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…. NATO is now policing a civil war in which it is almost impossible to tell who is a civilian and who isn't, who is a rebel and who isn't, and which pick-up trucks are Qaddafi's and which ones are the rebels'. For these reasons, arming the rebels is a total crap shoot. On what grounds do the people of the United States have a reason to arm one side in a civil war, when we have no idea who they are? Doesn't the fact that NATO has already warned them not to attack "civilians" tell you something?
I remember Iraq when we spent months not believing there was an insurgency. How could the Iraqi people defend the dictator who oppressed them? It didn't compute. And then we realized things were not quite as simple as Bill Kristol and Paul Wolfowitz had told us - and we are still there ten years and a trillion dollars later.
This is a dumb war, Mr President. And you are supposed to be against those. Remember?
via Sullivan.
C.I.A. on the ground. It's Reagan-esque. It's really, really disappointing.
Are you disappointed with Obama or with the entire United Nations?
ReplyDeleteIt's a difficult situation and there were few good options available for Obama or the United Nations to select.
But this is arguably better than standing by and watching Gaddafi slaughter every man, woman and child in Benghazi.
It's easy to criticize, but what positive policy would you suggest?
Of course, if Dave were still posting, he'd point out that I'm a blood-thirsty bastard. Which is probably true... but doesn't provide us with a better foreign policy option in the meantime.
I don't agree that it's particularly Reagan-esque. We aren't selling anyone weapons in exchange for hostages, or funneling the money from the arms sales to Central America, or lying to congress, or rigging bidding on government contracts to support Republican political causes, or bailing out savings banks, or using EPA funds to support Republican political causes, or selling crack, or dabbling in astrology, or demanding that someone tear down a wall, or firing air-traffic controllers. Shit, we're not even properly bombing Libya. Reagan dropped about 60 tons of fucking bombs on them. If anything the current deployment of CIA operatives in Libya is Kennedy-esque.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree that it's a "dumb fucking war".
ReplyDeleteTo my mind, the best option is to assassinate Gaddafi. But there's zero international interest in that, so instead the international community has decided to provide just enough force to insure that the Libyan civil war drags on for years.