Baraka_Guru

Let's discuss these. Let's discuss the ones where interventions from outside were a factor.

---------- Post added at 01:01 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:58 PM ----------

I think ace would argue that either nothing should have been done or Libya should have been handled like Bush handled Iraq.

Though the Iraq mode wasn't used in either Bosnia or Kosovo.

What do you think is the best example from the past to use for comparison?

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Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

roachboy

people are referencing kosovo as a kind of precedent---i think i linked to a juan cole piece from last week that made the case pretty well. the strongest parallel seems to be the fact that the political opposition grew out of the intervention, was galvanized as a function of it and structured itself in that context.

let's look at what ace actually wrote:


1. the assumption that "outsiders prolong civil wars" comes from where exactly? it's presented as a matter of fact, but really...i don't think so. in machiavelli, though, there is advice given to the prince to the effect "do not invade a revolution" because you cannot win. the reasons for this are obvious.

but outsiders prolong civil wars...interesting. so it would follow that without "outsiders" there's some kind of natural course that civil wars take....

2. and apparently ace thinks that the natural course of this civil war is the extermination of the rebels, who are being"given false hope" and who "cannot defeat kadhafi".....

now where does the assumption come from that the rebels are "being given false hope"? the best i can figure it, it operates in a circular relation to the potted assessment of the rebels military capabilities---which are obviously problematic---but the fact is that the nato strikes have pretty decisively tipped the balance away from where it was last saturday. at the same time, as i've pointed out via actual information about real people in this thread, the rebels haven't been able to capitalise on that because they simply aren't organized yet. this as a function of the speed of events. obviously.

but the reality on the ground belies this "false hope" business. it's not true.
and the claim that "the rebels cannot defeat gadhafi" presupposes that the nato strikes would do nothing to alter the situation. this is also false.

fact is that what's happening in libya on the ground appears to be quite open-ended. nobody who knows what they're talking about is making terribly confident assertions about the future.

at the same time, the factoid from reuters this morning that i linked above and which was ignored by our pal ace indicates that gadhafi might be looking for a way out. it's not clear, however. and the moves on the part of the organization for african unity are interesting---trying to get negociations under way.

so it's not true that the "rebels are being given false hope"---the dynamic has been changed. but it's not over yet.

3. "if gadhafi is removed, the rebels will be killed one way or another."

what is this based on? anything at all?

if you look at what's happening in egypt and tunisia, it's clear that ridding oneself collectively of a repressive security apparatus isn't an overnight affair, it's true. but at the same time, the repressive security apparatus cannot continue to function as it had in defense of an autocratic status quo absent that status quo. exposed for what they are and have been by the collapse of the context that partially hid them, these secret police agencies imploded.

so it's not at all clear that there's anything to this assumption that the "rebels will be killed one way or another" even on those grounds. but that assumes there were grounds for this statement. i don't think there are any.

4. "a n0-fly zone is a joke in terms of actually saving lives."

this is wrong. unless what's surfacing here is a sympathy for gadhafi's forces. their lives are certainly not being saved by the no-fly zone. but that was the point of it, yes?

at the same time, the no-fly zone is not solving all problems. but this is obvious from actual information about real people in libya in misrata and elsewhere. snipers in hospitals and all that.

5. "More is going to be needed"

this is quite possible. but it's also likely that if it turns out that this is the case, the obama administration has managed to navigate the situation such that the brunt of it will not be bourne by the united states.

whether this is a failure of "leadership" or not for a conservative i don't know.

__________________
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spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

scout

I think I could take some of you much more seriously if you applied the same set of rules to both sides of the political fence. Unfortunately, there seems to be a double standard applied that is directly correlated to which party currently resides in the White House.

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dc_dux

If you think that is the case, perhaps you can explain how a limited action under a NATO banner and UN mandate is in any way comparable to a full scale unilateral (in all but name) invasion and occupation of an Arab nation against the wishes of most other countries, particularly those in the Arab world.


If, in fact, the same set of rules applied - no UN mandate, commitment of over 100,000 US ground forces, a long-term occupation, etc - then you might have a legitimate argument.

---------- Post added at 08:32 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:18 AM ----------

What double standard as compared to Bush's invasion and long-term occupation of Iraq?

I think I could take you much more seriously if you explained the double standard...instead of just taking a shot and running away.

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filtherton

The ability to draw false equivalence is an art. All one has to do is omit enough detail- then every situation is the same.

On the other hand, there are uncomfortably many situations where Obama has gone further down the wrong path than Bush did, and many of his partisans somehow magically muster up rigorous arguments for why Obama's actions are now right even though these folks were the same ones who screamed bloody murder at Bush.

I don't think these folks hang out around here do this all that much, so while I understand and share questions about the shameless hypocrisy of many of Obama's most ardent supporters, I don't think that this place is the right place to confront them.

Marvelous Marv

Came here to discuss Biden's urge to impeach, and Obama's lack of power. Someone beat me to it, but the liberals still cling to the Messiah's infallibility. Perhaps another Nobel Peace Prize would smooth things over.

Carry on.

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roachboy

you'd almost think that somewhere out there in the happy valley that conservatives live in when they inhale those special ideological sentences that the assumption is abroad that there could not possibly have been any rational basis for opposing the neo-fascist policies of the bush 2 administration and that such opposition as there was driven by some imaginary resentment shaped along partisan lines. it also appears that this peculiar scenario is situated as a description of normal political engagement.

this scenario concerning this characterization of "normal" political engagement is plausible because it amounts to a projection onto a largely imaginary Other of attributes which are the negative of those held by people who allow themselves to be interpellated (positioned by) conservative ideological statements.

this is an old feature of contemporary american neo-fascism by now. it's function has consistently been to erase the radical character of american neo-fascist conservatism (which is not all conservatism btw) by making it appear reactive....o They already do x, o They already think y...

so you have this bizarre recurrent claim that somehow or another it is "hypocrisy" for "liberals" to not oppose the libya thing when they opposed iraq....the ludicrous empirical claim subtending that----one of the lines ace has been trying to defend with predictably incoherent results---is to attempt to make equivalences between the invasion of iraq and the action over libya. that this is a reality-optional statement apparently does nothing to diminsh the fun that some conservatives seem to have repeating it.


take marv's steaming little fetid heap of reality-optional projection for example....
actually, maybe take something interesting instead.

on another note....

michael tomasky has an interesting-ish edito in this morning's guardian:

Obama's maddening silence | Michael Tomasky | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

in which he expresses and exasperated puzzlement over the fact that obama hasn't made a national teevee address to explain the libya action.

do you think such a statement is necessary?

i can't remember if clinton made a speech(es) that explained the action in bosnia-herzigovina or not....did he? that would seem a more obvious precedent for communication strategy than the actions tomasky points to...

__________________
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spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Baraka_Guru

Here is some further context on how Obama handled his decision-marking about going with the no-fly zone in Libya:
Obama, Libya and the authorization conflict - Politics - msnbc.com

So, again, you see a contrast between such instances as the decisions on full-on wars such as Iraq I & II and Afghanistan vs. such instances as the actions taken in Haiti, Bosnia, Yogoslavia, and Libya (in 1986), which included peacekeeping missions and air strikes.

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

Strange Famous

I never really understood the concept of how you can keep the peace by dropping bombs on people.

__________________
"Do not tell lies, and do not do what you hate,
for all things are plain in the sight of Heaven. For nothing
hidden will not become manifest, and nothing covered will remain
without being uncovered."

The Gospel of Thomas

ASU2003

It is the same as breaking up a fight on the playground between a bully and someone else. If you prevent the bully from being aggressive by taking out their air capability and tanks, then you prevent the creation of thousands of refugees or the massacre of thousands of rebels.

And doesn't UN approval supersede congressional approval? International treaties (like the UN charter) are treated as US law. I bet a bunch of conservatives won't like this...

Strange Famous

like I said... which arguments for intervening in Libya didnt apply for intervening in Somalia when Ethiopa was kicking the shit out of a (just about) popular Muslim govt?

There is no "well they are TOO strong" argument here... Ethiopa would have backed off in the face of 100 US troops, let alone a bombing campaign.

But Somalia has no oil.

__________________
"Do not tell lies, and do not do what you hate,
for all things are plain in the sight of Heaven. For nothing
hidden will not become manifest, and nothing covered will remain
without being uncovered."

The Gospel of Thomas

citadel

What kills me is that we're bankrupting ourselves trying to save the world from each other. All this debt can't be sustained. Before we even dream about deploying US soldiers somewhere other than where they're directly needed to protect the US (and not just it's interests), we need to make sure that the budget is not just balanced, but functional. None of the political parties have managed to pull off that trick in the last two decades, and I hold them equally responsible.

But if you criticize Bush you're a dirty Democrat, Obama and you're a racist Republican.

urville

The action in Libya is fine and in that instance I think Obama assumes we're smart enough to know what is happening there and why.

There is oil there, but its commendable we're not trying anything more, we also have plenty of reasons to hate Gaddafi anyway. Funny how just a year or so back McCain is over there making kissy face and working deals and now its all different. All of them are guilty of that one even our own corporations, who gave into pressure from Gaddafi and paid him money he used to pay for the terrorism he caused. Even Sarkozy had him in France with his little tent on the lawn. However, I have real issue with the war in Afghanistan, where the is no real oil and we're simply not winning and not going to, and the lack of action in Bahrain. Frankly overall our military stance for decades has been a mishmash of seemingly double standards and complete nonsense that serves our own interests and little if nothing more most of the time.

I'm not going to kid myself though. Even playing a left/right game is playing into a lie to some degree, one we all seem to know about but we all equally act like we cant see or smell. At some level i see no difference between any of these presidents. These people are politicians, career politicians. There is left and right but come on. I dont care how it looks, on anything big it goes how it works out to get those big lobby dollars from all those banks, mineral, oil, gas, military, food, and on and on. Presidents balance the bad they do in that way with the few things they pass for thier party/constituents as good, even Obama. The minute they become a politician I seriously doubt any real tie back to the citizen, which is obvious by how little if anything changes for "main street" and how much has changed for corporations and big business of which I count the military in. Bush II is a perfect example, he got voted in again. We either play our party lines blindly hoping the next person will keep it real or we accept the little slices we get or god forbid some of us are actually that blind or stupid. At least it seems like that for most people. I voted Obama cause I did like the message even though I tempered my belief with alot of realism, and because there was no way I was letting another complete moron chosen by another moron dumb enough to pick her get elected.

Beyond that, the budget isnt any politicians long term problem its a tax payer problem. That is the bottom line. They could fix it. Lets say, cut away everything raise taxes even and get balanced, really make it work and more will come along once some other subject is the big deal and spend it away. It took all of eight years to put us in the hole for real, just like it does for any American family to get in the hole. Thats how the nation spends why are we surprised the government is any different? You dont buy outside your means, if you want more, you get a better job. pay for what you want or you really dont want it.

citadel

Yup. Unfortunately they care more about getting a turn to steer then where the heck they're driving us to.

urville

Dont we have bases of some sort or another in over 100 foreign places? how much is that costing and why arent they at home helping with this issue at the southern border?

citadel

Yeah, something like that. I can't even think far enough ahead to wonder if we should stay deployed all over, it has it's pros and cons, but the mixed up priorities is baffling.

roachboy

empire is expensive. isolation is nothing more than a pipe dream. it's been that way since 1945. the misplaced priority lay with the entire national security state, which was elaborated as institutional frame and patronage network from the immediate post world war 2 period onward in the context of the cold war. good for business, that. republicans love the national security state. they can't throw enough money at it. democrats aren't much better.

what i am curious about sometimes is how the industries that get military procurement deals are organized. because there's an argument that shiny weapon systems provide jobs---and they do----but it's not obvious americans get those jobs. and that's necessarily ok. profit uber alles. o yes.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

citadel

I don't know how much I buy into the military-industrial complex conspiracy I keep hearing about. And honestly I'm not even talking about isolationism or sticking our head in the sand, there could certainly be circumstances where intervention would be the right thing to do, even if we're not directly involved. It's the when and how, not as much as the why that gets to me.

urville

Well said, but... for me... For one, Military should not be a business, period. Two, of the 895 billion spent on military and security to be spent in 2011, I find about 2/3's of it to be too much and too popular. The rest of the budget is about 600. Three, I'd rather see those jobs in education or otherwise. To me that is a smaller argument in a bigger picture in which we are ignoring the wheel that is powering and causing all of this.

---------- Post added at 12:17 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:02 AM ----------

I would not call it that. There is no conspiracy, that denotes an unprovable but arguably plausible scenario happening in back rooms and dark cars amongst invisible men and organizations. This is just good business, its no secret. Just like everything else going wrong. It's money, its always money or power, period. We're in here and theres talk of isolationism, this is so far beyond that. We're always in conflict of some sort or another.

ASU2003

I think you forgot about Sudan and the Congo. And Sudan has oil too.

Look how our non-interventionist policies turned out though. If the bad people are killing all the good people, evolution will lead to more bad people and destabilized countries. If we intervene too much, Russia and China won't appreciate it however.

There are better 'options' to change the course of history without getting involved like we have in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya...

citadel

Fair enough. I thought you were rolling down a tinfoil road.

roachboy

it's not a conspiracy at all. the national security state is the institutional framework created in 1948 as a modification of state of emergency law that was to enable the united states to respond to some (imaginary) action by the soviets without the bother of that pesky democratic process stuff. it also refers to the logic of the cold war---endless war without events that involved empire against empire, so was the logical extension of nation-state/nation-state war---shiny pretty expensive weapons systems, nuclear weapons, stockpiles all over the world. the cold war was basically a logistics chess match. it was subject to principles of turn over--self-perpetuating in that way--if one side introduced a new shiny weapon system, the other felt compelled to match it. on and on.

the term military-industrial complex was used by dwight eisenhower to refer to the oligarchy that was taking shape in the middle 50s out of the national-security state apparatus. a massing of political and financial power within the patronage system linked to the military by the logic (and practices) of cold war production.

the cold war enabled a partial resolution of the old problem of over-capacity in production for the united states. war economy, this once was. war was good for bidness. capitalism at its finest.

despite the fact that the cold war is over--it resulted in the soviet system spending itself into a problem that opened onto a political crisis---and despite the fact that no wars have been fought on a strategic plane symmetrical with the procurement protocols of the cold war, the whole patronage system is still in place an still **very** lucrative. conservatives owe a lot to the military. a. lot. so they protect the national-security state as a way of protecting the patronage system.

it can and should be dismantled. what the military is, its role as a motor of economic activity, all of it should be rethought. there is absolutely no justification for the levels of spending. there is no justification for the strategic assumptions that enable such levels of spending. none.

and the political logic of the national-security state is quite dangerous. witness the bush regime. think: iraq. that should be taken apart as well.

but the american system has a self-correction problem. it has an introspection problem. its design seems to be such that quite enormous problems like a war launched on false pretenses and war crimes (torture/rendition) are not actionable. and this quite apart from the retrograde defenses of the national-security state by the right.

irony is that you can see the revolts in north africa/middle east as revolts against the consequences of exactly this model, of this version of the american empire. so it's more than passing strange that the action in libya is being carried out....there's apparently some misunderstanding of what the revolts are about----just as there is some misunderstanding within the united states about what this place is---is it the way people inside the bubble of ideology like to think it is, or is it a military-industrial machine? does it stand for democracy (even though there isn't one in the united states really) or for whatever is politically expedient?

it's both, yes?

military bases are only a relatively small aspect of the expenditures on the military. something on the order of 26-29% of total federal expenditures goes into military expenditures. and that does not count any of the war actions (not on the books) nor the obscene levels of money that's been pissed down the drain in the name of "homeland security" since 2001. fear is never boring, as the song says. and it is profitable. this spills over into the prison complex, another conservative favorite. and you thought the right wasn't aware that their policies generate intensified class war...well....

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

urville

Of the discretionary spending. Of the 1.4 some trillion. 895 billion is defense.

roachboy

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

aceventura3

I don't know what to say. The separation in how we see this key point is so wide we could not even begin to have a reasonable discussion. However, if your statement is superfluous to illustrate an ideology, there might be hope.

Just for the record I did read the above.

---------- Post added at 09:33 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:05 PM ----------

My gut tells me no matter how I respond, it won't make a difference.

My premise is that outside intervention in a civil war can prolong the civil war causing more death and destruction than what would have occurred without the intervention and that history has examples where that can be proven to be true. I am not sure what your premise is or if it is just that you simply think that mine is wrong.

One of the longest civil wars in history the Eighty Years' War is an example that I believe supports my premise. More information is here:

Eighty Years' War - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Also, looking at one of the bloodiest civil wars in world history, the US Civil War - France and England did make a point not to intervene. However, key to the Confederacy strategy was to obtain both British and French intervention. It was this hope that extended the war unnecessarily. Hence, my view that we will do the rebels in Libya more harm than good if we create the perception of the type of support that won't materialize.

Why do you folks do this, why not ask???

I think the cause of the rebels is doomed to fail, unless we remove Kadafi and his military apparatus from power. Anything short of that will lead to the death of the rebels in mass. I think the rebels initiated their revolt prematurely. We should have advised them to exercise patience before the initiation of protests and their attempts to take control. I believe Kadafi is the most isolated political leader in the ME and that if non-violent means could be employed, no better circumstance exists than the one face by Libya. Prolonged fighting will not be of benefit to anyone in this circumstance. The UN either needed to go in with one clear objective or like I said encourage the rebels to be patient. I do understand that is easier said than done. But, it appears that the Libyan issue came as a surprise to many in the world, that should not have been the case.

Comparison to what?

---------- Post added at 09:51 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:33 PM ----------

How would you classify the Vietnam war? Was it a civil war? Was there outside intervention? Who intervened? What was the result of that intervention?

When one side has a material advantage the war will go in a predictable manner. If outside intervention eliminates a material advantage what do you think will happen?

Conventional war strategy is pretty clear on this point - if you initiate an attack or a war when you are at a significant strategic and tactical disadvantage it is a lost cause. The rebels initiated their revolt prior to even having the support of a no fly zone - it was going to be a massacre. Hence their failed strategy required outside intervention to prevent the massacre. The problem has not been resolved with a no fly zone - Kafafi can simply employ a different strategy - how is the UN going to respond??? That is the key question, isn't it? Obama, nor the UN is clear on this point. It is easy to see how the rebels may have been given false hope. Isn't that obvious?

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Cimarron29414

ace,

It looks like Obama's teleprompter is going to explain all of this to us in a couple of hours. I'm certain we will all feel better about the Libyan campaign after this speech. Honestly, I can't decide whether I will watch or not. Maybe I'll DVR it.

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"Here lies The_Jazz: Killed by an ambitious, sparkly, pink butterfly."

dc_dux

Today, Qatar became the first Arab country to formally recognize the rebel forces and council as the people's sole legitimate representative. Kuwait and the Gulf Cooperation Council are likely to follow suit in the coming days.

At the same time, the US has turned nearly all of the lead enforcement of the UN mandate over to NATO.

Why is this combination of political, economic and military actions by NATO and the Arab nations not a positive development?

__________________
"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
~ Voltaire

roachboy

ace: first, i used hayek to talk about the management literature meme "leadership"---sheesh. suffice it to say that i think your approach methodologically so problematic that it hardly seems worth the effort to run out critiques of it. so we're back where we started.

do you actually know anything about the history of the anti-colonial wars in vietnam?

so far as your repeated demands for make-belief certainty concerning variables that are in flux---whatever.

there are real questions, however---i think it's a waste of time to bother trying to turn them onto the terrain of image control/war marketing.

i don't think it's a foregone conclusion that the endgame in libya will be military---there are reports today about italy attempting to work out an escape route for example. it's also not a foregone conclusion that the endgame will not be military. today the rebels move to just outside sirte. it's not clear what that will end up meaning. there's a lot of questions.

i doubt that a reassuring tidy bed-time tale will be told tonight that will allow conservatives who only rest easy thinking that Dad is taking care of that scary bad complexity.



dc: it can't be a positive development because it's not a republican who's running the show. obviously. everyone knows that conservatives are the only real americans.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

dc_dux

It seems to me that other than being fairly low-key in explaining the US actions to the American people to-date (for which criticism may be justified), the US measured approach w/o either over-reacting or doing-nothing strikes a reasonable balance.

But I suspect you are correct. Its not about the set of foreign policy actions that may be in the best interest of the country, but crass political opportunism....particularly by those who claim to know the outcome with absolute certainty or flip-floppers like Newt.

__________________
"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
~ Voltaire

roachboy

in this case, i think the new republic piece from the head of human rights watch is pretty good. post 144...the main grounds aren't particular national interest. it's more preventing a massacre. humanitarian grounds. and the rest of the planet seems to find this acceptable as an action--within limits of course. go figure.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

dc_dux

The fact that Obama's speech had to be moved up to 7:30 (from 8:00) so as not to force ABC to pre-empt Dancing with the Stars is a commentary about the attention span of the American people.

---------- Post added at 07:36 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:23 PM ----------

I agree that the actions are more to prevent a massacre.

Unfortunately, our European allies, with perhaps the exception of the Brits, are all bark and no bite when it comes to committing military resources or, giving them the benefit of doubt, they just dont have an equivalent level of force capacity that could do the job quickly w/minimum loss of lives.

Should we have let Kadaffi follow through on his threat to massacre rebel forces and civilian supporters by the thousands (x 10 or x 100)?

One can only imagine the outrage on the right if we had not stepped up and Kadaffi did exactly what he threatened to do.

__________________
"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
~ Voltaire

rollick

I suspect that this is all about refugees. They are an expense to everyone apart from the country they leave. They create other problems too. In time, I suspect that any country that has a substantial number of refugees leaving it, will have their government removed under UN mandate and a new government inserted which will act for the benefit of the people of the country rather than filling the pockets of those in government. Those who were in the removed government will then be prosecuted under UN law. I think this is early days and that in time the removal of toxic governments will apply as a matter of routine. Hopefully, it's now in process of discovering how it's best done.

urville

Can does not mean will. I take it from this your not willing to take that risk. i wouldn't argue French, Dutch or Spanish intervention in the Revolutionary War. Even if it did prolong it, which I dont believe it did, I'm happy they did. I have no personal stake in anyone being wrong, I simply dont agree on the factor of the risk in this case... It is a case by case sort of thing though.

The difference is that the rebels dont expect our help via troops, nor do they want it. Thats been made clear by them since the beginning.

---------- Post added at 11:47 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:27 PM ----------

No. Saying that ignores countless historical instances in which seemingly unwinnable battles have been won. This also omits that this is not just a no fly zone, does it not?

Cimarron29414

At least 191 cruise missiles
at least 455 precision guided bombs

Libya had over 600 high value targets? Not including the targets the British and French took out? Really?

$1,000,000,000 more debt


Obama looked pissed last night. Pissed that he had to explain himself to all of us mouth-breathing peasants. Pissed that we won't just blindly trust his judgement that our money is being well spent. Pissed that the teleprompter wouldn't keep up. There was one part in the speech where he looked straight ahead and spoke from his heart. It was striking and surprising and welcome. For that brief moment, there seemed a human inside the polish...and then the Stepford President reclaimed the shell.

__________________
Gives a man a halo, does mead.

"Here lies The_Jazz: Killed by an ambitious, sparkly, pink butterfly."

roachboy

jesus cimmaron. is there a shallowness contest on that i don't know about? why does no-one ever tell me about such things? damn it. sometimes i think the only reason memos exist is to be something that i am the last to get.

so on your first "argument"---you're an isolationist. that's been quaint since 1945. catch up.

you object to the expense of libya, but not so much to that of iraq and afghanistan seemingly. nor to that of the metastasis of the domestic surveillance apparatus since 2001. nor to the national-security state in general, with it's bloated outlays on shiny manly weapons systems. go figure.

but your real "argument" is you don't like obama. he talks too smooth and must be selling you some snake oil. well, i don't like lite beer: i think it tastes like nothing. and i don't like that voice-over guy who does all the hollywood trailers. he oversells things. i like chunky peanut butter. i like paper that makes my hand go all tingly when it runs over the surface.

so there. a lovely exchange of consumer preferences.
let's all hold hands and sing kumbaya.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Cimarron29414

rb-

The thread isn't really about Iraq or Afghanistan, so I didn't feel I needed to compare and contrast my positions. This lack of information led you to assumptions about what they must be. Doesn't my proposed isolationist stance directly contradiction your assumptions regarding my support of Iraq and Afghanistan? I mean, at least give me credit for some consistency, if anything. For the record, I don't support the domestic surveillance, which you should have derived from my libertarian tendencies. Again, I didn't know I needed to state my position on EVERY federal issue in a thread on Libya. I don't think that's what you want me to do. Is it?

To go back to my original posts in this thread, as a compassionate human being, I watched the impending slaughter of a people who seemingly want freedom and liberty and democracy...or at least a peaceful end to this form of dictatorship...and I didn't want those people to be slaughtered. I wanted somebody, anybody, to do something (much like you with the Quaran burning). However, because of our involvement in so many other "pet projects", our debt, the inevitable (and realized) negative opinion of our KaPows killing muslims, and the potential longevity of any action - I felt that we should support with our vote, not our shiny weapons systems. There were other countries that can, should, and did step up. I question whether we needed to drop our bombs when other countries wanted to (and did) drop theirs. I think our federal government, oops, not our federal government because only one branch decided to use our shiny weapons systems. I believe our President should have used his speech to explain to us why we couldn't just vote for the resolution which enabled France and Britian a quick and decisive enforcement of the no-fly zone. I think he should have explained why WE needed to drop bombs. I don't think Obama supplied that. His speech was a compilation of every talking point of the past 10 days. It was disappointing.

So, my "shallowness" is really a defense mechanism against actions I have concluded are not in our best interest and can only watch with my hands thrown in the air. And I hope you see that conclusion was drawn out of far more consideration than the credit you provided...which was none.

P.S. I just brewed one of the best batches of non-Lite beer yet. I look forward to your visit so I can share.

__________________
Gives a man a halo, does mead.

"Here lies The_Jazz: Killed by an ambitious, sparkly, pink butterfly."

dc_dux

Just for the record, defense contractors have probably received more than $1 billion in tax benefits or tax avoidance by moving off-shore, Halliburton/KBR most notably.

__________________
"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
~ Voltaire

Cimarron29414

So has GE. What's your point?

__________________
Gives a man a halo, does mead.

"Here lies The_Jazz: Killed by an ambitious, sparkly, pink butterfly."

roachboy

that is certainly a more reasonable position than complaining about some imaginary condescension in the delivery of the speech. and the explanation for the american role is likely two-fold: (a) logistical and (b) empire. the logistical claim rests on the fact of the matter: given that the un resolution passed at the last possible moment (tanks outside benghazi, the showdown maybe 24 hours away) and the time required to get a nato structure into place (about a week as it turned out) in response to the security council resolution....that the us because it is in a position to act did so is no surprise. it is possible that france could have done the same thing---or england----and i have no answer for why neither of them took the lead except to point to the second factor---the persistence of the american empire----and strangely enough, in geo-political terms, i would argue that this action in libya restores something of the credibility of the american imperial presence that was---i thought fatally---damaged by the bush administration (read: iraq war) in part de facto and in part because of the discursive shift away from the simple/simplistic dick-waving preferred by the neo-cons. the neo-cons made the mistake of allowing american imperial power to refer to itself and to follow that by fucking up in a genuinely epic manner. it's smarter to pretend to have the interests of "humanity" in mind. if you think about it, rhetorically at least, that's a better tactic for the long haul of empire maintenance. we give and give and give.

at the same time, i don't buy the claim that there's no national interest involved with the action. i see the revolution(s) as primarily directed against the national-security state model, which can be extended to include the cold-war inspired realpolitik that justified supporting friendly dictators (and using them to avoid legal niceities as the bush people used egypt as torture proxies---no fucking problem there---no reason to prosecute those assholes for war crimes----o no----but i digress).....the united states has clearly made a policy decision that it makes sense to try to get out in front of these revolutions in some way so as to contain them.

want proof? look at what's happening in egypt.

the united states is self-evidently acting in order to preserve, to the greatest possible extent, continuity in its geo-political position. this position is centered around several factors---among the most important if control of access to petroleum. this does not require that the americans buy it from country x or y. this is clear. there are some good books about this. the second is the spineless policy toward israel. but this is getting more and more complicated---syria for example is in a complicated space at the moment. if asad falls. then.....

of course the us will say "yay democracy" while it manoevers through the military to make sure this democracy business doesn't get out of hand.

not that different from the management of democracy in the united states, if you think about it.

aside: we should be learning from north africa---learning to mobilize against the national security state and what happens if you win. egypt is way ahead of us in this respect. but i digress.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

dc_dux

My point is that budget considerations dont exist in a vacuum and concerns over costs (even inflated as yours were) are, IMO, a weak argument to oppose a limited US role in protecting civilians from a despot intent on massacre, if not prevented...and if you so concerned about the costs, they are easily offset by reaching into the pockets of defense tax dodgers.

This morning, the good ladies of Fox News, Palin and Van Susteren, wildly exaggerated the cost, putting it at $600 million/day

__________________
"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
~ Voltaire