Saturday, March 26, 2011
"It Feels Just Like A Real War" - Obama Sends Ground Troops To Libya
(Kudos for the great Bob Dylan parody to my bro Tom White over at VA Right)
As I've often said about Prez Zero...if you want to know if he's lying, the only question you have to ask is 'Are his lips moving?'
Obama has repeatedly said that the US is absolutely, positively not going to get ground troops involved in the Libyan civil war he got us into.
Perhaps at his next presser, Jake Tapper or some other reporter with a shred of integrity will ask Obama what the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit is doing there.
Even more to the point, the Obama Administration is considering arming the Libyan rebels, which leads us to another question: when have you ever seen the US supply weapons to anyone without dispatching military 'advisers' to train them how to use them?
Another interesting side effect of our 'kinetic military action' is the arming of Muslim Brotherhood and al-Qaeda fighters with surface-to-air missiles and other cute toys.
And it also appears that Colonel Khaddaffi wasn't entirely wrong about the Libyan rebels having a significant al-Qaeda component.
I remain amazed that the American people and their representatives in Congress are tamely allowing American troops and arms to be used as rent-a-cops by the UN and the Arab League by this president.
Oh wait, there's a difference. When rent-a-cops get hired, they at least get paid by the people hiring them.
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13 comments:
This makes me so fucking mad dude. I have friends deploying to Libya this week. We should not be involved there, it's none of our business. The fact that our commander in chief has no idea what he's doing and there's no clear goals makes it 10xworse. If half the people in Libya got exterminated by kaddafi, I honestly wouldn't care one single bit, because all the people in the middle east are not worth one of my buddys' lives. The same goes for Afghanistan too. We need to go back to the powell doctrine of using military force only when our national security is vital and use overwhelming force.
Sorry about the language, I feel very strongly about this though.
Hello Nazar,
Like Smokey Robinson once said, "I second that emotion."
Don't know if you read this, but it may give some ideas on why the Prevaricator -in-Chief is pulling this nonsense.
Regards,
Rob
I third that emotion.
You write: "I remain amazed that the American people and their representatives in Congress are tamely allowing American troops and arms to be used as rent-a-cops by the UN and the Arab league by this president." Actually its not surprising at all. This is our first black President. As such, many people have a great deal invested him. I've pointed this out before here and elsewhere. This is an aspect about the Obama Presidency that cannot be underestimated. Essentially had President Bush or President Clinton tried something like this they would have been impeached by now.
Perhaps the US will get paid here at some point. Even if they did pay us, we need our rent-a-cops as you call them deployed to positions where they would have a fighting chance to defend our country. Deploying to Libya would seem to be counter productive to this goal.
I reread the post you had written that you linked to in the previosu reply. If this is about protection of contracts fro Britian and France, then this really makes no sense. If Britian and France wanted to protect their oil contracts, it would have made far more sense to support the Khaddafi government!! In which case, a no fly zone is not even needed. Just get out of the way and allow Libyan forces to do the work. By opposing Khaddafi they place these contracts in serious jeporady.
Another mistake Mr. Obama made is he didn't prep the American people for this operation to get their support. From the beginning of the "revolution" the media has largely coalesced around the idea that Aemrica should not get involved in this. Then Obama goes and gets us involved in this!! This puts Mr. Obama at odds with the media.
I remain amazed that the American people and their representatives in Congress are tamely allowing American troops and arms to be used as rent-a-cops by the UN and the Arab League by this president.
i'm going to take that, as ff way of saying "dumber than a sack of hair".
am i right?
am i right?
am i right?
I think, believe it or not, that there are a lot of people who are shocked at this and trying to figure out what Obama has in mind.
As you know, I think it was a wag the dog moment ( which I don't think really panned out the way he thought it would) and establishing a precedent for that UN 'Responsibility to protect' doctrine for possible use against, say, Israel.
Th eGOP also should be screaming bloody murder, and they're not, because they're concentrating on what kind of budget deal to go for or whether to allow a government shut down.
Poster, it definitely does involve European oil contracts. Remember, in the beginning it looked like the rebels were going to win and at that point the Brits and French jumped to what they thought was the winning side.
When Khaddaffi turned the tide, they were desperate to get NATO and the US involved to preserve their oil deals, because a victorious Khaddaffi would have abrogated them over the 'betrayal/. He said as much publicly.
I too am very puzzled by those whom we choose as allies in these recent wars. In almost every case we seem to install a militant Muslim government.
I often wondered how the battle of Armageddon would happen, with all the world against Israel. Now I think we are seeing the build up to it.
Rob,
If you're right about this, this is extremely profound. What this means is I understand this situation better than the people who are advising the British and French leaders. I knew from the first day that we heard about these rebels that there was no way they could win on their own and I told people this from the start.
The rebels lack the strategic depth necesary to prevail against the Khaddafi forces. The only reason they made gains early was because Mr. Khaddafi and his team were caught unprepared. Since the rebels lack the strategic depth to do this on their own and they lack the capability to deliver a knock out blow, there was no way they could win without substantial help from outside. If the British and French thought they were jumping to a winning side, their leaders received breathtakingly bad advice. Who the he!l is advising these people?!!?
Had I advised them I would have suggested one of the following courses of action. 1.)Stay out of the way. In the end, Khaddafi's forces will win and your oil contracts will be safe. If pressured on why you're not getting involved simply state that is an internal Libyan matter. 2.) Offer to assist Khaddafi's forces in some way. In other words, actually jump to the winning side.
Option 1 would have been clearly the best option. Given the lack of trust that exists between Libya and the West, any aid from the Europeans or us would have likley been viewed with suspicion. also, its cheaper and your oil contracts are safe.
I'm very much right about this. Remember Khaddafi's widely reported remarks of how his European friends had 'betrayed him'?
What turned the tide aside from th rebel's own disorganization is that Khaddaffi had a lot more financial resources then they thought, and was able to hire mercenaries and buy arms.
We've been looking at oil all wrong for quite some time now. Its long past time we started looking at this correctly. Insread of viewing this as something by which evil business men get rich by extracting and selling it should be viewed as a valuable commodity that is necessary for the survival of a modern civilization. Furthermore our civilization has every right to survive.
Given this reality, a prudent Government should act in ways to ensure that its citizens have access to a stable supply of oil at a reasonable price. One way where this begins is STOP DEMONIZING THE OIL COMPANIES AND THOSE WHO ARE TRYING TO ENSURE THAT WE HAVE ACCESS TO OIL AND REFINED OIL PRODUCTS!!
Now with this in mind by choosing to support the "rebels" Eueopeans have placed their oil supplies in jeporady. Were I Briton, French, or Italian I would be asking the following questions, at a minimum, "why did our government put our economic survival at risk by pushing for some nebulous concept like "responsibility to protect", "Democracy", "protecting civiians", or whatever they wish to call it?" "Who is advising these people?!!?" Even I figured out early on that Khaddafi forcees would win this conflict without substantial outside help. Also, opposing Khaddafi poses enormous risks as well. Perhaps their intellegence services are as incompetent as our CIA.
Also, I want ot know who these rebels are and if we support them what assurances do we have that they would honor these oil contracts? In addition, while its hardly surprising that the incompetent CIA would be caught unprepared, how does a world class intellegence service like the one Libya has get caught unaware? Just who is organizing these Arab revolts?!!?
My first thougts on the last question are the Russians. They have the most to gain from this and they have the capability to do it. I'm sure enterprising Europeans would want answers to these questions. I do know this American does.
Sorry about multiple posts here. Had the US government heeded my advice in the aftermath of the 911 attacks we would have opened all of our domestic oil and gas sources for drilling, utilized coal to oil technologies, and built more refineries. This is a mid to long range project. It is unlikley one could expect utility from this course in the very short run, however, had we started this on 9/12/01 we would likely now be in a position where we would have surplus petroleum based products to sell on the world market as well as being able to meet our own needs.
Had we done this right now we would be in a position where we would be able to, for a reasonable price of course, make up the short fall from Libya for European countries. This would lessen the need for military action in situations like this and it would undercut a major source of funding for Islamic terrorists. In addition, while we may not import oil from Libya, our trading partners in Europe do. The loss of this source of oil would severly impact them and as they are adversely impacted we are too.
We didn't have to be in this position. In fact, by doing what I suggest we may have been able to put OPEC out of business. Now that would be really cool!!
I to remember Mr. Khaddaffi's remarks about betrayal by European friends. My frrst thoughts from the beginning is this was a very dumb move on the part of the Europeans. IO thought this even before I heard the remarks. I knew about the lack of organization on the part of the rebles from the start. Also, I knew that Khaddaffi has vast financial resources and could and would hire merccanies and buy arms. I'm dumbfounded that the Europeans did not know this.
Its astonishing to me that I would be smarter than people who get paid to do intellegence analysis and who have massive budgets allocated to them to do this. The rebels are most likely disorganized because they all have different agendas. This is not unlike any group of people that may come together for various purposes. Unfortunately it seems the most organized of the group are the supporters of Islamic terrorism. These people are likely more dangerous to us than the Khaddaffi government!!
At this point, it seems that the best possible outcome would be for the "rebels" on the ground to overthrow Khaddaffi while perhaps utilizing air support from the coaltion. Hopefully the "rebels" who remove Mr. Khaddaffi will be friendly or at least not hostile to the interests of America or Western Europe. The best role for our intellegence services would be to try and indentify those groups within the "revolution" whose interests are compatible with ours. I hope and pray they have the competence to pull this off. Also, the sooner this overall outcome occurrs the better for us.
Removing Khaddaffi was going to be a VERY DIFFICULT undertaking even with the support of America and NATO. Without such support it was going to be all but impossible. If I figured this out from the beginning, why couldn't European leaders figure this out? Furthermore it seems American leaders missed the boat on this too. Unfortunately in light of the wikileaks fiasco frank conversations among Western and American leaders are problematic at best now. I'll reiterate had I been advising European leaders and IF a goal of significance is preserving oil contracts with Libya the prudent course of action would have been to stay out of the Libyan civil war all together or if you MUST insert yourself in it support the strong horse which is Khaddaffi.
I would hope some European intellegence agents and some advisors to European and possibly American leaders would be fired over this. These people have multi billion dollar budgets and all sorts of assets at their disposal. I figured out all of this on my own with a pc and a rudimentary knowledge of the participants involved in the conflict.
I'm thinking I should apply for a job as intellegence analyst or as an advisor to American leaders. In this case, I seem to be smarter than the people currently occupying these positions. This is a scary thought. Maybe random chance worked in my favor here. As they say a blind squirrel occasionally finds a nut!!
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