Friday, April 22, 2011

The Deadly Folly of Obama, McCain et al

Predictably, a U.S. senator has gone to Libya during the spring recess to “get the feeling on the ground,” the senator this time being McCain, not surprising since it was he, and senators Kerry, Lieberman and Graham (known as the “odd quartet”), who practically frothed at the mouth in urging President Obama to start wiping out Qaddafi and his squirrelly Libyan government back in March. Perhaps Minority House Speaker Pelosi and Senator Kerry will also visit in Benghazi, as they did not too long ago in Damascus to “consult” with Syrian strongman Assad, a chip off the old Assad block as he copies his dad in butchering Syrians in the streets.

Don’t look for McCain or the others to urge Obama to install over Syria a “no-fly zone,” otherwise known as entering into a nation’s civil war on the side of the “people” (75 killed on the latest “Great Friday”) who have about as much chance at toppling Assad as the Benghazi crowd has of toppling Qaddafi, at least until much later, after the U.S. has helped probably thousands to their deaths. The president has resorted now to the use of drones instead of planes on the bombing runs, the better to guarantee against an American’s being killed, something the American public wouldn’t appreciate in what is a non-war of Obama’s personal choice. One U.S. plane has already gone down, but the airmen were rescued by the “right” side. Had that not happened, they would be prisoners of war.

Defense Secretary Gates, while in Russia in March, indicated that the war was being conducted “on the fly,” another way of saying with no real plans, exit strategies or any cohesion with possible “friends,” the “people,” doncha know. He had already inveighed against it, as had Joint Chiefs Chairman Mullen, who has just said in Baghdad that the whole affair will end in stalemate. McCain has looked the situation over now and demanded that Obama get on the ball and get the thing over with, as if Libyans loyal to Qaddafi don’t exist and are simply cannon fodder.

Qaddafi has already been told through the media worldwide that there will be no ground troops sent by NATO, now the manager of the non-war, and that arms will not be given to the fighters, so why should he just fold his tent and silently slip away? The drones are attacking targets in Misrata with alleged precision, though everyone knows that the missiles they fire can’t tell one Libyan from another. This is the kind of insulting propaganda that strips from Obama, McCain and all the rest any credibility.

The only things surpassing in intensity the sheer arrogance of Obama and McCain and his senate cronies are either ignorance of the Middle East or simply a vendetta for Qadaffi, whose nation the U.S. removed from the list of terrorist nations a while back, and who transported his entire nuclear program (if not his whole WMD capability) to the U.S. years ago. The arrogance of Obama in recently telling longtime government-heads, Egypt’s Mubarak, Yemen’s Saleh and Libya’s Qadaffi, that they must step down is virtually incomprehensible, sort of like campaigner Obama suggesting he would militarily intervene in Pakistan if that nation’s honchos didn’t get rid of the Pakistani/Afghani Taliban within its borders. He, of course, has proven that to be an empty threat.

As for ignorance, it should be clear by now that the U.S., no matter its good intentions, cannot effect Jeffersonian democracy (or any kind of democracy) in any Middle East country. Obama and his warmongering crowd apparently haven’t caught that. So far, they’ve had enough sense not to arm the Libyan rebels and for good reason. They have no idea who these people are. Qaddafi has said they’re the al Qaeda gang and he might be right. After all, he’s on the ground. Al Qaeda is definitely not welcome in Yemen or Saudi Arabia, both of which countries are constantly on the move in destroying it.

By gratuitously attacking Libya, a country that presents absolutely no threat of any kind to this country and in fact never has, Obama is alienating countries like Saudi Arabia, a vital component in this country’s oil-supply chain. The Saudis were happy for Bush 41 to neutralize Saddam in 1991 and thus save Saudi Arabia, Saddam’s actual goal. Ditto for Bush 43 vis-à-vis Iraq, thereby lessening the threat of Iran. But now, the U.S. is seen, justifiably in its Libya carnage, as having ulterior motives, and those motives might well have to do with the oil that Libya sells to France, Germany, Britain and Spain, the main players besides the U.S. in NATO and the current “no-fly” bomber-gang murdering Libyans on the ground.

The whole thing stinks, with probably the least capable president in all of history conducting what amounts to a war-crime regarding Libya.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

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