So far, President Obama has been…I don’t want to say “following my advice,” but…doing exactly I would do about Libya if I were president. And I am extremely happy about it. He’s changing the paradigm and not paying any price for it. Yet.
But there are a lot of reasons that presidents don’t follow progressive foreign policies. If Libya becomes an embarrassment, the president will take a ton of flak.
That’s because everything is supposed to be our job and our responsibility. God forbid someone should tell Europe to polish their own turds.
This is OT (apologies), but I’m not sure how long it’s going to last and thought some here might be interested. New copies of Arthur Schlesinger’s “Journals” are on sale on Amazon for 85% off. It’s an interesting first person history of 20th century liberalism from a person who was in the room for just about everything:
http://www.amazon.com/Journals-1952-2000-Arthur-Schlesinger-Jr/dp/B002SB8ONE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&
s=books&qid=1299649620&sr=8-1
“That’s because everything is supposed to be our job and our responsibility. God forbid someone should tell Europe to polish their own turds”
I’m so old I can remember when conservatives were isolationists/non-intervention and liberals were in favor of humanitarian interventions, etc. Bottom line is that movement conservatives don’t have any bedrock principles with respect to foreign policy any more. Regardless of what Obama was doing with Libya, he’d be taking flak from Republicans. Or rather, Republicans would be trying to score political points based on perceived failures of the President with respect to this foreign policy. If the situation deteriorates further, the GOP will continue to try to frame Libya as a failure. And they would have taken that approach even if Obama had followed the advice of a prominent republican cabinet official (oh wait…he already is doing what Gates recommends).
Gates has no credibility with most Republican elected officials and pundits these days, because he works for a Kenyan communoIslamofascist, one, and two, he’s, well, reality-based. And because unlike those elected pols, he doesn’t have to answer to a Republican voter base that nas no clue as to what running a military operation (or the military, period) actually entails.
That Gates guy has turned out to be pretty decent at his job. Now I see why Obama kept him on.
I hope he does not get replaced with a hack.
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Still the same tiresome whining about the responsibilities of being the sole superpower/empire, I see. When you are ready to relinquish the benefits of empire your whining about the responsibilities might be more palatable.
booooring…
read the link.
I don’t think the average American sees much, if any, benefit from empire. If everyone saw a clear choice between divesting from the world and better schools, infrastructure, jobs, and healthcare I don’t think empire would win. And it’s not a clear choice because most Americans are divorced from any concept of empire. Imperialism? What’s that?
BooMan are you really extremely happy about what is going on in Libya? Picasso was not extremely happy about what happened in Guernica. But those people were Europeans. 🙂
I’m not happy about what’s going on in Libya; I am happy about how Obama is dealing with what is going on in Libya. See the difference?
Uh, no. A hospital was just bombed in Libya. Obama has chosen not to do anything about this.
But I am sure this will clear up soon. Put on a happy face!
In fact if you look closely you’ll see that the Europeans are polishing their own turds. For the time being they’re letting Qhaddafi have his way while trying to appear not especially reactionary. They’ll handle it as a practical issue not a moral one. That probably sounds cynical but Washington has never calculated otherwise. You see now it’s not in their interest to butt in. Everyone needs not to approach Libya even with a ten-foot pole. The big question is now not what the US or Europe does but what Egypt does. Egypt. Egypt holds the key. Qhaddafi is not going anywhere. I said it right from the beginning and I’ll stick by it. Who started the Libyan adventure anyway? The Libyans?
“Qhaddafi is not going anywhere”
Eventually he is going to the end of a rope. Or the front of a firing squad. Maybe not now, maybe not even soon. But that is his future. And his sons futures, if they don’t flee, which they eventually will.
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For the sake of discussion, let’s say Qhadafi ‘wins’.
What has he won? He will have to completely crush the opposition, which almost certainly now contains all sorts of different groups, tribes, and unhappy citizens. Most of whom now have personal grudges against him and his family. He will have to kill thousands and thousands of opponents and their supporters, including some that were high up in his regime. There are very few he can trust outside of his family. And I bet there are some close family members (even sons) that would have to go.
His support stems from those that have benefited from his rule.
Not a reliable base.
His future is a rope.
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