Don’t look now, but some time Friday we went to war with Libya. It’s understandable if this came as a bit of a surprise to you, as our President declared war from Brazil by video, and skipped over the bothersome customary formalities as getting approval from Congress or explaining himself to the American people.
I’ve read President Obama’s declaration a few times now and I’m at a complete loss as to what our actual objective is in Libya. I’m far from the only one; his own people and our putative allies in the region don’t seem to have the foggiest idea what we’re doing either. Byron York pored over some of Secretary of State Clinton’s statements and found that she seems to think that we’re in the lead over there. Meanwhile, Admiral Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff spent the morning assuring various talking heads that we’re not in the lead and it’s perfectly fine with us if Muammar Qadaffi stays in power. Jen Rubin compared what the President said Friday with what the State Department is saying today and, well, it all pretty much adds up to “her head asplode”.
But it’s not just Rubin’s cranium at risk here. All our heads asplode if we try to figure out what the President is thinking. That’s certainly what’s happening on the left as they’ve turned on him in a frenzy of biting and clawing and asploding that would amuse me if the proximate cause of their ridiculous rage wasn’t also a very serious danger to our soliders thrust into this incomprehensible ego-stroke. Of course, not all of the usual anti-war suspects are at Obama’s throat today. The New York Times is talking about pretty wildflowers and many of those groups who spent eight years speaking truth to power or whatever hippies do when elections go a way they don’t like have been awfully quiet this weekend.
I should probably be gloating right now at the consternation on the left and the fecklessness of our President. I’m in the same boat as Glenn Reynolds and Moe Lane, insofar as the phrase “I told you so, you ridiculous boneheads!” has been on my lips since I heard the very first report that President “WTF” decided all by his lonesome to take us into war. The only thing that’s prevented me is the faint, sick feeling that our venture into Libya will be every bit as disastrous as everything else Barack Obama has tried to do for the poor, benighted mortals who walk in the garden of his turbulence.
I’d love to say that I hope the President knows what he’s doing, but that would be little comfort. Barack Obama has shown repeatedly that he understand foreign policy as well as a hamster understands the control panel of a 747. Unlike the hamster, he has the ability to ask some very good people for help to keep us out of complete disaster. Let us pray that he lays his ego aside for once and does the right thing. Let us pray hard.
Tags: President Barack Obama, war
"Barack Obama has shown repeatedly that he understand foreign policy as well as a hamster understands the control panel of a 747."
I approve. By which I mean, hell to the yes. By which I mean, nice line.
(And I did read the rest of it, for the record.)
[...] Does anyone know who’s calling the shots in Libya? Do we even know what our goal is? We do know the left is in a tizzy. I suppose that goes without saying. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the US is not in charge, but then went on and on about our unique capabilities, which would lead one to believe maybe we are leading this thing. President Obama hasn’t shed much light on the matter. [...]
Obama has no strategy at all. No exit strategy, no entrance strategy, no geopolitical strategy, no strategic vision, no concept of the American national self-interest in foreign affairs and how best to achieve or promote it.
[...] That’s Not an Exit Strategy for A War That’s Not A WarSunday, I wrote a post titled “To Heck With an Exit Strategy, Can the President Tell Us His Entry Strategy for Libya?”. When I wrote that, I thought surely President would have such a strategy for whatever the heck it [...]