Two years into the reign of the Messiah, I thought it couldn’t get any worse. Especially in foreign policy — after the Cairo speech, and all the bowing, and an iPod for the Queen, and the cozying up to Chavez, how could it possibly get any worse?
Well, it has. Barack Hussein Obama’s foreign policy didn’t just crash and burn; it dug itself ten leagues deep into bedrock and pulled in the topsoil after itself.
And it’s not just Obama, nor all the other Democrats. The administration’s operation in Libya has been a notable occasion for bipartisan lunacy. A major chunk of the Republicans have drunk the ha-ha water and jumped into the bottomless pit with their Commander-in-Chief.
And it gets worse. I opened up a conservative opinion website this morning — I don’t want to embarrass it by naming it — expecting to find a refreshing change from the MSM, but alas! ’Twas not to be. I kept scrolling and scrolling, and everybody more or less agreed: “Obama has finally done something right. Maybe for the wrong reasons, but at least he’s going to get rid of that evil sumbitch Khaddafi.”
Their position wasn’t fundamentally different from that held by many of the opinionators at Huffington Post and Daily Kos, whose knee-jerk pacifism has mysteriously gone into remission. I took a look through their op-eds — there weren’t many; most of them weren’t discussing it — and the general attitude seemed to be, “Well, I’m not sure this is the best idea in the world, but, gee, it’s for a good cause…”
There were occasional voices of sanity on the right, of course. Frank Gaffney, for example, and Diana West, who described the Libyan action with meticulous accuracy as “making the world safe for jihad.”
In Congress, opposition to the Libyan caper is confined to hard-left Democrats and what used to be considered the right-wing fringe of the Republican Party. Regular Republicans — the kind who get re-elected fourteen times in a row and attend the same dinner parties as establishment Democrats — are not all that bothered about it.
Yes, Sen. Mark Kirk wants Congress to vote on something that he otherwise basically approves of. And Sen. Dick Lugar wants “more details”.
Certain Congressional Republicans would like Hussein to “explain” himself.
Some of the more daring Republicans are beginning to doubt that Obama’s war is a good idea.
Others are worried about the cost. Good old fiscal conservatism! Thanks, guys — glad to see you’ve got your priorities straight!
None of the major players pointed out that President Obama has committed an impeachable offense by usurping the specifically enumerated powers that are delegated to the Congress.
Nobody wants to deal with the fact that the Constitution reserves the authority to declare war solely to the Congress.
If anybody had any lingering doubts that we are being governed extra-Constitutionally, this should have removed them.
But no: Congressional Republicans continue to dwell in La-La Loopyland, ready to argue over a jot here and a tittle there, but totally indifferent to the fact that they have become neutered spineless lickspittle treasonous cowards, and are content to serve as eunuchs in the court of His Majesty the Caliph of the United Islamic Republic of America.
You don’t have to be a foreign policy wonk to know that flying close air support for the Libyan rebels is a bad idea.
Regardless of how murderous a thug Muammar Ghedaffi is — and he is sure enough a bad ’un — taking him out will inevitably bring on another Khomeini Moment, one of those many unlearned lessons of history that we seem doomed to repeat over and over again.The unfortunate fact of the matter is that there are only two alternatives in the Muslim world, especially among the Arabs: The Thug or The Street.
When you blow away The Thug, your only choice is The Street.
Oh yes, you want to believe in Arab Democracy. We all do. But that’s a phantasm, a confection spun out of the finest gossamer, a figment of your own feverish imagination. Your conviction that democracy can be realized is born out of the delusory mind-state that desires a thing so badly that it thinks it can just be wished into existence.
But it doesn’t work that way. In the Islamic world, when the despot is overthrown, chaos reigns for a while, and then the forces of justice and righteousness take over — Islamic justice and righteousness.
And that means the Muslim Brotherhood.
Be careful what you wish for, guys. Because you’re about to get it.
And not too long after that you’ll be pining for good ol’ Moamar Qaddafi, the Man of Many Spellings.
19 comments:
There are those who may see me as a bloviating simpleton, with a myopic world view as it relates to socio-political theory and practice (note the bloviation, here), but I just can't understand the need to commit US resources to undermining a tin-pot dick-tater who seems to be doing a marvelous job of that on his own - when what we SHOULD be doing is committing those resources to helping the Japanese. Or does that seem too myopic and simple-minded?
I see the operation of the Law of Unintended Consequences here. You've hinted at a few of them, by by its very nature, they're unintended and unforeseeable.
Since Obama has assured us unequivocally that he won't send in ground troops, it's just a matter of time before he sends in ground troops.
What's going on in Libya is a civil war. We ought not to interfere.
Of course, not interfering also has Unintended Consequences.
There are Constitutional questions regarding the Congress having the sole control over declaration of war. Some point to the primary function of the President as Commander in Chief. The debate has merits on both sides.
In an extraordinary act of consistency, Dennis Kucinich is indeed flapping quite madly on this issue. Claiming BHO's actions are impeachable.
The greatest shame of the whole issue of "crazy Mo" seems to me to be the resultant toothless tiger created by the Church commission. Well, that and that Reagan missed the target years ago.
Prospero, Reagan didn't miss. Italy sold him out.
And after Libya is devastated, we get the refugees. Come on down, my neighborhood can always use more loitering and violence. At least we get to try a new ethnic cuisine.
I agree, noone has any right to interfere. Ghadaffi is continually portrayed as a weirdo by the West, but he has kept that country running reasonably smoothly since he took over 30 years ago. And the naive view that all you need to do in these countries it take out the dictator and suddenly you have democracy, is pretty scary. Democracy will not happen while Islam remains in the collective unconscious. Iraq and Afghanistan have almost daily suicide bombings since the West meddled. Somalia, OTOH, took its own dictator out, but is now just run by mafia.
BTW, I'm reading Rebecca Bynum's Allah is Dead. Amazing book! I can't put it down.
Libyan military action is the right thing to do.
As is support for the Tunisian revolutionaries. The Iranian revolutionaries. The Egyptian revolutionaries. The Yemen revolutionaries. The Syrian Revolutionaries. The Bahrain revolutionaries. And the Saudi revolutionaries.
The old system produced Global Jihad. It isnt working anymore, not that it ever really did.
Count me among the right-wing fringe. I oppose any military action as long as Obama is Commander-in-Chief, for the simple reason that he cannot be trusted to act in America's interest. On the contrary, he can be depended upon to do the precise opposite.
Consider me located way out in the 'extreme' Hugh Fitzgerald wing of fringe. No, the US should not be using military assets in any muslim country. Our only involvement should be to encourage the naturally existing eternal fissures within the camp of Islam.
Quote: ". . .The very best thing we can do is to encourage disunity within the Camp of Islam. I keep writing mostly about sectarian (Shia and Sunni) and ethnic (that is, Arab and non-Arab) fissures within the Camp of Islam. But that is because I have been focusing on Iraq. I have, however, noted the resentment, among the Arabs “of the north” -- Egypt, Syria, Jordan -- for the “desert Arabs of the peninsula,” whom the Syrians and Egyptians think of as bedu, primitives who nonetheless have unfairly somehow been given all that oil wealth, oil wealth that those “desert Arabs” have undeservedly received. Those “desert Arabs” are supposedly so much more uncivilized than the suave Syrians and Egyptians, but it’s no longer true, because some of those younger Qataris and Kuwaitis and Saudis have acquired a sheen from going to school in America or England. But if the Infidel funds are cut off, and if Egypt, Jordan, the “Palestinian” Arabs, and even the Pakistanis (who by such things as the Mumbai raid are, some of the annoyed Arabs realize, “harming the image of Islam” -- they care only about the p.r. aspect of the thing, they don’t disapprove of violent Jihad in the slightest) have to go hat in hand to the rich Arabs, and call the bluff of the whole “loyalty of the Umma” business, by demanding that that oil wealth be shared, really shared -- well, you can just imagine what would happen.
Talk about resentment. Talk about fury. Talk about the rottenness of those “rich Arabs” who won’t share the wealth, and it’s Allah’s wealth, for god’s sake. It has nothing to do with geology. Allah decides everything. And of course those rich Arabs are supposed to share those oil (and gas) revenues with their fellow members of the Umma. Why, it could almost make a young Muslim feel like setting off a bomb or two in Kuwait City, and Doha, and Riyadh, and Jiddah.
Go to it, boys. You’re right to be mad.
That’s the Long Answer to the question “Is it possible that, for America, things could even become worse?” -- if we stop supplying tens and hundreds of billions of dollars to Muslim lands and peoples." link
The Libyan intervention is the right thing to do, with the fate of western civilization in mind.
Doing nothing would lead to near (or full blown) genocide in Libya perpetrated by Gaddafi, which would launch a flood in the hundreds of thousands of islamic refugees into europe.
That's bad.
Doing nothing while Gaddafi massacres his peoples would furthermore create a tremendous sense of guilt in the west, which the lefties would eploit to keep the door open to islamic immigrants and throw a spanner into the works of the counterjihad.
That's worse.
Intervening will eventually lead to the fall of Gaddafi and
(1) the formation of a liberal democracy of some sort...
That's good.
...OR!
(2) the formation of an islamic theocracy just across the pond from Europe, which will forcefully drive home the message to the peoples of Europe that muslims are simply impossible people. Given the chance to govern themselves they will immediately revert to lunacy.
THAT - IS - BEST!
So it's all win.
Why on earth would we want to get in the middle of Muslims pointing their guns at each other? I cannot imagine a more desirable event from the western perspective. The outcome can only be to our benefit. They are occupied with themselves and not planning any actions against the west, and whoever wins will be in a weaker condition for having spent his assets winning. Many of their best fighters will be dead. They will be occupied for years rebuilding their country and consolidating their power and be no threat to the west. What could be better?
It is a common misconception that countries/nations/entities are necessarily weakened by participation in destructive wars. Examples: The Soviet Union was immeasurably strengthened by WW2 despite suffering the greatest destruction ever in the history of war. Spain emerged as the strongest power in Europe from the Reconquista, Saddam's Iraq was the strongest power in the gulf region after war with Iran, etc. etc. etc.
I don't have the answer to any of this. I can only suggest prayer - requesting the help of the Lord to fight off the temptation to the sin of despair.
Kill khadaffy and return to base.
End of mission.
No creep.
AKA Obama.
It all makes sense if you want to distract the people from what you are really trying to do. If you want to keep people watching the war instead of watching their civil rights be stolen in small increments, it makes sense. If you want the ignorant masses distracted while you destroy Western Civilization and free enterprise, and the rule of law, it makes sense. I think our Marxist president is well on his way to accomplishing his goals.
I bet Lybian rebels will see very little of "close air support" - if we take the true meaning of it into the consideration. No, Western jets will fly safely above 10 thousand feet, because American pilots would look very bad in Lybian captivity. So, it's prudent to keep them as far as possible from Gadaffi's anti-aircraft guns. Of course, accuracy will suffer, so expect to see some wedding parties interrupted by laser-guided bombs... again.
It is worth noting that Marc Faber predicted the need for another war to divert attention from the dysmal financial situation. He was right.
Nobody wants to deal with the fact that the Constitution reserves the authority to declare war solely to the Congress.
Was there even a declaration of war here? I think we just decided to start bombing someone. And even the 'we' is uncertain - who's in command of this stupid undertaking?
Worse than even the Constitutional situation in the US is the fact that this is yet another assault on the Principles of Westphalia (warning: poor Wikipedia article), and thus on the concept of the nation-state itself.
I took up the problem of national sovereignty up with our foreign foreign spokesman (before the attack), who wrote back that he was in agreement and was making a press release to that effect - which he did. Unfortunately, the Danish Peoples' Party joined the side of Global Governance and agreed to the attack. When I then expressed my disappointment, I got a rather rude response.
Others are worried about the cost. Good old fiscal conservatism! Thanks, guys — glad to see you’ve got your priorities straight!
Actually, that's nothing to snuff at. Budget constraints and debt ceilings exist to keep bureaucracies and politicians from becoming too powerful, and to keep them from making insane decisions. Now, debt ceilings that are increased as a matter of routine is just another kind of insanity, though...
Law of Uintended Consequences will bite us hard...
BTW, Gadaffi would not be interested in causing a Genocide, 'merely' a massacre.
"Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake"
― Napoleon Bonaparte ―
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