This AP report on what it’s like to be reporting from Tripoli right now is a fascinating read. None of it is surprising to anyone who’s been following what’s going on there, but it does provide a good illustration of how Gaddafi has been able to portray what’s happening there as a civil war against an armed insurrection. In a bizarre sense, one could refer to what’s happening there as a civil war, but it’s more accurately a war of optical illusion. What Gaddafi is trying to do is to convince these journalists (and by extension, the rest of the world) that he’s still vastly popular. He’s been shelling cities, killing thousands of civilians in their homes, then busing journalists on these “magical mystery tours” to witness bizarrely staged “celebrations”. The fact that Libyans are desperately trying to figure out ways to defend themselves from this madness doesn’t really make it a civil war.
None of this is to say whether or not our intervention there is wise. That’s an issue I’ve weighed in on and I still agree with the decision to intervene. But there are good arguments against, and unlike Iraq – where it was overwhelmingly obvious intervention was a disaster – we’ll be debating the wisdom of this move for years to come.
But the Gaddafi regime, and their reaction to the uprising, has been a terrifying display of homicidal pathology that I’m not sure I know a real precedent for. Gaddafi is like a cross between Idi Amin and Willy Wonka, living in a fictional world that he desperately wants the rest of the world to see; and he can still pay enough willing subjects (many of whom don’t appear to be Libyan) to carry out his plan.
so while everyone agrees that Muhammar has to go, I still wonder why you guys here do the contortion dance trying to claim it’s all legit.
How about the recent reports of training of the rebels by US special forces? How does that fit with “no boots on the ground”. Are they wearing sneakers ?
Humanitarian that I am, I think there are some people who simply need to be killed, and I feel that Obama should marshal our multi-trillion-dollar investment in intelligence and military capability to the end of killing this guy as quickly as possible. Lockerbie is reason enough to kill him; but his willingness to slaughter his own people merely for protesting his dictatorial rule demands that the world take whatever action is necessary to rid our planet of this particular sewer rat.
Gadhafi is propped up by two things: The tribal nature of Libyan society (i.e., his tribe is supporting him against the other tribe), and his ability to buy the services of mercenaries with Libya’s oil money.
We can deprive him of his mercenary army fairly easily. All we have to do is use our superpower military capabilities to slaughter his mercenaries like mosquitoes in a swamp. When Gadhafi’s soldiers of fortune see their buddies getting mowed down like blades of grass under a Deere riding mower, they’ll melt away like cheese in a 400-degree oven. Then all Gadhafi will have left is his tribal warriors. That’s still a substantial military force, but not enough to save his sorry ass.
I don’t like war, killing, or military technologies designed for industrial-scale butchery of human beings. But my sentiments on this score are somewhat muted when it comes to killing mercenaries. After all, they volunteered for this, they get paid for this, and they chose to work for the bad guy. All this, in my view, makes their lives expendable, regrettably for them. Those still alive after we rake their attack formations with cluster bombs hopefully will take the hint and seek other employment as fast as their flying feet can haul their bodies out of the killing zone.
So, I argue, target Gadhafi’s mercenary army and slaughter them like pigs with the highly efficient mass-killing weapons developed by the ingenious engineers of our domestic munitions industry. It isn’t necessary to give the rebels sophisticated arms, nor is that wise. We should do this killing job ourselves so we don’t have to arm people who might turn those weapons on each other, or us, after Gadhafi is dead.
I won’t lose any sleep if Muhammar lies down for the permanent dirt nap. I just don’t want the US to be involved in this monkey show or any other monkey show in the Middle East. All we seem to get from our involvement over there is an unending supply of Islamic enemies.
@1…
Try this one asshole:
George W. Bush lied us into Iraq.
@5: Ah yes, that line again. So because you claim this happened, it’s ok for Obama to do the same ? If it’s wrong for one side, its wrong for the other side. That’s why you don’t have any credibility.
@6 He has a hell of a lot more credibility on this blog than you do, and one of many reasons he does is because he isn’t a dick-sucking sycophant like you. He at least thinks for himself, instead of parroting Wingnut Central per party instructions, like you and the other trolls do.
@4 “I just don’t want the US to be involved in this monkey show or any other monkey show in the Middle East. All we seem to get from our involvement over there is an unending supply of Islamic enemies.”
From a purely pragmatic, what’s-in-our-national-interests, viewpoint … you’re probably right. But I can’t agree with the argument that our policies should always be calculated solely in terms of our own self-interest. That’s precisely the kind of thinking that leads governments like ours to look with a blind eye while genocides are being committed. This is exactly what governments, including the western democracies, have done repeatedly over the last century while millions were slaughtered. Enough of that. We, as citizens, have a moral responsibility to the defenseless peoples of the world to not let these things happen if it’s within our power to stop them. I’m not saying we should intervene against every despot or get militarily involved in every conflict. Those situations have to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. But where our military power is capable of saving lives without embroiling our forces in wars that will cost American lives, as was the case in Bosnia, where we stopped a genocide at zero cost in American combat casualties, humanity and morality argue that we do something. Tyrants drenched the twentieth century in blood while the world looked away; that’s not good enough for our planet, we can do better, let’s learn from our past mistakes and not repeat that policy in the twenty-first century. Gadhafi is a tinpot tyrant in a third-world country and putting him down like the mad dog he is doesn’t require a world war. This is one of those cases where we should intervene, even though the regime that replaces him might not be wholly to our liking. It’s hard to imagine it could be much worse.
@8
I’d actually argue that turning a blind eye to genocide is never in our interests. When you spend trillions of dollars on a military than can accomplish certain military tasks, the world starts to expect things from you that it wouldn’t from other nations.
@6…
Obama’s a Black Democrat in the White House and that is ALWAYS going to stick in the craw of a cracker like you “dutch”.
Fact is sonny, Obama didn’t LIE like Bush did. Obama and his Administration have answered questions right down the line about this operation…something Bush never ever ever ever EVER did.
EVER.
10: I find your contortions quite enlightening (or should I say funny).
@11 Which proves you’re an idiot.
@11
There are so many ways to pick apart your terrible attempts at analogy, but I think I’ll just focus on one.
When Bush invaded Iraq, the lies that he told were his justifications for the war. The lies that Obama has told have been related to the scope of the war. While I’m not wild about Obama’s inability to be totally straight with us, his dishonesty isn’t putting any American lives at risk (the way Bush’s did).
Bush’s lies were one of the primary reasons why Iraq became an utter disaster, and why thousands of brave American soldiers lost their lives (and hundreds of thousands of civilians in Iraq). Obama’s lies won’t compromise the mission, the only fallout will be political (if at all).
in other words, if you have a D behind your name, Lee will look the other way if you lie….
I think that about sums it up.
in other words, if you have a D behind your name, Lee will look the other way if you lie….
I think that about sums it up.
@15
No, that’s not even close. Look, if you’re too stupid to understand what I’m saying, maybe you should find an activity that’s more your speed.
Hmmm, you mean like writing in a blog about legalizing weed? that kind of speed?
@1
We have “boots on the ground” in damn near every country on the planet. We all knew there’d be a few folks in Libya, special forces, CIA, that sort of thing. I took this to mean that there wouldn’t be a deployment of regular forces and that the Americans that are there would be very limited in number and only there for a short time. I’m OK with that. If it goes beyond this Obama can fuck himself and the horse he rode in on.
@13
So, not only are you continuing to try and defend Obama’s new war, but now you’ve even gone so far as to try and justify his lies. Using some rather dubious partisan based logic.. claiming the untruths coming from Obama are somehow better than those that came from Bush.. Contortions indeed.
Fact: Obama and Bush both lied about and then preceded to preemptively attack a foreign country.
If you didn’t stand for such activity from Bush, and certainly wouldn’t have had under a McCain presidency.. one has to wonder why you are defending it now.. but we already know the answer to that question..don’t we?
@19
That’s bullshit. I’ve said that any lies he’s told aren’t justified. He should be straight with us on what he’s doing.
Are you serious? Do you actually question the fact that Bush’s lies in support of our Iraq invasion are far worse than anything Obama has said in the run-up to the Libya campaign? That should be obvious to anyone.
Obama did not pre-emptively attack a foreign country. No one anywhere thinks that Libya was going to invade the U.S., and unlike Bush, Obama didn’t lie about that. This military mission was done in order to prevent a humanitarian disaster in Benghazi and to stop a madman who’s trying to exterminate his populace. If you don’t understand what’s going on in Libya, take some time to catch up on what’s going on there before making an ass of yourself trying to catch people in contradictions that only exist in your uninformed head.
John McCain agrees with this military action, so I’m not sure what the hell your point is with McCain. Furthermore, I supported Bush’s decision to go into Afghanistan (and I initially opposed Clinton’s actions in the Balkans, even though I later came to realize that military action there turned out to be wiser than I expected it would be). When it comes to matters like this, I could give a crap about whether anyone is a Republican or a Democrat. In fact, I can happily dig up the posts I’ve written criticizing Obama’s escalation in Afghanistan, which I still feel was the biggest mistake of his presidency.
When you’re ready to have an adult discussion about this topic, rather than trying to pretend that my support for this action is partisan in nature, I’m ready. Something tells me that you’re not up to the task.
@17
Awesome comeback! Man, you’re a sharp one.
Sorry, I can’t go along with the US being constantly called upon to do the heavy lifting even if we’re have the strongest “physique” for lifting. Libya is a problem for that neighborhood, including the Europeans. Bosnia was another example of how the Europeans, not the Americans, should be responsible for flare-ups. However, as usual, we got ourselves involved in that one, too.
Let’s just stay out of these sorry affairs. Nothing good is going to come from them.
@22
In general, I agree with you. But, when you have a dictator poised to use his air force against civilians and you have the means to destroy that air force in the neighborhood you should use it.
What’s hillarius in all this is the flip-flopping of all the GOP presidential aspirants on Libya. First they condemned Obama for not going fee-first into an invasion, then they condemned him for waiting to get international support before he did anything, then when he commits U.S. airpower they criticize him for, well, anthing they can think of. Newt Gingrich has already been caught giving 180 degree different opinions just a couple of weeks apart on TV news interviews.
It’s just a continuation of the GOP strategy to criticize Obama about everything, regardless of the inconsistency within their own positions.
David Horsey’s cartoon pretty much says it all:
Partison Politics & Libya
@24,
Sure, the Reps want to oust Obama in 2012. I say re-elect Obama because, with a divided government, they politicos can do less harm.
I agree with you that Newt Gingrich is a pompous ass who ought to be banished to an island in the South Atlantic.