Libya -- heckuva job Brownie ! (er, Obama, Hilary)

Time to send another strongly worded email ... or fax ... or op-ed ...

Charles Krauthammer On what’s happening in Libya:

It’s not only Senator McCain who said the United States is not doing enough. It’s obvious that our closest allies and the ones who are nearest to the fight on the ground, the British and the French, are saying exactly that. They are complaining, yes, that the Turks and Germans and others aren’t helping. But what they are really talking about is the United States.

You’ve got Qaddafi defying us, going through the street in an open car the way the president of the United States or prime minister of England would not be able to do. He does that in Tripoli supposedly in the middle of a war that we are pretending he is losing. [Meanwhile,] the leaders of the three great countries of the United States, France, and Britain are penning an op-ed. That’s really going to worry Libya.

You’ve got the meeting of the allies and the Arab states in Doha declaring today that the changing of the regime is an objective. And yet there is a stalemate. We are not doing what we can. We are in fact doing far less than we did early in the campaign, and deliberately.

And again I say, if you are going to enter into a war, you are either serious or not. You don’t enter into a war to defend a UN resolution. You enter into a war to achieve a real strategic objective on the ground. If that is not what you will do, stay out of it.

Natonic Implosion? April 15, 2011 12:39 P.M. By Victor Davis Hanson I think everyone felt some grim, sad irony in watching Qaddafi’s tiny forces hold off a British-French NATO intervention, revealing the once-vaunted rebels to be mostly a Potemkin force — all as the U.S. outsourced its historic leadership role after less than two weeks. But that schadenfreude should have passed long ago, and at some point the U.S. is going to have to decide whether NATO is still a viable organization and worth saving, now that it is on the verge of being utterly humiliated in Libya. It was always a predominately U.S.-led alliance, but our engagement kept up appearances and seemed at times to provide the Europeans a measure of unity. No longer: The U.S. is detached, the European NATO members are bickering and squabbling, and no one in Washington can explain to them the mission in Libya, the methodology to achieve it, the ultimate results desired, or the extent of NATO commitment in the postwar aftermath. Meanwhile, NATO member Turkey is an open supporter of Hamas and hostile to most of what NATO is for. We are on the razor’s edge here, and it is not hard to see the alliance disintegrating — all at a time when the traditional supremacy of the dollar is questioned, the financial reputation of the U.S. is still sinking, the traditional use of affordable energy in America seems by intent to be over — and quite abruptly, unless the Obama administration, in its Libyan misadventure, finally decides to take the proverbial Vienna.

Obama's Excellent Libyan Adventure continues - "A Turd Sandwich" ?

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/03/29/3176608.htm

The reluctant warrior

By Craig McMurtrie

Updated Tue Mar 29, 2011 3:29pm AEDT

The abiding impression has been of a president being dragged into a fight against his better judgement. (The White House: Pete Souza)

What do you call it when you have a "kinetic military activity" or a "military operation with multiple partners" or even a "time-limited, scope-limited military action"?

You have Libya.

As the White House tells it, you certainly don't have a war.

The Obama administration has turned itself inside out to avoid using the nasty 'w' word, even as it launched sea and air-based strikes on Libyan air defence systems and forces loyal to Moamar Gaddafi, firing over $100 million worth of missiles on the first day alone.

And while the White House says Gaddafi should go that isn't what the United Nations (UN) Security Council has authorised. The UN says the military intervention can only protect civilian life.

For American defence hawks this is confounding.

The prestige of the United States is being used to bomb Gaddafi's forces, but they can't take out the man himself, they don't know how long it will last and now to add insult to injury - NATO is in charge?

In the Neocon days (remember them?) George W Bush announced his wars on camera. In 2003 he even showed up on the deck of an aircraft carrier to declare major combat operations ended in Iraq. Years later - he was right.

This guy is something else.

When the first missiles were launched, Barack Obama was on an official visit to Brazil. Then he went to Chile and El Salvador. There were pictures of him in a 'secure' tent talking to his national security team over the phone and calling world leaders from Air Force One. At the eleventh hour it was announced that he was cutting the five-day trip short (by two hours) to get back to DC. A planned Mayan ruins sightseeing trip was cancelled.

The abiding impression has been of a president being dragged into a fight against his better judgement.

According to administration leaks it was the senior women, including UN ambassador Susan Rice and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who persuaded him to override the concerns of the Pentagon, to avert a potential humanitarian catastrophe.

Hillary Clinton has publicly acknowledged the scalding impact of Rwanda in 1994, when her husband's administration didn't act and hundreds of thousands died.

But that hasn't stopped veteran US broadcast journalist Ted Koppel asking why Libya was singled out to win "the humanitarian defence sweepstakes of 2011" and not other countries?

Defence secretary Robert Gates acknowledges that the US doesn't have a vital interest in the outcome in Libya. The candid Republican, who will be sorely missed when he decides to retire, also says no-one knows how long the Libyan intervention could go on for.

That's bad news for a president anxious to extricate himself from Iraq and Afghanistan ahead of a re-election year. This Commander-in-Chief isn't about to wrap himself up in the flag and sound the charge on Libya.

In fact NBC White House reporter Savannah Guthrie told her viewers that sources had heard the president label the military action in Libya a "turd sandwich" in a closed-door meeting.

Now that doesn't fit with his icy-cool public demeanour.

So as his critics were lining up demanding explanations, the administration went into overdrive to cede leadership to NATO. Suddenly Sarkozy grabbed the limelight (and didn't he love it) and there was an all-in brawl in Brussels, before eventual agreement.

That only further inflamed some American opinion makers, Rush Limbaugh fuming "this ain't nowhere near what NATO's supposed to do," calling the Obama strategy the "most muddled policy ever" and lamenting to his millions of listeners "we're not a super power any more".

He also claimed that NATO Secretary General (Anders Fogh Rasmussen) reminds him of a James Bond villain, but we don't need to go there.

Over a week after the first missiles were launched the White House website posted a taped message from the president "this is how the international community should work - more nations, not just the United States, bearing the responsibility and cost of upholding peace and security," he said.

Still the reluctant warrior, on the 10th day, when he decided it was time to explain his strategy in a live television address, Barack Obama invited the cameras to a speech at the National Defense University and not into the Oval Office.

Some presidents positively yearn for their chance to make history. On top of the aftermath of a global financial meltdown and the two wars he inherited, this one is now navigating an unprecedented series of uprisings across the Arab world.

Watergate journalist Bob Woodward calls it Obama's 9/11.

Libya could be a watershed moment in world affairs. If Gaddafi goes quickly the intervention might turn out to be a masterstroke, but the veteran newsman also cautions that it's hard "to turn the off switch on war".

Craig McMurtrie works for ABC News in the Washington bureau.

After Teleprompter Speech; Obama Still Incoherent on Libya

It took Obama almost 2 weeks to come up with his carefully packaged, and in some instances, blatantly false words. All the imagery of his speech cannot hide the reality of the amateur hour that is his administration.

Here are some good columns:

- Refusing to Lead

- Obama sets Bad precedents

- On Syria, Lose Your Illusions O

- Libya: Just Trust Me Sez O

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/263272/obama-libya-stanley-kurtz

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/263271/obama-sets-bad-precedents-alvin-s-felzenberg

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/263273/obama-still-murky-libya-victor-davis-hanson

http://www.nationalreview.com/campaign-spot/263267/obama-libya-look-just-trust-me

Obama Still Murky on Libya

March 28, 2011 9:25 P.M.

By Victor Davis Hanson

President Obama just gave a weird speech. Part George W. Bush, part trademark Obama — filled with his characteristic split-the-difference, straw-man (“some say, others say”), false-choice tropes.

His support for those “yearning for freedom all around the world” was the sort of interventionist foreign policy that a Senator Obama — if his past reaction to the removal of Saddam Hussein is any indication — would have objected to, especially in the case of sending bombers over an Arab Muslim oil-exporting country. Since Saddam was a far greater monster (gassing thousands is far worse than turning off the water to neighborhoods) than the monsters that Obama now wishes to slay, I think he has confused rather than enlightened his audience.

There was no mention of the Congress. Is he going to ever ask its approval? And if not, why the repeated emphasis on asking others such as the Arab League or the UN for their approval — given that their representatives, unlike ours, are largely not elected?

In a speech dedicated to clarifying our policy, it left it even more murky. What was our objective, and what is it now? Obama asserted that “We have stopped his deadly advance.” But is that the aim — the status quo, and a sort of permanent safe zone for rebels in accordance with UN directives? Or are we going beyond that to eliminate Qaddafi, who is the source of the problem? The president now says he won’t overthrow Qaddafi by force, but that is what he hopes, in fact, will happen as a result of our military presence:

Of course, there is no question that Libya — and the world — will be better off with Qaddafi out of power. I, along with many other world leaders, have embraced that goal, and will actively pursue it through non-military means. But broadening our military mission to include regime change would be a mistake.

This is reminiscent of George H.W. Bush’s declaration that he wanted Saddam gone, had used our military to save Kuwait, but not to remove Saddam, urged others to remove him — and then ended up solving one problem while creating another more violent and unending.

Constant reference was made to UN sanctions, in contrast both to the costs incurred in Bush’s Iraq, and the dithering by Clinton in the Balkans. He talked of allies, of joint operations, and a diminished American role to come. But again, to fulfill the UN mandate of saving the Libyans, he is going to have to violate — or at least go beyond — it by going after Qaddafi, a task he now seems to have outsourced to the Europeans, after ceasing the Tomahawk attacks on key Libyan ground installations. Why brag that “we targeted tanks and military assets that had been choking off towns and cities and we cut off much of their source of supply” when we are not going to do it any more, in admission that to do so would be going well beyond a UN-sanctioned no-fly-zone?

Translation: It now seems good to have removed Saddam, but too costly. It was good to remove Milosevic, but it took too long. So I will remove Qaddafi much more quickly and at far less cost, but I won’t do it by targeting Qaddafi, but by preventing his aircraft from flying and hoping Qaddafi goes away. Qaddafi deserves our special intervention because he is worse than other dictators, such as an Assad who is a “reformer” or Ahmadinejad whom we won’t “meddle” against. We successfully sought a UN resolution to protect the people, and will stick by it, but hope somehow someone will go beyond it and remove Qaddafi. We are an exceptional nation that has always acted out of humanitarian concerns in a way not true of other countries (“To brush aside America’s responsibility as a leader and — more profoundly — our responsibilities to our fellow human beings under such circumstances would have been a betrayal of who we are. Some nations may be able to turn a blind eye to atrocities in other countries. The United States of America is different.”), but unfortunately in this case

the United States will play a supporting role — including intelligence, logistical support, search-and-rescue assistance, and capabilities to jam regime communications. Because of this transition to a broader, NATO-based coalition, the risk and cost of this operation — to our military, and to American taxpayers — will be reduced significantly.

Somehow, I don’t think Qaddafi will be impressed enough to step down; the European allies will be somewhat confused over the degree of future American support; the rebels will wonder whether they should take Tripoli or should settle for a zone of sanctuary; critics won’t know whether Obama will ever consult the Congress; we still don’t know why Qaddafi was worse than an Assad or Ahmadinejad — or who or what the rebels are and what the U.S. role will be to ensure something better than Qaddafi.

Other than that, it was yet another well-delivered, split-the-difference, mellifluous Obama speech that said essentially nothing of substance.

Obama on Libya: Look, Just Trust Me On This March 28, 2011 8:17 P.M. By Jim Geraghty Tags: Barack Obama I’ll have more in tomorrow’s Morning Jolt, but I feel tonight a lot like the night of Obama’s speech announcing the Afghanistan surge to West Point. On paper, I agree with a lot of what Obama is saying. But he’s stringing together a lot of pretty-sounding phrases without really getting at the questions most skeptical Americans have: why intervene here and not in other places? Obama’s caught himself between his comments that clearly suggested regime change (Qaddafimust step down) and a strict adherence to a U.N. mandate that doesn’t include regime change. What is our goal? What do we do when America’s national interest and a United Nations rule conflict? And why are we worrying about what the U.N. says, anyway? Obama seems to be indicating we say publicly that we’re not pursuing regime change military but pursue it through non-military means, which seems like a fine (and perhaps odd) line. (If you’re trying to knock a brutal terror-sponsoring dictator out of power, knock him out of power! Don’t do it halfway!) Finally, what have we signed ourselves on to? Can we trust the Libyan rebels? What are we trying to replace Qaddafi with? In the end, Obama’s speech amounted to, “Look, I realize none of you understand my decision making, but at the end of the day, you can rest easy knowing I’m right.” He thinks he’s reassuring us. NY Post: Refusing To Lead (Libya) http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/refusing_to_lead_dHJNuHKJFZLIBsnLtTRdzK Syria: Lose Your Illusions Barack http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/syria_lose_your_illusions_barack_DsyNsAjkvtbIAmlcYpEGuK And then of course there is Hillary Clinton, who ran around all weekend saying Syria is different b/c Assad is a "reformer". Oy vey ...