#2
Among other reasons, the US-NATO/EU are in no hurry to see Uncle Muammar forcibly separated from ruling power in Libyuh as due to fear of serious cutbacks in Oil-Gas = Energy Exports to the West iff Radical Islam, e.g. Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, comes to dominate the post-Jasmine Middle East + North Africa.
1970's OIL/ENERGY CRISIS REDUX = PART II???
Egyptian + KSA energy exports had been diverted thru Libyuh before in time past, hence the broad need to ensure that the US-WEST continue to have "OUR MAN/MEN IN NORTH AFRICA" IN PLACE, while the Muslim Bros. for their part had openly supported cutbacks in energy + other exports to the US-West as punishment for alleged interference in local or regional Musim affairs.
Not everything Gaddafi says or claims is off the mark - IFF THE US GOVT. + AMER CONSUMERS LIKE HAVING "CHEAP OIL/ENERGY", ITS IN THEIR [Energy]INTEREST TO MAKE "DEAL(S) WID THE DEVIL" + KEEP MUAMMAR AROUND FOR A SPELL, AT LEAST UNTIL THE POST-"JASMINE", IRAN-VS-SAUDIS-VS-TURKEY DUST [Nuclear?]SETTLES IN THE ARAB-MUSLIM WORLD.
Following how Wilson, Roosevelt, Truman, Bush I and Bush II fouled up previous wars - Now, in the first war -- or "kinetic military action" -- that President Obama can truly call his own, his administration seems determined to best its predecessors by violating all of the maxims simultaneously.
In Libya, instead of starting with the desired end state and working back to develop a strategy for achieving it, the administration has launched the United States into battle with no clear vision of what a successful and stable outcome looks like. Instead of defining postwar goals precisely and matching means to ends, different officials have set out a range of objectives, from narrow (protecting civilians) to broad (ousting Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi), even as they have announced severe restrictions on the military measures being considered to achieve them (no ground troops and no lengthy U.S. involvement). And if there has been any contingency planning for what happens should Gaddafi not fold or fall quickly, it is the only U.S. diplomatic secret yet to be leaked.
"No one starts a war -- or rather, no one in his senses ought to do so -- without first being clear in his mind what he intends to achieve by that war and how he intends to conduct it," noted the 19th-century military theorist Carl von Clausewitz. Bringing a war to a successful close, he said, requires a "thorough grasp of national policy." Unfortunately, at this point, such a policy is precisely what the Obama administration seems to lack. Ouch.
This is why its first order of business now should be to settle on an actual goal for Libya's future order. Ask your buddies who got you into this, Obumble.
It must decide, for example, whether Gaddafi will be allowed to stay in power under any circumstances -- and if not, what local political and security arrangements will follow his departure, and who will maintain them and how. The president's address to the nation on Monday night would be an ideal opportunity to lay out such a policy publicly. But regardless of whether he does so then, the challenge will remain. Only once he establishes a target will Obama be able to aim properly and hope to finish well what he started so badly.
Posted by: Bobby ||
03/27/2011 17:51 ||
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#1
Even Obama has his teaching moments. For example:
Did you know the backpeddle was to the left of the clutch?
#2
Not exactly the same as the Libya situation, but reminds me of it. Association and all......
========================== In the beginning there was a plan.
Then came the assumptions.
The plan was without substance.
The assumptions were without form.
Darkness was upon the faces of the workers.
And they spoke amongst themselves saying: "It is a crock of sh*t and it stinketh!
And the workers went unto their Supervisors and said: "It is a pail of dung and none may abide the odour thereof!"
And the Supervisors went unto their Managers saying: "It is a container of excrement and it is very strong, Such that none may abide by it!"
And the Managers went unto the Management Committee saying: "It is a vessel of fertilizer and none may abide its strength!"
And the Management Committee spoke amongst itself saying unto one another:
"It contains that which aids plant growth and it is very strong!"
And the Management Committee gave counsel unto the Vice Presidents, saying unto them: "It promotes growth and it is very powerful!"
And the Vice Presidents went unto the President saying unto him: "This new plan will activily promote the growth and vigour of the company with powerful effects!"
And the President looked upon the plan and saw that it was good. And so the plan became policy.
And that's how sh*t happens.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
03/27/2011 19:14 Comments ||
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#3
That Obama Libya Plan
First we'll coax 'Daffy out of his bunker with a trail of delicious candy. Then, once his belly is full and he's all sleepy and happy, we'll calmly explain that we don't approve of what he's been doing and it's not very nice and we wish he'd stop. And he'll be like, "Whoa, I never thought of it that way. You guys are my friends! I like you!" And then everybody will hug and cry, and then get a little embarrassed about crying, and then make some jokes to cover up being embarrassed. And then a beautiful rainbow will appear, and a shy unicorn will walk down it, and 'Daffy will ride it to the North Pole, and he'll spend the rest of his life helping Santa make wonderful toys for all the good little girls and boys, and there'll be hot chocolate, and, and, and nobody will ever ever die again for any reason ever.
#4
"No one starts a war -- or rather, no one in his senses ought to do so -- without first being clear in his mind what he intends to achieve by that war and how he intends to conduct it," - Von Clausewitz.
[Daily Nation (Kenya)] The revolutionary uprisings in the Arab world have implications far beyond the region. Certain autocratic governments in sub-Saharan Africa clearly have gotten a message, although perhaps not necessarily the right one from these events.
Presumably the "right" message would be that it is time to take seriously the interests and concerns of citizens who have not been allowed to express them because of authoritarian suppression, and to do so before citizens conclude that regime change is the only acceptable option.
A "wrong" message, which at least a few sub-Saharan governments have "received" from the Middle East upheavals is that they need to redouble their efforts to suppress opposition and dissent before it takes the form of regime threatening protests.
In all of the media coverage of these events in the Middle East and North Africa, very little attention has been paid to the meaning of these events for a fundamental transformation of the international order that has occurred simultaneously with the spread of democracy's Third Wave in sub-Saharan Africa over the last two decades.
What has happened is that the principle of state illusory sovereignty has been sharply amended and qualified. These qualifications have been expressed in the doctrines of "Responsible Sovereignty," and "Responsibility to Protect," (or R2P) meaning that states were now to be obliged to protect the basic rights and fundamental needs of their citizens or accept international sanctions, and potentially intervention, to correct a state's shortcomings in this regard.
Since the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia, the fundamental organising principle in international relations has been that states are sovereign -- that they are in charge of all that happens within their borders and are not subject to external direction concerning them from any source.
The United Nations ... aka the Oyster Bay Chowder and Marching Society... Charter is built upon the same fundamental principle that it is an organisation of sovereign states who may voluntarily agree to abide by certain policies -- what we now call international regimes.
The Treaty of Westphalia established that country differences in official religions, were no longer to be grounds for hostile action against one another, thus establishing that states, like individuals, can coexist while differing with each other on important matters.
Of course, the very existence of the United Nations, particularly the Security Council, put this principle to a test, since if a principle was important enough that nations needed to agree on it, how could they not agree also to implement against non-complying states?
The origins of the parallel doctrines of responsible illusory sovereignty and R2P lie with two distinguished Africans -- former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan of Ghana, and Sudanese scholar, poet and diplomat Francis Deng.
An International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) presented these ideas formally in its 2001 report, the concerns being not only humanitarian crises, but also violations of international law in the forms of genocide, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity.
Though widely accepted as legitimate international codes, or regimes, these principles have nonetheless elicited controversy.
Would small states be victimised? Would the principles be applied equally and equitably? What about pre-emption of terrorist activities or restraining proliferation of weapons of mass destruction? Nonetheless, the African Union Executive Council signed on to R2P at its March 2005 meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
The 2005 World Summit stipulated that R2P entailed the international community's responsibility to "use appropriate diplomatic, humanitarian and other peaceful means to help populations" threatened by humanitarian disasters or crimes against humanity, genocide, and ethnic cleansing.
"When a state manifestly fails in its protection responsibilities, and peaceful means are inadequate," the Summit decided, "the international community must take stronger measures, including collective use of force authorised by the UN Security Council under [UN Charter] Chapter VII."
What has not been made explicit, or at least not emphasised sufficiently, is an implied partnership between the international community, organised through the United Nations and regional organisations like the AU, and citizens of countries where R2P requires intervention.
Seemingly unstated is an implied contract in which the citizens of those countries as well as the international community each have responsibilities to act as well.
The revolutionary upheavals in North Africa and the Middle East have dramatised the reality and importance of this implied contractual relationship between citizens and the international community.
The varied results of these revolutionary developments, at this writing, have been a function, at least in part, of the extent and ways in which the two parties have adhered to this unstated, and ungratified contractual partnership.
At one end of the spectrum, the people of Tunisia enforced R2P by driving out the long time dictator with little or no need for international participation.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/27/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
Since the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia, the fundamental organising principle in international relations has been that states are sovereign -- that they are in charge of all that happens within their borders and are not subject to external direction concerning them from any source.
That treaty was agreed upon by the Christian survivors of the Thirty Years' War, collectively exhausted after wholesale political & religious killings. It's not so much a 'fundamental organizing principle' as it is an assumption. It served to mitigate competitiveness in Europe for centuries, but in historical practice it has NOT applied to most of the world.
#4
...because one of the easiest pieces of accreditation one can obtain in so called institutions of higher learning is one marked Journalism. You really don't have to know anything of substance to get it. You just mimic the instructors. Just like rote learning back in elementary school.
#5
Why can't the western media write such clear and concise articles about what stuff means? Their goal is NOT to inform the public. Quite the opposite, it seems.
#6
Rise of the so-called "OBAMA DOCTRINE", where Democratic or Authoritarian, etc. Govts-Regimes can ostensibly stay in power until such time they begin violently abusing + persecuting their own people or interests of same???
But for the sheer amount of cocaine seized and the pedigree, the arrest of Victor Manuel Felix Felix, alias The Lord, would not even be an arrest of note; Just another drug trafficker and gang accountant headed for prison.
And the cocaine seized was prodigious at more than 500 kilograms, along with weapons and vehicles, arrests which were part of a multinational operation that rounded up 18 suspects in toto in five mid-Mexico states, including Tabasco, Jalisco, Quintata Roo, Mexico and Distrito Federal and in Ecuador.
Victor Manuel Felix Felix, who is the brother-in-law of Sinaloa drug cartel leader Joaquin Guzman Loera, alias El Chapo, reports say, was also the chief financial officer for the organization as well as for the Pacifico cartel, a subgroup for the Sinaloa cartel.
Felix Felix's arrest was apparently part of an international police operation which spanned to Ecuador, specifically the city of Guayaquil where four tons of cocaine were seized and nine drug trafficking and money laundering suspects were detained by the Ecuadoran Policia Nacional.
Reports say Felix Felix ran a money laundering operation discovered by Ecuadoran Policia Nacional after the March 18 arrest of 8 individuals. Although no deliberate indications appear in either English or Spanish language press, it appears Felix Felix was a background operator who was secure his money laundering operations were safe.
Tabasco is at the center of the counternarcotics operations and is also where things get interesting.
On Friday Tabasco governor Andres Granier Melo told reporters that Mexican Federal investigative services had gained possession of several computer USB drives which showed the Sinaloa Cartel was moving to the east coast of Mexico.
The state of Sinaloa is on the west coast of Mexico, and on the Mexican west coast and points north is where much of the fighting since early spring 2010 has been taking place between them and their rivals, Los Zetas, the Tijuana drug cartel and the Juarez drug cartel.
A Proceso news story posted on their website last fall contended that the Sinaloa cartel and the Tijuana cartels were pausing in their fighting to prepare for all out war in Baja California, a contention this writer has repeated in the past.
Since that time, however, Tijuana has been relatively docile area accounting for less that three or four drug and gang related murders per week since that story was posted.
The reason may be the Sinaloa drug cartel has suffered a number of embarrassing reverses in the west, including two large firefights in northern Sonora between their armed wing, Command X, and Los Zetas which may have claimed as many as 40 lives in Sonora last July and August. To read Rantburg reports on the shootouts in Sonora last summer click here, here and here.
More recently, several major gun battles between Sinaloa drug cartel and Los Zetas in far western Durango along a major east-west highway has claimed a number of lives numbering well north of 30 men total. To read Rantburg reports on the intergang firefights between the Sinaloa cartel and Los Zetas click here, here,here and here
Add to the losses in men the blow early last winter that more than 200 tons of marijuana were seized by authorities in Tijuana, Baja California. A subsequent threat apparently issued by the Sinaloa gang to kill cops in retaliation never materialized.
With the great losses in personnel and product, it is not surprising the retaliations never took place.
A move to Tabasco makes sense for the Sinaloa cartel and its new Gulf to cartel allies. Tabasco is a major agricultural area and has an advanced road system to support it. Its border is adjacent to Quintana Roo, which its tourist area is a major destination for drugs coming out of Guatemala.
Guatemala and the adjacent Mexican state of Chiapas, Campeche and Quintata Roo are battlegrounds between the Gulf cartel and Los Zetas. The situation in Guatemela is so intense due to the competition between the cartels one province was out through a state of emergency to deal with the issue last December.
The Gulf cartel bringing in its stronger ally for drug operations also makes sense because of Sinaloa's muscle and experience fighting Los Zetas.
Weapons smuggling is also a reason for the Sinaloa cartel to move into Tabasco. In the press conference Granier said a number of weapons were seized. Granier also said that Tabasco was a major transshipment point for all three, drugs, guns and immigrants.
It may well be also that the Sinaloa cartel may be following an old corporate maxim of expending when you are in trouble and consolidating when you are not.
#1
Most people look at WWII as the model when in most cases it's been the exception. One just has to look at over a hundred years of warfare on the Western Frontier to grasp the lack of a definitive resolve to an issue. However, even in Europe with the formal signing of a piece of paper what did America get? Fifty plus years of military welfare for the Europeans. How many divisions did the French and British field in 1940 and how many could they do today? Yet America financed the defense of Western Europe while they implemented generous unsustainable social welfare programs that became the darlings of the American left. When the wall came down and the Soviet empire imploded, America should have pulled back then, but the inertia of institutions kept it protecting European interests, first in the Balkans than at their oil sources. Our position in post war Japan dragged us into Korea where, too, we're still engaged, even though as with Europe the population and GDP is more than adequate for them to take care of themselves. And how long will we be posted elsewhere, Iraq, Central Asia, and now Africa? It's an unending expensive military commitment even with the appropriate papers printed, signed, and published.
If you can't executed the most vile individuals in our own society for clear, abhorrent and unquestionable crimes and thus simply build more and more costly prisons to warehouse them, were do you expect to get the 'will' to destroy not just tyrants but the cultures that breed such animals in the rest of the world. When you have the means and fail to use it, the 'will' is only obstruction. That 'will' can only be summed when the people experience the price of tens or hundreds of thousands of its citizens are vaporized or overwhelming the medical establishment as the result of a WMD on its soil. Then the leash will be unbound and a finality will be found. Don't tell me that in an 'advanced' civilization we don't practice human sacrifice when we know the potential and refuse to act till such sacrifices are properly carried out to absolve the survivors of their 'guilt' for doing that which must be done.
#2
America is never going to just sit on the porch with a bucket of Granny's fried chicken, lookin' at the vistas of the Blue Ridge while we scratch the dogs ears beside the rocking chair, Procopius.
We are gonna sell billions of dollars of Aircraft parts and GPS guided bombs and Patriot Missile systems to our friends from one end of the earth to the other and curse the weak and the nasty who eat snails and beg for shoes.
We will loan them loads of money to pay US for these weapons and we will make sure the local leaders will "someday" allow their people to vote for who we approve of....
Meanwhile they will do the drugs and wash their clothes in the ditch. And Momma will watch the soaps in New Jersey and Missouri and Uncle Buddy will drive the schoolbus part time.
And nothing lasts forever, for in the real world you better have a little money or a gun (on you, not at home in a drawer) if you want to get your gas tank full.
It isnt going to get any better than this. trust me.
Sometimes he has something interesting to say, but it seems more like he's trying to get us all in trouble, somehow...
Posted by: Bobby ||
03/27/2011 12:28 Comments ||
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#4
>Yet America financed the defense of Western Europe while they implemented generous unsustainable social welfare programs that became the darlings of the American left
It's a n iron rule that subsidy lowers quality... Just look at Americas subsidised schools.
Bright Pebbles said it. When ones sends offspring to school with cocaine and sex addled teenagers, or even younger, at least they should be able to learn something from teachers... that aren't resting on their public pension laurels or doing the drugs themselves.
I am a product of a private H.S. and was fortunate to learn what college kids get in the tenth grade. Public schools never enter into my thinking, because the the quality education my parents received at public schools are relics of the past, with very few exceptions. Times have changed.
Posted by: Fi ||
03/27/2011 12:55 Comments ||
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#6
I understand the importance of keeping things more-or-less on topic here at Rantburg, but I'm not sure why so many of Dribble's comments have been sinktrapped. I went through the comments and they seem more pithy and irreverent than anything else.
I've seen worse here.
Again, he's offensive and quite often off-topic, but I have a theory about Dribble: he's A) French (or possibly Swiss), and B)he's subjecting us to some fairly abstract, Celine-like humor.
#10
French author Louis-Ferdinand Celine. He wrote Voyage To The Edge Of Night and Death On The Installment Plan. In fact, in English he reads a bit like Dribble, which is what brought him to mind. Similar sense of humor as well, which I take to be a French(ish) thing.
#11
I understand the importance of keeping things more-or-less on topic here at Rantburg, but I'm not sure why so many of Dribble's comments have been sinktrapped. I went through the comments and they seem more pithy and irreverent than anything else.
Personally, I think Dribble is a hoot. I look in the sinktrap for he/she/it. Reckless writing is fun to read!
Posted by: Fi ||
03/27/2011 16:41 Comments ||
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#12
I respect the fact that it's Fred's site but Dribble made me chuckle a bit.
#13
Dribble makes a number of comments that make my teeth itch.
He's frequently walking right up to the line on racist comments, and occasionally steps over. We at the Mod Squad™ are concerned that he might be a moby.
Sometimes he has something interesting or humorous to say. We'll let those go through. But if he mashes our buttons he'll be sinktrapped each and every time. We're not going to let a moby take down the Burg.
AoS
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/27/2011 17:32 Comments ||
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#14
"sense of humor as well, which I take to be a French(ish) thing"
The French think Jerry Lewis (ferchrissakes) is a comic genius, SM.
'Nuff said.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
03/27/2011 17:32 Comments ||
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#15
And Momma will watch the soaps in New Jersey and Missouri and Uncle Buddy will drive the schoolbus part time. And nothing lasts forever, for in the real world you better have a little money or a gun (on you, not at home in a drawer) if you want to get your gas tank full. It isnt going to get any better than this.
Cynical and French sounding? Yes. Jerry Lewis (and Dean Martin) in Your Never Too Young? Not so much.
#17
Dribble2716 writes fluidly, if incoherently. But many of the things he writes make me feel nauseous, as no one here, including some of our ugliest trolls -- excepting only Angleton9 -- has ever succeeded in doing.
George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four introduced and defined Newspeak, a mind-bending lexicon that includes a term worth mulling over today, as the armed forces of the United States wage war in partnership with al Qaida and the Muslim Brotherhood against Moammar Ghadafi's regime in Libya. The term to which I'm referring -- doublethink -- can be found in the Merriam-Webster dictionary:
dou•ble•think ('d&-b&l-"thi[ng]k), noun, Date: 1949 : a simultaneous belief in two contradictory ideas.
Doublethink is a dizzying concept.
In her syndicated column last week, Diana West examined America's de facto cross-over to the side of them who wish to destroy us and replace our Constitutional system of governance with sharia (Muslim law). And this changing of sides happened so quickly that if one blinked his eyes, the entire picture of the War was altered in a heartbeat -- by a President who engineered the shift to aid our enemies without the slightest regard (again) for the constraints of the Constitution. And as Diana West wrote -- Congress is "flat-lined." Impotent.
Here's a story from the UK Telegraph, wherein the leader of the "revolt" in Libya, jihadist Abdel-Hakin al-Hasidi, shared his words of wisdom:
"In an interview with the Italian newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore, Mr al-Hasidi admitted that he had recruited "around 25″ men from the Derna area in eastern Libya to fight against coalition troops in Iraq. Some of them, he said, are "today are on the front lines in Adjabiya"..."
Indeed. And our Naval aviators are now flying sortees in support of this man's jihadist army. But let's go on, shall we:
"...Mr al-Hasidi insisted his fighters "are patriots and good Muslims, not terrorists," but added that the "members of al-Qaeda are also good Muslims and are fighting against the invader"..."
You see, good Muslims wage jihad against Infidels (that's us, folks). Terrorists kill innocent people. Infidels are not considered to be innocent within the doctrine of Islam. And the "invaders" to which al-Hasidi alludes are -- the Armed Forces of the United States of America. Wait. There's more:
"...Mr al-Hasidi admitted he had earlier fought against "the foreign invasion" in Afghanistan, before being "captured in 2002 in Peshwar, in Pakistan". He was later handed over to the US, and then held in Libya before being released in 2008..."
What the Telegraph isn't telling you here is that word has it that al-Hasidi was one of the Gitmo detainees who was released from custody as a non-threat.
So, let's look at this Libyan civil war situation in an Orwellian doublethink context:
1) Al-Qaida operatives killed nearly 3,000 Americans on Spetember 11, 2001, plunging the United States into this endless war.
2) Al-Qaida is a first-generation spawn of the Muslim Brotherhood. The Muslim Brotherhood wants the caliphate restored and sharia imposed throughout the entire world.
3) America is at war with al-Qaida and "radical Islam".
4) Al-Qaida and the Muslim Brotherhood are bad.
5) Moammar Ghadafi is killing his own citizens to suppress an al-Qaida revolt.
6) [Alleged] President Obama says that Moammar Ghadafi must be removed from power.
7) Al-Qaida and the Muslim Brotherhood are fighting against Ghadafi.
8) [Alleged] President Obama sends the U.S. armed forces to assist al-Qaida and the Muslim Brotherhood in overthrowing the evil Ghadafi by providing air cover and bombardment with Tomahawk missiles.
9) Ghadafi is bad.
10) The United States has joined forces with al-Qaida and the Muslim Brotherhood in the fight against Ghadafi.
11) Al-Qaida and the Muslim Brotherhood are good.
Are you dizzy yet? Someone hand me the Ibuprophen.
#5
I don't think he's a closet muslim. He worships his own image. He has a college freshman's fascination and love for the other: the foreign, the anti-American, the socialist or communist, the non-Christian, especially given his Kenyan father and his red-diaper mother and grandparents. He's never grown up or gained knowledge about the evils those "others" have inflicted on others....because he's "special" and history has no effect upon those "that can stop the rise of tides", et al
*puke*
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/27/2011 19:00 Comments ||
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#6
Feeling agitated Bill? I just don't think he feels he has to explain a damn thing to you, get it?
Bill Kristol weighs on what is, or at least should be, good advice for all of us conservatives right now, advice that I myself haven't been following completely:
... here's a word of counsel to some of our fellow conservatives: Chill.
We're at war. We need to succeed in that war. By all means, be generous with the constructive criticism. (For example, it seems ridiculous for the United States not to be arming the Libyan opposition.) Note for the historical record the Obama administration's dithering and double-talk. But don't carp and cavil in ways that suggest America can't prevail, or that America shouldn't prevail. Don't revel in every administration misstep. Don't chortle at every misstatement. Don't exacerbate the administration's failure to build domestic support for the mission. Put the mission, and the country, first.
Which means, to some extent, that we might consider biting our collective tongues, wishing the president well because he is our president, and helping him get it right rather than pointing with glee to everything he's doing wrong. Which in turn means that we might want to cool it with the 24/7 criticism. Let's support our troops and their mission, and give the war a chance--even though it's a war that's not being perfectly conducted by an administration that offers plenty of cause for frustration.
You go to war with the president you have. This isn't the one we conservatives preferred. We have a good chance to remove him in 2012. We should work to do so. But first let's remove Qaddafi, help get Egypt, Tunisia, Bahrain and Yemen right, and--who knows?--despite our reluctant president, push the administration to have the backs of those fighting for regime change in Syria and Iran.
I don't think we can push this man to do the right thing on just about anything. But we should be very careful in our criticism so that we're not blamed for any disaster that unfolds -- and you know the MSM will be quick to blame us (that copy, I wager, has already been typeset). The Republican leadership should be pushing for openness and clarity in our goals while making clear that we support our troops, and we support any group of people who seek freedom and who are in rebellion against a bloodthirsty dictator.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/27/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
We're at war. We need to succeed in that war.
That's funny - the administration doesn't think so with Libya. The UN doesn't think so. NATO doesn't think so. The Arab League - it depends on what day it is and what flavor of hummus they had.
For example, it seems ridiculous for the United States not to be arming the Libyan opposition.
It'd be kinda nice if the intelligence community came up with some objective idea of just who the US would be arming.
I'm personally not all that crazy with supplying those who'd end up being an Islamic version of Jimmy Carter's Nicaragua, or an Iran-on-the-Med.
#3
I like Jerry Pournelle's idea: "The Congress hereby directs the Treasurer of the United States to pay the sum of $200 million dollars in US currency, and the Secretary of State to deliver a United States passport made out to any name the winner chooses, to anyone who will deliver to any United States Embassy the head of Colonel Muammar Muhammad al-Gaddafi (Arabic: معمر القذافي Muʿammar al-Qaddāfī). The head may but need not be attached to the body. This prize shall be paid upon confirmation of the identity of the head. The winner of this prize is declared a friend of the United States."
No doubt the drafting could be improved but it is important that it be brief and unambiguous: Bring us his head and you get the money and a new identity, no questions asked, all previous actions against the US forgiven, and when the winner takes the money and leaves no one will follow.
It would certainly be cheaper in blood and treasure than continuing the war to a similar completion.
#4
A cheaper solution would be to offer Gaddafi and a few other people amnesty. Let them leave with a few billions of their stolen money to that country of refugee.
#8
#6 The Brits are now talking about arming the rebels.
IMO they should be allowed to fight it out with AK47s. Posted by phil_b
In keeping with past performance in search of somewhat equitable, profit making outcomes, the French should clandestinely supply arms to Qaddafi while the Poms and the US supply arms to the rebels, thus keeping nearly everyone happy.
#10
As to Pournell - I believe that is covered in the constitution as a letter of Marque and/or Repriasal. I believe congress can issue that order at any time - though I'm not a lawyer.
#11
I would combine the ideas of Bernardz and Jerry Pournelle:
1) let Gadaffy leave with a few billion dollars to a safe haven
2) then kill him and deliver the head to the nearest US embassy.
Why make life hard?
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/27/2011 11:07 Comments ||
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#12
That's a win-win situation if I ever heard of one!
Posted by: Bobby ||
03/27/2011 12:20 Comments ||
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#13
Look I'm all for my football team, but when the championship is on the line, and its 4th and 20, coach sends out the I-formation then walks off the field before the hike.
Which tribes? The franchise players or free agents?
President Obama is proud of how he put together the Libyan operation. A model of international cooperation. All the necessary paperwork. Arab League backing. A Security Council resolution. Everything but a resolution from the Congress of the United States, a minor inconvenience for a citizen of the world.
#2
And not a particularly good or distinguished professor, at that.
Because the dear man was an instructor, not a professor. The standards are different, although it was later said they would have tenured him, had he been willing. After he retires from politics perhaps the issue will be readdressed.
[Asharq al-Aswat] Damascus has complained of what it has described as media incitement, namely the impact of the media coverage of the demonstrations taking place in around 7 different Syrian cities, not to mention the [coverage] of the violence and even killings of demonstrators in the city of Deraa in southern Syria.
The truth is that the international media in particular, as well as Arab media in general, have only recently begun to pay attention to what is happening in Deraa, despite the abundance of images and video clips on YouTube. However, The essential However... the situation naturally changed following the rise in the corpse count, as well as the violent crackdown carried out by the Syrian authorities against the people of Deraa and against protestors throughout Syria. This is only natural, and when there are people being killed, the regime -- any regime -- can no longer complain about the media, or consider what is happening in the country to be an internal affair; similarly the media cannot be silent or overlook what is happening.
Therefore, as I said in my article on Thursday [My advice for Friday: Do not kill], "my golden advice to Damascus is: Do no kill, and do not open fire" and this is because killing only incites the situation and intensifies the crisis. Therefore the most effective way for Syria to deal with what is happening is for it to put a stop to the injustices and respond to the demands of the people in a respectable manner, especially as what is happening in the country is not being incited by external forces, but are rather genuine demands. The latest statements from Damascus acknowledge this, with the government promising greater media freedoms, as well as the licensing of political parties, and studying the possibility of lifting the state of emergency that has prevailed in Syria for more than 4 decades without reason. Therefore how, after all of this, can Syria say that foreign hands are responsible, or that forces of Evil are behind what is happening in the country? What we have seen today is that all of those killed [in Deraa] are from the ranks of the protestors, not the police.
The media is not the story...and if anybody wants to see what media incitement truly looks like and confirm that the media, particularly the western media, have taken a lenient stance towards the Syrians, then you need only look at the western media's coverage of Bahrain in order to spot the difference. The western media's coverage of Bahrain was characterized by sectarian incitement and manipulation, and attempts to portray the Bahraini governments as being dictatorial, despite the fact that since the first day [of the crisis] it had responded with offers to discuss the protestors demands. However in response to this, the opposition transgressed the limits to the point of calling for a Republic of Bahrain!
Therefore, the best way for Damascus to deal with what is happening in Syria today is for it to put a stop to the violence and killing, rather than blame the media and accuse others of treason. The demonstrations are intensifying, and are no longer confined to Deraa, but rather demonstrations have broken out in 7 Syrian cities. This is dangerous because the demonstrations did not originate in the capital, Damascus, but rather on the edges [of the country], with these demonstrations moving towards the capital and other important Syrian cities. The implications of this are huge, and most importantly of all the fear barrier has been broken by the killings [in Deraa]. Therefore today is different from yesterday, particularly with regards to the media and technology, not to mention the prevailing situation in our region, since Ben Ali's escape, Mubarak's ouster, and the war in Libya. Perhaps more importantly than all of this, is the situation in Yemen where the curtain is on the verge of coming down [on the regime], although it is not clear whether this end will be a violent one, as in Libya, or calm, as in Egypt. All of this means that the situation in Yemen is far more complex and complicated.
In any case, what is most important is for there not to be any use of violence against unarmed protestors, this is my message, and this must be any regime's primary concern and focus, rather than criticizing the media.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/27/2011 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Govt of Syria
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Now, in the first war -- or "kinetic military action" -- that President Obama can truly call his own, his administration seems determined to best its predecessors by violating all of the maxims simultaneously.
