any day now (long trip). There is an Arab contingent to all this, you know (nod nod, wink wink).
Operation Who's on First (WOF), Ladies and Gentlemen
11 comments:
This President amazes me. His bio tells us that he taught Constitutional law at the U. of Illinois. Yet, as President, he uses U.S. forces in Libya, which is an act of war. The Constitution puts forth that the President can only use the armed forces if the foe is a direct threat to the U.S. He must go to the congress for approval to use U.S. forces in this Libya issue. One wonders what will come next from Obama, the King of the U.S.
Squid
Which was his own argument about the war in Iraq when he was attacking Bush. And he's going to turn over command and control of US forces to the Frenchies?
Gary I am SO glad you're not in charge of Libya policy, or any other policy. You seem to think this is all an episode of Road Runner v. Coyote. Grow up.
Siarlys,
You hit the nail on the head. It is a case of road runner vs Wiley Coyote.
Tell me, Siarlys, what is the mission?
This ought to be good. I'd like to know how Libya is unique and different than all the other regimes currently and in the recent past that massacred their own people and the US did not intervene.
The Foreign Policy seems to be to relinquish America's leading role in the world to some world committee who thinks the best thing is for us to provide the first strikes, the transportation and support for everyone else and try to hold the coalition together.... all without a national interest at stake and without clear goal or mission statement.
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I already answered that question in response to three different posts here at Fousesquawk over the past week. I guess neither of you were reading them.
EVERY situation is different, and needs to be judged on its own merits. In practical terms, whether we intervene when a government slaughters its own people depends on several factors:
1) Are we motivated to save these people at all? Does the spectacle pull at our heartstrings?
2) OK, but do we REALLY want to risk even one American life?
3) Has anyone ever heard of those people anyway?
4) Does this tyrannical government have anything we really want?
5) How deep are we going to get into this anyway, and can we see it through?
6) Are we going to get dragged into a quagmire we can't see our way out of?
7) Can we get to this place with any force capable of prevailing?
War hawks and peaceniks are forever ready to fight the last war all over again -- or oppose it. Vietnam was not World War II, Iraq was not Vietnam, Afghanistan was not Iraq, and Iraq was not Afghanistan. Libya is none of the above.
In Libya, there is a spontaneous uprising with broad popular support, against a tyrant so weird that even the rest of the Arab tyrants want him gone, with its valuable real estate concentrated along the Mediterranean coast where naval-based forces can get access easily, and the mission is to destroy the technical superiority in armaments that is all the regime has to keep itself in power.
What more do we need?
We're not going into Bahrain because we need the Gulf states too badly in our efforts to isolate Iran, we'd be running into direct conflict with the Saudis, and we'd have to put troops on the ground to have any impact. Although we all know the Saudis are spending the profits from our oil purchases funding Wahabi madrassas all over the world, in places where that brand of Islam is entirely foreign, every president from FDR to GWB has kissed up to them because we need their oil, until we can convince conservatives like Gary Fouse that electric cars are the way to stop shovelling money their way.
Tunisia went off without our assistance, Egypt we probably played a valuable behind the scenes role, particularly with the ties our military officers have to their military officers, and it looks like Yemen is coming off without us. Bahrain may have to wait for another day, or another decade. Rwanda we should have gone in, even though on that occasion, France was supporting the genocidaires. Like Gary said, who needs France?
Siarlys,
Fact is that this is so confusing, pundits on all sides are twisting themselves into knots trying to figure out whether they are for it or against it-including me.
Siarlys is incapable of answering a direct question with a direct answer. Reminder, it was "Tell me, Siarlys, what is the mission?"
Are you saying, within this mishmash, that our military effort stops when we destroy the "technical superiority in armaments"? Does that mean every plane, tank, and bunker the regime has that the rebels don't have? At what point would this mission end if that is the criteria?
It was not a request to recite all your random thoughts about the ways of the world. Usually you can't even get out of high school unless you understand this.
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Miggie, with the knowledge of history you display, you couldn't have passed a high school history class. In the real world, you don't get to leave out all events, facts, and accounts which inconveniently conflict with whichever prejudice happens to be on your mind this morning.
I am aware that your one-track mind is allergic to considering two facets to a single situation within the same year, but that sort of thinking is precisely why we get into trouble. Its called tunnel vision, and George W. Bush suffered from a very chronic case of it.
You seem to have gleaned a perfectly accurate answer to the question "What is the mission?" from what I've written, because you state it quite accurately, after accusing me of not saying it. Then you question whether the mission I laid out is adequate, which is a perfectly valid repartee.
No general would go into battle promising an empirical inventory of what we will or will not destroy. I believe it was Eisenhower, among others, who observed that going into battle, the plan is everything, but once engaged with the enemy, the plan is nothing.
The plan is to destroy enough military armament that Qadaffi can't take back the country wading through a sea of blood. After that, its not our mission, it is the mission of the people on the ground in Libya. He may go, or work out a deal for internal exile, or die in his compound. That's not our call.
Gary's question was "Tell me, Siarlys, what is the mission?"
Nobody said anything about history or high school or tunnel vision.
The mission is different than the plans for the mission. If the end of the mission is destruction of his "technical superiority" where does it end? What does it include?
George Will poses the problems very well . See
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/03/08/AR2011030803149.html
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Miggie, you are obviously incapable of reading an opposing point of view and retaining ANY of it long enough to analyze it. Then, having blanked out what any other person said, you proceed to repeat your question as if it had not been answered.
I'm afraid its time to invoke the time-honored aphorism: "Never argue with a fool, people might not be able to tell the difference."
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