Yes, I know...everything Obama said Monday night was pretty much horse manure.
The rebels have been knocked back pretty decisively and have retreated back to the east, losing Sirte and Ras Lanuf. The city of Misrata is now under attack from Khaddaffi's troops in spite of the no-fly zone and the air-to-ground attacks, and it looks like to rebels could be forced back to Benghazi again...which means they wouldn't control the oil the Europeans crave.
In response to that, Obama has http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifsecretly agreed to start arming the rebels, even though we know next to nothing about them except that there appear to be a lot of rebels who used to be shooting at our troops in Iraq, and who have al-Qaeda ties.
And as I remarked before, when have you ever seen the US start supplying arms to people and not send in 'advisers' to show them how to use them? So we're talking ground troops, something Obama flat out guaranteed would never happen.
Another thing that will likely occur is air attacks on Tripoli in order to blunt the advance of Khaddaffi's forces..which means instead of doing what Obama said was our mission, protecting civilians, we're going to be causing civilian casualties.
This is an obscene mess, with America involved in a war in a country that posed no security threat to us whatsoever. After this, we are almost committed to regime change - and hoping that what follows is not simply another edition of Islamist fascism, something we have no guarantee of whatsoever.
This hypocritical nonsense was brought on by our incompetent president's hubris, hypocrisy and bad judgment, and I only hope that all it costs us is money. But I can almost guarantee you it will end up costing us more than that.
If its simply the oil the Europeans crave, then it would have made alot more sense to simply support Khaddaffi against the rebels or to stay out of it all together. If it was clear to me from the start that Khaddaffi's forces would ultimately prevail over the rebels without substantial ouside assistance, then it had to be clear to the European and American leadership. In addition, even if you throw substantial outside support to the rebels and they prevail, there is absolutely no guarantee they are going to honor the precious oil contracts. At least with Khaddaffi you had a known quantity and he was ultimately going to win any way. The prudent course of action would have been to simply stay out of the way.
ReplyDeleteAs obvious as this is, and I simpy refuse to believe that the European leadership and American leadership are that incompetent to have not understood this, there's got to be much more going on here than simply oil contracts for Europeans or a responsibility to protect or whatever they are calling it.
Its long past time we started looking at oil in a much different way than how we are accustomed to viewing it. We "crave" oil in the same manner that we crave food, water, or air. It is vital to the functioning of a modern society and even to the basic survival of our civilization. As such, a prudent government should do every thing in its power to ensure that its citizens have access to a stable and reasonably priced supply of oil. Prudence would have been to stay out of Mr. Khaddaffi's way. The oil contracts would have been safe. As it is now, even if the rebels ultimately prevail with our help and that is a BIG IF there's no guarantee the rebels willl honor these contracts. It would seem that European governments and possibly the American government sacrificed our vital economic interests for some as yet to be defined goal. Such incompetence is impossible for someone with an IQ above 50 who has access to the information these people have.
There's something else going on here that would make these people desparate enough to risk the economic and security interests of their countries in this manner. Does anyone think this going to stay limited to Libya. Mr. khaddaffi has agents who are capable of attacking American and/or European interests around the world. The rebels likely don't pose such a threat to us, as of now. I only wish I knew what's really going on here. Definitely not oil interests but I'm sure some would like us to think it is. Also, its not territorial interests. Even if you conqured it, the Russians and Chinese are not about to let you hold on to it. Hopefully some enterprising reporters can figure this out.
A key difference in the Bill Clinton's actions against Serbia from Barack Obama's actions against Libya is the Serbs were ultimately going to lose even had we stayed completely out of it. In this case, Mr. Clinton, the US, and NATO were just "jumping to the winning side" as you once called it when describing what you think the Europeans were doing here. In this case, there was no way the rebels were going to win without significant assistance from outside. I think ny serious analyst would know this.
ReplyDeleteAs it is right now, for the US to commit to something like this right now places our own national security in even graver danger than it is already under. I think any serious analyst would know this as well. Where is Congress on this? Where are the American people on this? Why is no serious effort being made to put a stop to this? Didn't our military commanders originally choose military careers to defend America? By attempting to carry out this mission, they are endangering America's national security. Where is the leadership here? Why won't these people simply tell the President NO!!
Not only that, we don't even know much about these "rebels." Aren't we risking enabling Islamic terrorists by doing this. Islamic terrorism poses a greater threat to us than Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan ever did or ever could. Why would we want to do something that would risk enabling this enemy? Where oh where is the leadership in Congress, the intellegence community, and the military who will simply tell this President "no Mr. President we are not going to work on implementing this right now. Its imprudent to our national interests not to mention our security interests." or something to this effect.
I hussein, in order to form a perfect union, establish justice, domestic tranquility, common defense, general welfare, security, and liberty for ourselves and for our investments, do ordain and bring about this constitution for the country formerly known as the united states of america.
ReplyDeleteso help me me.
But these are the people who brought us the "any change of strategy/plan equals failure" mantra during Iraq.
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