Obviously, the biggest problem with Bush was sending the military into an Arab Muslim country that hadn’t even attacked us. Among the several things that made that offensive were
* the rush to war – it was only several months after the possibility of military involvement was raised that combat operations began
* lack of United Nations sanction – only 17 relevant resolutions were ever passed before they were enforced
* lack of Congressional oversight – the President authorized the use of military force based on the flimsy pretext of a bill passed by Congress titled “Authorization of the Use of Military Force”, rather than seeking a document that had the words “declaration of war” in it; that’s every bit as bad as getting no Congressional approval at all
* obvious financial motives – clearly no one approved of the murderous dictator or sought a normal working relationship with him besides the French; at the same time, one couldn’t help but be suspicious of the fact that the population we were ostensibly protecting was located conveniently near the oil fields
* stretching our military – we were overburdened as it was, and our brave military despite its courage lacked the resources for yet another operation
* inflating our military – the only way to keep the bloodthirsty Pentagon beast fed was to give it the hordes of jobless young men who had no prospects in an economy that saw unemployment skyrocket above 4% in most states
* ignoring our generals – the decision to go to war was made by political hacks who had never worn a uniform
* inflaming the Arab Street – despite some touchy-feely talk about Islam, it was impossible for the Muslim world not to notice how the President made repeated, insistent proclamations of his Christianity, how he only ever used the military against Muslim targets, and how at the time the war started he’d kept the concentration camp at Guantanamo open for over a year
* wasting money – it was completely irresponsible to commit the military to an expensive mission when the President’s fiscal mismanagement had resulted in a budget deficit of over $150 billion in 2002
Update, 3/20/11: Just came across this entertaining tidbit, just to needle the lefties: Barack Obama has now been responsible for firing more cruise missiles than all other Nobel Peace prize winners combined.
Update, 3/21/11: Candidate Obama v. President Obama on the subject of military attacks.
16 comments:
If you're hard-pressed to see the difference between the Libyan action and the error that was Iraq, all I can say is... wow! Just wow.
Please. Enlighten me.
You're educated enough as it is. But your disingenuousness is as transparent as ever here. Your amnesia is ever so selective; its precision defies established neuroscience.
Yes, all those points you embraced so dearly in your peacenik days of the Bush Adm. Oh how you trumpeted these arguments and your right-wing pals protested W's recklessness.
Or no, it seems you dismissed hose points back then. Mocked them, trivialized them, slighted them any way you could. But now you run about scraping together the ashes of the arguments you so zealously burned. And you wave the charred remains as if you were the original author.
Inflaming the Arab Street? The wingnuts proclaim Obama's a Kenyan-born Muslim. And did The Arab League support the UN-initiated, French-British-led imposition of a no-fly zone over Iraq? Oh wait, those things never existed. And the parallels were otherwise sooo compelling.
The decision to take action was made by the UN Security Council, not a cowboy president avenging his Daddy.
Your pals on the Right have been cursing Obama for not unilaterally overthrowing Gadhafi days ago. Like the diner who complains the food was awful and there wasn't enough of it, the Right complains about Obama's military action and that he didn't take it soon enough.
The UN Security Council approved the imposition of a no-fly zone and actions to protect Libyan civilians. Which UN action called for the US invasion of Iraq? Certainly not Resolution 1441!
No need to waste my time telling you things you know but are omitting in the interest of your typical demagoguery.
Go ahead, live your fantasy by all means. It is neither based on reality nor in any danger of affecting reality.
You're only embarrassing yourself with this silliness.
I'll post your rant just to embarrass you--but I doubt you're bright enough to be embarrassed.
See ya.
Darren
Even being an anonymous poster is not enough to save him from the humiliation.
Anon, just to give you a clue the UN approved a cease fire in 1991. From your earlier rants you have no concept what that is so let me educate you. A cease fire is not a peace treaty. It means no more shooting for certain events (e.g. we used to have Christmas cease fires in World War I and II) or if you met certain conditions. In this case Saddam accepted a cease fire if he met certain conditions such as opening all NBC weapons facilities for inspection, inventory and destrution (sorry, old school, i.e. Nuclear Biological and Chemical). Now here is the connection you are really more than normally clueless of. If you do not meet your requirements under the cease fire agreement then hostilities are back.
Saddam dodged the UN’s attempt (as worthless as it was) to account for his NBC weapons and that was enough to invalidate the cease fire. Even though he didn't need it Bush got the UN's Security Debate Group to give another resolution. So Bush had more than enough worthless words from the idiots at the UN.
Got it? I doubt it.
Anon,
The equivalent to sawing off the branch you're sitting on, taking your ball and going home, and stepping on a rake all in one move.
Breathe
The biggest question I have about Qaddafi is why he's still just a colonel. He's been head of state for 40 years and hasn't promoted himself to general. What's with that?
He should promote himself to general! He's only got about a week left to enjoy it!
Obama is still leading from behind. And by that I mean he's hiding behind the skirts of the UN for fear of being seen to take an action that might make somebody mad in the Middle East. And the worst of it is that they almost waited until far too late to hogtie the tyrant of Tripoli. You can deliberate and negotiate all you want, but nothing takes the place of surprise. And by the way, if Obama is so proud of his actions, why is it that once again, during a crisis, he's out of the country? And why does he hide the fact that his extended family and key contributors are also joining him on this junket to meet up with his own Daddy Warbucks-George Soros? Some may not like Bush, but at least he was his own man. Obama is some sort of elaborate ruse played on all of us.
The Echo Chamber Choir cracks me up every time.You wouldn't think you guys could run in so many directions and still all be wrong.
Bawk bawk!
"You guys"? I'm the only person writing the blog.
What happened to the anti-war movement?
http://www.britannica.com/blogs/2011/03/happened-antiwar-movement/
Yes, all these points are relevant and serious. But it has always seemed to me that the most important reality before the invasion of Iraq was that Saddam Hussein has shown beyond a reasonable doubt that he was power hungry, and could not be contained, long term, by anything less than being overthrown. He has shown that he will invade other countries in the pursuit of his ends. It seemed quite apparent that he would not be held in check by his neighbors in the area. He had shown the willingness to use weapons of mass destruction on his own people. It can be argued that he was being momentarily held in check by American resolve. But that hardly seemed a long term solution.
What would be the likely outcome from this scenario. I always thought the most likely outcome would be continued aggression. Not all, probably not much, of this aggression would be as blatant as the take over of Kuwait. What should we think if at some point Saudi Arabia announces that it has decided to enter a partnership with Iraq, and wanted Saddam to be the leader of this partnership? I suppose many would take that at face value, but I would not. I would assume that Saudi Arabia capitulated.
We've always heard a lot of rhetoric from the middle east about uniting the Arab and/or Islamic countries. How could that be done? How would Saddam try to do it? For all of my life time, the answer has been obvious, and very simple. The way to unite the Arab and Islamic countries in the region is to attack Israel. Would this happen? If so, what would be the consequences? What would be the death toll? Should we care?
A lot of things could prevent this outcome. Saddam might drop dead of a heart attack. Saddam might be deposed in a palace coup. But what are the chances? And what is the probability of Saddam being able to outwait and outmaneuver all efforts at containment?
A lot of people in America think they are being very enlightened in advocating gun control. The guy next door might do others harm if he has a gun. That's right of course, but seems violently inconsistent with the idea that we should leave Saddam alone so long as he doesn't attack us directly. The nation next door, or any place in the world, also might do others harm. Iraq under Saddam might do others harm. He has a history to suggest very strongly that he would.
I agree that America should not try to be the policeman of the world. But I don't accept that therefore America should do nothing. I don't mind that sometimes American power be used to defuse very serious threats to world peace. A lot of my friends who consider themselves very enlightened like to say, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing". (from Edmond Burke, I believe) Yet they insist that America should do nothing about Saddam Husain. That seems terribly inconsistent to me.
So yes, it's hard to argue against any of those points you give, but I don't think any of those points should be sufficient to prevent America from acting as it did. The alternative would be a middle east so dangerous that some form of holocaust, some dramatic breach of world peace, would be highly likely. I would think a resulting death toll of ten million would be a conservative estimate.
Your point about the Nobel Peace winners may be true, but there have only three other US presidents who have won, and none of them were president during active war times, I believe. Since presidents are typically the only ones who can ultimately launch missiles, I don't think this stat really means too much.
Oh really Really?
Darren is pointing out the blatant lies and hypocrisies of B Hussein Obama and his elk on the left, although I have to say some (e.g. Ralph Nader and Mikie Moore) have actually been not been the total frauds they normally have. Little Mikie is calling out Obama on Twitter and his blog while Nader wants Obama impeached for war crimes, Not that it will happen but at least they don’t have the convenient memory of Code Pink, etc.
As the Serbian campaign of the early 90s proved, there is a profound difference between air assaults and minimal ground troop engagement versus the outright invasion of two countries using hundreds of thousands of troops (too few initially - too extended subsequently) followed by a decade-long occupation. Big difference. Huge.
Then, there is the subsequent argument that revolutions in Egypt, Yemen, Tunisia, et al seriously challenge, if not refute, the mandate for necessary regime change from the outside.
Here's an idea for a post: Why a President McCain supporting Libyan rebels would have been right while President Obama supporting Libyan rebels is wrong. You've demonstrated consistency-free, cherry-picking style "logic" in many posts here @ RotLC; this should be an easy one for you.
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