I feel very similarly to Kevin Drum. I’m not sure that I’d go so far as to say that I trust Obama’s judgment over my own, though. On political matters, yes. On whether to intervene in Libya? Not so much. It’s true that he has access to intelligence reports and that he talks first hand to world leaders, and that means he is more informed and better able to make these types of decisions than I am. But if you gave me access to the same information, I’m pretty sure I would trust my own judgment over anyone else’s, including the president’s. Even without all the information, I can say pretty confidently that the president made a gut-call on Libya. He had to make a decision quickly, and he didn’t have time to game everything out or fully figure out what the end game was going to look like. I’d call it a reckless gamble, except that the nature of the decision didn’t allow for a more measured alternative.
In such a situation, I would not commit the United States to any political outcome in a foreign country. I would err on the side of doing nothing if I couldn’t satisfy myself that I understood what exactly needed to be accomplished and how that was going to get done. Obama gambled instead. He gambled that we can get Gaddafi out of power without ground forces and that we can sustain the rebellion without getting hopelessly entangled. He did it because the stark choice staring him in the face was to do something or watch Gaddafi crush the democratic aspirations of an oppressed people. It wasn’t an easy choice, and I respect that. But I’m not deferring to his judgment. I think he got it wrong. And I am just hoping that he can pull a rabbit out of a hat and get Gaddafi to go without using ground forces or getting us hopelessly entangled in Libya’s political future.
I am glad to see the US out of the front line in Libya. I am hoping we get away from is soon. I was for going in when Gadaffi made his threats, but only for a short while.
lols. Everyone is so much smarter than Obama.
You notice I am having a bad spelling day.
I think Obama is doing this right and he made the right decision. I don’t think that people who didn’t want the US anywhere near Libya were or are wrong.
I’m not comfortable with this and I’m also not at ease with US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Aren’t you using a different scenario than Kevin Drum? I didn’t get from Drum’s post that if he were President with the same info he would trust Obama’s over his own. I believed he was saying that as someone without that info he’s going to trust Obama’s judgement over his own.
I think you are wrong on that gut-call. Obama has been criticized/complimented quite frequently for being cautious and conservative on a lot of other issues, that some of you are calling this a gut call is just bizarre.
What I also find bothersome is the complaint that Obama can’t tell us what the end game is in Libya. How are we suppose to know that exactly? No one, even with all the info possible, can tell you what’s going to happen in Libya. They can only give possible end scenario’s and then decide if its worth the risk. You booman as president would soon realize that every move you take is a gamble. You can only make an educated guess as to the outcome of your decisions and the best you can do is be ready with plan b when plan A doesn’t work for whatever reason.
How can anyone tell you the exact outcome of any situation unless they have total control over every aspect of what it takes to make it happen. Obama is only one part of this intervention. He can’t control what the Libyan people do, he can’t control what that mad man Ghaddifi will do and he can’t completely control what other countries involved will do. Are you saying as president you would never do anything unless you have total control over every aspect of the situation? I guess you’d never make a decision ever then.
I’m going to go with something I read at PM Carpenters’
http://pmcarpenter.blogs.com/p_m_carpenters_commentary/2011/03/the-obama-doctrine-as-clear-as-the-bi
ble.html
“I suppose at the root of such resistance is an aversion to human ambiguity. We don’t want answers so much as we demand predeterminations; we’d like to think that global politics and its occasional corollary of regional conflict resemble a kind of preestablished moral physics. Event A occurs, which sparks B, which then results in C — each and every time.
This we demand — or I should say, some demand it — of commanders in chief. Unfortunately they sometimes deliver it, even though each Event A is distinguishable from other Events A, which either should or should not spark B.
Not to go all Rumsfeldian on you, but how is one to know, until A happens and all its knowable elements are known?”
Obama intervened in a humanitarian sense because he could solve the immediate problem with just the air force and he had plenty of international support. It hard was a hard thing to say ‘no’ to.
But he also said Gaddafi needs to go and then failed to commit the United States to seeing that he actually goes. We’re committed nonetheless. There are problems with this that were absolutely foreseeable, and I foretold all the problems we’re currently facing (and more that will be coming down the pike).
Basically, a few things combined to give Obama a false sense of confidence. The relatively painless revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt made it look like a painless revolution could happen in Libya, but that was an illusion. And the rebels appeared much stronger than they were in reality. Militarily, they have almost nothing to offer.
Add to this that we have no idea who we want to take power in Libya. Let’s no kid ourselves that Gaddafi is going to leave and then no one will be left in charge while they set up a constitution and hold elections.
Obama leapt into this confusion despite being warned by smart people that he was taking unacceptable risks.
A single division of paratroopers could easily take over Gaddafi’s Tripoli properties, and controlling the coastal highways wouldn’t require much, as you can see how control changes hands constantly. Instead of having some European country go in an roust Gaddafi and provide security on the roads, we’re sending in CIA officers and having the Saudis arm the country to the teeth. This is not the humanitarian thing to do; it has no support in Congress; it could take forever.
I can show a little patience to see if negotiations can get the Gaddafis to leave voluntarily, but I cannot support arming the country for a civil war that may not end once the Gaddafis are finally forced from power. I’d rather just do the regime change quick and fast and not contribute to the Somalification of Libya.
Your intuition on this may prove to be correct in the end. A positive result of course is far from being a given.
But in the evolution of your views as events have unfolded, I don’t think you have ever done any assessment of the potential consequences if there was no intervening. You seem to see a gamble in only one of the choices.
I’ve read where Gaddafi has spent a lot of Libya’s oil revenues on social welfare type programs. If that is true, then, the Colonel might have a lot more support than the West is giving him credit for and the war might go on for a long time and who knows who the winner will be.
The Empire continues to get overextended. Throw in an earthquake and tsunami on our west coast like Japan suffered and the imperium might go down in a cascade of red ink. Perhaps, it’s time to reduce our ambitions abroad and deal with those aging nuclear reactors at home.
Doesn’t matter, either way. He was going to be flayed by the same people who are flaying him now, and not just those on the right, if he had done nothing.
There is a persistent error that US journalists are making about Libya, and that is treating intervention as a US project. It is clear that it wasn’t–that French and UK governments for their own domestic political reasons saw the necessity for intervention. And that by the time the issue of intervention came to a vote in the UN, not even Russia and China sought to veto it. Libya just isn’t about some Obama doctrine.
A second misreading is that the US and now NATO are flying ground support for the rebels. They aren’t as has been made clear by the attack of NATO planes on a rebel convoy that got too far ahead of the battle line. NATO’s official position is that they are protecting civilians. Gaddafi forces are attacking civilians and holding cities and towns through terror. Rebel forces have been allowing civilians to retreat to the safety of Benghazi. Of course in that situation it looks like the NATO strikes are taking sides because the main threat to civilians if from Gaddafi forces.
And now, few if any US planes are involved because other countries are now enforcing the no-fly zone and protecting civilians.
We are not used to it not being about us, and we are having trouble adjusting.
The coalition collectively decided, Obama included, to intervene where and when they did because Gaddafi’s troops were in fact attacking Benghazi on the day they came to that decision. Gaddafi did not so much call the bluff of the international coalition as dictate the timing in order to catch them flatfooted because they had to arrive at a consensus in order to act.
The very act of participating collaboratively with France and UK in building a broad coalition that now includes Turkey and in working with Lebanon to bring consensus about the type of action to a successful UN Security Council vote–those show that Obama has built a strong team in Clinton, Gates, Rice, and others. And what has been clear is that this team does not conduct sensitive business in the US public media–the media inventing its own narratives anyway.
Over and over the folks in Benghazi, official and unofficial, have said that they do not want foreign troops on the ground. And that if foreign troops do show up on the ground, they will rejoin Gaddafi to drive them out. The UN resolution says does not authorize foreign troops on the ground. But the media persists in asking when or under what conditions the US or NATO will put troops on the ground. I do think that the answer is not at all.
So far, I think that Obama’s decisions have been good on this issue and probably indistinguishable from what Hillary Clinton would have done under similar circumstances. My big complaint is how the US military bigfooted the press coverage at the beginning and allowed the US to become the issue. Fortunately, NATO’s assumption of responsibility got our showboaters out of the limelight.
What has become clear this week is that Gaddafi is no longer in a position to crush the opposition completely, that pretty much all that is left to his regime are his family and those military units that his sons command and what mercenaries have stayed bought. What is also clear is that the number of troops available to the opposition is significantly fewer that the pro-Gaddafi troops who remain in battle–either through loyalty or threat. So what we are likely to see maybe for a few weeks is a battle line oscillating between Brega and Sirte with the rebels trying to minimize casualties through strategic retreats. And air strikes degrading Gaddafi forces away from civilian areas. Until at some point the officers under Gaddafi’s son’s command have had enough.
The Interim National Council has developed political unity from all of the sectors of civil society that have been able to gather their leadership or representatives in Benghazi, even though the majority of the people they represent might still be under Gaddafi’s control. They have a symbolic head who speaks for them, an administrative council that functions as an executive, and several press spokespeople–much more organized that several weeks ago. Many of the diplomats who defected now represent the Interim National Council to foreign governments, including the UN. The Libyan seat at the Arab League is still empty, Gaddafi’s government having been expelled.
We know that MI-6 has had missions providing safe conduct of defecting officials to Tunisia for asylum. But there are no reports from Libya itself either of foreign nationals spotting targets for air strikes or engaged in covert operations. Despite the leak about Obama signing an intelligence finding, those reports remain speculative and from the DC press corps.
Unlike other situations in which the US has been involved, Gaddafi retains few allies. The only one in a position to provide material support is Idriss Déby of Chad. Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua are the only leaders who have publicly defended Gaddafi. Gaddafi is not likely to get additional arms or funds to pay mercenaries (Chad depended on mercenary remittances to families). Although Gaddafi had stockpiles arms and cash, the first have been systematically being destroyed by air strikes and degraded in battle and the second is becoming less useful for buying loyalty as the conflict drags on.
Obama is not obligated to pull a rabbit out of a hat; the US is now minimally involved in Libya. Other NATO nations are committed much more.
I think that the Obama-Clinton team see very clearly that the “Arab Awakening” makes al Quaeda irrelevant and that the US bigfoots trying to accelerate the process, the US misses an opportunity to restore its security.
I think much of this is probably right so far as US participation goes. The US was the most important tactical actor in the beginning due to our military largess and ability to project force worldwide, but I just don’t see how we were ever much of a leading strategic actor.
For all the people praising/deriding Obama’s “leadership” and “judgment,” I’m not sure there really was much, I think he and his administration were just trying to take lemons and make lemonade. If you ever want to find out the “real story” on why a coalition came together on Libya, I think Europe and the GCC are where you should look.
Of course, since the GCC is so prominently involved, that surely means there’s more than a bit nefarious doings going down. It always does.
Oh, but don’t be surprised if five years from now, AFRICOM gets out of Europe and finds itself a shiny new home in Libya. Purely coincidentally.
I won’t be surprised if AFRICOM shows up in Tripoli, but I will be surprised if AFRICOM still exists in five years. Or any US extended bases. Unless President Palin is willing to raise taxes to pay for her imperial military.
still not buying it.
It’s your privilege to be skeptical. There are severe limits to getting accurate information about the situation. And Gaddafi has a total lock on information coming from the western part of Libya, whereas media in the eastern part have the freedom and access to be able to get a more accurate picture of what is going on there.
And there are two halo effects to watch out for. The first has to do with US history of involvement in the Middle East. The second has to do with Obama’s commitment to change.
What a frightenig prospect, the rebels start fighting amongst themsleves. The idea just popped into my head reading this thread.
Were the rebels not politically organized through the Interim National Council, headquartered for now in Benghazi, that would be a legitimate concern. Of course if Gaddafi falls, there will be factions in that council but there will also be political processes and personal relationships that can prevent escalation of political disagreement to violence.
Red Cross reports over 800 people killed in the Ivory Coast yesterday.
Please, may I see those figures of Khaddafi killing Libyans? I don’t think that he was killing at that rate.
Oil, Oil, Oil.
One day you might see those figures. If the Gaddafi regime ever lets Red Crescent in. What is known is that before the international media were driven out of Zuwarah, over 100 people were killed in one day. Several hundred were killed in Benghazi during the early days of the uprising; indeed these killings caused enough anger for the population to take over Benghazi. Mercernaries were estimated to have killed 30-40 peaceful protesters in Green Square using anti-aircraft weapons at point-blank range. No one has been able to report from Misurata, a rebel stronghold, for three or four weeks now; the number of deaths are unknown as are the number of deaths from protests in Tripoli. Likely until after the Gaddafi regime falls, there cannot be a proper accounting. And then only by relatives who survive.
BTW, Gaddafi was a very reliable deliverer of oil to the West for the past three years.
In the Ivory Coast, the international community has been present for a while. UN peacekeeping troops have tried to negotiate a political solution. The French military have never left the Ivory Coast, even after independence. The UN Security Council within the past two days imposed additional travel bans and financial sanctions on Gbagbo and his associates. It is not like nothing is being done in the Ivory Coast because the US is not there.
Kevin Drum also trusted George Bush’s judgement in the war against Iraq in 2003.
You might think that it would make him pause before going down the same road again, and if it had been president McCain making the same decision, I’m sure he would have.
::Tears…:: Oh Lawdy! Cue the violins and the arpeggiated harps! In this case, why not bomb China, too? If we’re sooo interested in uplifting the oppressed, let’s bomb Russia! Egypt. Isra….Oh yeah, right. I almost forgot. Stop it! Just stop it!