Obama Topples Gaddafi

The winner of the Nobel Peace Prize started a war while away on spring break in Brazil and won it while on vacation at Martha's Vineyard. You have to acknowledge a kind of elegance in that. If recent reports are accurate, the regime of Col Muammar Gaddafi has collapsed.

The President hasn't made it easy to give him credit. His administration denied that the Libyan intervention was a war at all, preferring to call it by the weasel words "kinetic military action." It was a war. They consistently denied that the U.S. was in charge. We were in charge. They denied that we and our allies were targeting Gaddafi when we were obviously targeting Gaddafi. They had a very hard time explaining what our policy was. The ostensible purpose was to protect civilians. What we were really doing was using airpower to decimate Gaddafi's forces and provide air cover to the rebels so that the latter could topple the regime.

All that being true, the President has all but bagged his second major league bad guy and he gets credit for that. Assuming that the Administration was in fact lying about the policy it was pursuing, as I indicate above, I now have to admit that the policy worked. Without putting American boots on the ground, the U.S. used its awesome airpower to depose a dictator. Focusing narrowly, that was a policy successfully executed.

Whether the policy will be successful in broader, more important terms, remains to be seen. Who are the rebels and what will they do when they establish control of the capital? What kind of regime will they form? President Obama ended an unsavory regime on the cheap, which is good, but you get what you pay for. We have no way of controlling events on the ground but we have to take full responsibility for them. If the rebels should begin spilling large buckets of blood, the blood is on our hands. Likewise, if Libya should fall into the hands of more dangerous people than Muammar, they can thank us for handing it to them.

There is also the small matter of the War Powers Act. The President acted in utter contempt of this law. On the one hand, I have to thank him for demonstrating what I and most conservatives have long believed: that the Act was a bad piece of work. On the other hand, should Presidents be allowed to ignore the law? Here Congress in general and the Republicans in particular share the blame.

Finally, there is the question of the logical implications of this success. The Administration seems to be bending over backwards to assure the designated Assad, who seems to be murdering people much more vigorously than Gaddafi did, that nothing like this is in store for him.

If the Administration wasn't lying about the purpose of the Libyan kinetic thingy, shouldn't we be spending at least a few cruise missiles to protect Syrian civilians? Since we obviously were lying, shouldn't we want Assad Jr. to at least wonder whether he's next? That might give us a little leverage.

I wish I could say that this makes no sense, but it does. Syria is an instrument of Iran. That makes it much more dangerous to American policy in the region than Libya ever was. If we go after Assad as we did Gaddafi, the Iranians will respond by increased efforts to destabilize Iraq. Of course, they may do that anyway, but I suspect that it is fear of that that stays our hand in Syria.

This is a mess, but the region is always a mess. For now, if Gaddafi is really done with, the President gets credit.

Comments

[Dan]

This is a joke post right? If not you really need to take your meds.

Even this admin wouldn't dare take credit for this action. Although, I can imagine seeing him on TV when it's all said and done with his usual, "I...I....I....I" taking credit after the fact when he has been a small player and "leading from behind".

Where is he when it comes to taking credit for the failed housing loan program, stimulous package, gitmo, gulf oil response, cash for clunkers, focusing on jamming through healthcare when the economy should have been #1 on his list (have your healthcare rates been reduced as promised, how about that cost curve being reduced???), and naively predicting unemployment not going above 8% in addition to the summer of recovery.

Any program initiated by him and completely in his charge has been a complete failure. Anything he's taken credit for has been a combination of multiple parties or actions that have fallen into his lap.

[larry kurtz]

Try a little bile with your crow, Ken.

[Stace Nelson]

Good points Mr. Blanchard, not sure if the credit is commendatory though...

[Bill Fleming]

Blaming and taking credit for stuff is more of a Republican thing. A good leader gives others the credit. As long as the result is right, it doesn't matter who gets the kudos.

[Lynn]

Wasn't this supposedly a NATO deal? Give NATO credit, NOT Obama. Yes, we are a big part of NATO, but Obama winning a war??? I agree that he will take credit for it though. Takes credit when it might make him look good, says it's George Bush's fault when not!

And since when is it something new for Obama to act in utter contempt for the law? He did it here. He did it with cap and tax. He does it with illegal immigration daily. He did it with Obamacare. He is doing it with card check. More like a dictator, with a defacto legislature, that he basically ignores.

[Ken Blanchard]

Oh, for heaven's sake, Bill. "Blaming and taking credit is more of a Republican thing"? Do you ever listen to Barack "it's all Bush's fault" Obama talk about the economy? Give me a break.

Obama gets credit for a policy successfully executed, even if he never could get quite straight what the policy was.

[duggersd]

Thanks for your response to Bill. It is a good thing I was not drinking milk when I read it or it would have been coming out of my nose. I have supported the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan from the beginning. Obviously, the Taliban was hiding the people behind 9/11 and in Iraq, we had every reason to believe the madman there was working on WMD's. And even though people do not like to admit it, there were 550 metric tons of yellowcake found in Iraq. The headline grabbing President Bush btw, had it secretly removed and sent to a firm in Canada. What a scoundrel!
In Libya, I do not see the justification. I am not fond of Gaddafi, but this could lead to other adventures such as Syria. I believe it to be a dangerous precedent the President is doing. It seems to me people who were hollering about Iraq should be screaming about Libya. The question I am trying to have answered is violating the War Powers Act a crime? Or is that a civil matter?

[Bill Fleming]

The economy IS all Bush's fault, Ken. He totally ran it into the ditch.

[Dave]

NeoCons and Dominionist take "Damned if you did, damned if you didn't" approach to smear the President... No surprises here. In other words, if he didn't do anything, he should have. And if he did anything, he did it wrong or just shouldn't have done anything at all... Comments from the GOPer elitist and theocrat class bear this out.

[Bill Fleming]

DuggerSD, your yellowcake thing is as bogus as most of the other stuff you post.

http://www.snopes.com/politics/war/yellowcake.asp

[duggersd]

Bill, Snopes does not say yellowcake was not found. In fact I am not sure what they are trying to say except that it is their opinion that Saddam was not trying to restart their nuclear program. The article, by MSNBC & CBS both indicate it was dangerous for Iraq to have in the state they were in; it was shipped to a firm in Canada; and that it could be processed for bad things. Snopes does not dispute that. Sorry, but as usual you are incorrect. And my post is not bogus. And, you do agree, don't you, that this adventure in Libya is a mistake, right? And is it a crime or a civil matter violating the War Powers Act?
The economy of 2008 was Bush's fault? OOOOOOKAAAAAY. Perhaps you can tell us why? And since the economy did so well until 2008, was that Bush's fault, too? The economy has indeed had problems, some of them due to Bush and the Republicans and also in a large sense due to the Democrats. You will notice the deficit started exploding after the Democrats took the House. Hmmmmmm. And President Obama refused to do anything about Fannie and Freddie while in the Senate until it was too late. Most people attribute the major portion of the economic problems to housing crisis. Bush tried to get Congress to act. It did not.
The economy continues to be in crisis due to the policies of the lame duck President Obama. Taxes? He is a disaster. He cannot make up his mind as to whether the Bush tax cuts are a good idea or bad. Regulation? Way over regulating. I have seen studies that tell us regulations by his administration are killing industries. Energy? DISASTER!!! He has essentially closed down the Gulf drilling. I know, I know. He has lifted a moratorium. But what? One permit????? His administration is doing its best to shut down coal. Jobs? Well, he brags about 2,000,000 jobs, but unemployment continues to be above 9% even after promising Porkulous would keep it at 8 or below. This does not take into account all of the jobs killed in the energy sector. So, blame Bush if you want, but please hold President Obama accountable for what he has done to this country.

[Donald Pay]

Duggersd is trying so hard, but he just can't get around that fact that Obama's policies are so much superior in every way to those of the group of clowns and whores vying for the Republican nomination and to that warmonger McCain and to his predecessor in the White House.

One thing this proves is that soft power and leading from the back sometimes works. Using the best of American technology, Obama showed that little prick McCain how to make change in the Middle East.

It's too bad Duggersd can't keep up with recent history. The yellowcake is something the UN inspectors knew about. Remember them? Those were the folks Bush and the Republicans were dissing in the run up to the Iraq debacle. The inspectors knew exactly where it was, which is how the US "found" it in the first place, though the dippy Republicans tried to weave it into their hallucinatory conspiracy theory involving Wilson and Plame and who knows what else.

[Bill Fleming]

The whole real estate bubble developed on Bush's watch duggerSD. Unregulated financial institutions, out of control gambling on sub-standard mortgages, derivatives, credit default swaps. Huge tax cuts followed by two unfunded wars. An unfunded give away to the drug companies, and on and on and on. He basically spent his whole time in office putting our country in the dunk tank, one beanbag at a time. Then hit the term limit bail out button, handed Obama a sh*t sandwich and said "See ya."

I remember him smirking in his final days muttering something like "I'm glad I'm gettin' the heck outta here."

Well, weren't we all.

[duggersd]

I will agree with you about the drug benefit that was not big enough for Ted Kennedy. Yes the credit thing happened under his watch. Under his watch he tried to get Congress to do something. Congress refused, including then Senator Obama. I do not know if you are aware, but until Obama Presidents did not have the ability to bypass the Congress. And that "do you miss me?" sign? Yeah, there are a lot of people that found out there were worse people.
President Bush had a lot of faults, but the guy you like so much makes Bush look like a fiscal conservative. And those tax cuts? They led to increased tax receipts. It was the SPENDING that made the deficit. But you liberals do not understand that.

[Anne]

Barack Who?
2012 GOPers Respond To Qaddafi’s Fall By Writing Obama Out Of History

[Bill Fleming]

I think duggerSD just tipped over and fell off his chair. I hope he's okay.

[Stan Gibilisco]

As a Republican, I must express my admiration for Barack Obama's apparent military genius. I am not kidding. He seems to have a grip on the 21st century mode that warfare will take: Doing operations with a scalpel, not with a hatchet.

The fact: Gaddafi's days are apparently over. If in fact that proves true, then "the proof of the pudding is in the eating." Bin Laden is gone. Obama got some Somali pirates awhile ago and saved the crew of the afflicted vessel. I'm impressed!

I also have to agree with Bill in his comments a little bit above here: The real estate bubble developed on Bush's watch. Bush had some borderline crazy ideas, such as privatizing Social Security. He clung to that notion even as the stock market crashed. However, blaming Bush (or Frank or Dodd or any of the others) for our current trouble does us no good now, except insofar as we might learn from past mistakes.

Let's not forget that Saddam went down on Bush's watch, and we suffered no further serious attacks after 9-11 on Bush's watch.

I am singularly unimpressed with the Obama administration's job so far in regards to repairing the economy. He's the man now. He must take blame when blame's called for, as well as credit when credit's due.

We need a "Great Compromiser" now, someone who'll bridge the gap between the left and right extremes. Who will that be?

[Bill Fleming]

Good post, Stan. But "compromiser?" Are you serious? That's Obama's whole problem if you ask me. He's too much about compromise. I want him to take the gloves off, start kicking ass, and taking names. The era of no-drama-Obama is coming to a close. The GOP has made it abundantly clear, if Barack is going to bring change, he's going to have to roll up his sleeves and get his hands dirty. No more Mr. Nice guy.

[Bill Fleming]

p.s. He could maybe start by asking John Huntsman to be his running mate.
Now there's a guy who knows how to but the goofball wing of the GOP in its place.

[Jimi]

Ken,

"Obama gets credit for a policy successfully executed, even if he never could get quite straight what the policy was."

Wait.....don't we have to see what fills in the government before we can decide if this was a good thing or not?

[Jimi]

BIll,

"The whole real estate bubble developed on Bush's watch"

Again....not accurate! The bubble was created long before Bush took office.

[duggersd]

Stan, Obama only employed the Clinton strategy that brought down those guys in the Balkans. And most people will agree that ridding Libya of Gaddafi is a good thing, probably. But I am wondering why some people here do not find a problem with going the US working overtly using military force to topple a regime. If there was no threat from Iraq (not that I agree), what was the threat in Libya? This is a dangerous precedent. I am also very troubled with the President ignoring American law in regards to the War Powers Act. The even more troubling part is I believe he could have gotten Congressional approval had he asked. And is ignoring the War Powers Act a crime?

[Bill Fleming]

From what I'm hearing, it sounds like it's important that the people in these countries have ownership of their revolution. Libya called on NATO for support, we are part of NATO, so we did our part.

For us to do a cowboy, boots on the ground, Cheney/Rummy move would have resulted in the same kind of quagmire we found ourselves in in Iraq. That said, country after country in the Middle East is now overthrowing their corrupt leadership, taking ownership of their countries, and forming new governments.

The faces I see doing it are all very young. I heard one say "We're not America yet, but that's what we want." In other words, they don't want us to be their liberators, they want to liberate them selves. They don't want us as occupiers and peace keepers, they want us as role models.

It seems to me that for our part we should be humbled and proud to be looked up to in this way... as respected mentors.

That said, I don't expect duggerSD to understand this.

As he has shown us time and again, he's a terrible teacher.

I wonder how many times today he's told some American kids how bad he thinks it is that we have done this.

[duggersd]

Bill, unlike many liberal teachers, I keep my political thoughts to myself. So, now, according to Bill Fleming, if people in Venezuela started trying to overthrow Chavez and ask for NATO support, then we should do that. BTW, Libya did not call upon NATO, Libyan rebels called upon NATO support, at least until they were recognized as the government. All I am saying is this is a very dangerous precedent. Do we really want to be meddling in other countries' affairs when we have no national interest? At least in Iraq, we thought we did. Libya, not so much. Venezuela, well we would like that oil in this hemisphere. Bill, you are being inconsistent, if not hypocritical here. It now appears you believe as long as we do not have to have any troops on the ground and can just bomb the hell out of someone we don't like as long as rebels ask NATO for it, why that is just fine. And forget about federal law.

[Bill Fleming]

As members of NATO we act collectively for the common defense. A threat to one is a threat to all. That's what the Treaty says. Libya has committed acts of terrorism against our allies (unlike Iraq) and Kadaffi was promising a bloodbath on his own people. NATO acted in a humanitarian effort to prevent wholesale human slaughter. I support all of those things, duggerSD.

[Bill Fleming]

... as far as keeping your political thoughts to yourself as far as your students are concerned, duggerSD, all I'll say is, good call. I'm very glad to hear it.

[Ken Blanchard]

Bill: You say that "Blaming and taking credit for stuff is more of a Republican thing" and then you shout: "The economy IS all Bush's fault, Ken." Someday I would like to introduce you to Bill Flemming. I am not certain you will like him, but I am certain you have never met him.

I think you might be right about Bush except for the "all" part. Whatever Bush did wrong, Obama not only continued by doubled down on.

As for Libya, Dugger is right. Syria is a much greater threat to NATO interests than Libya.

[duggersd]

I do that, Bill, because it is not my job to do indoctrinate my students. I am thinking you would accuse me of doing something like that due to projection. That is what you would do, so you accuse me of the same type of deeds.
Didn't Iraq pay terrorists for blowing up people in Israel? Would that not be sponsoring terrorism? Last I checked, Israel was an ally. You are really stretching here.

[duggersd]

Ken, I am not suggesting we should be invading Syria. What I am wondering is just where we stop. I am really surprised by Bill's apparent support. I am thinking if this was the Bush Administration or the Perry Administration in about a year and a half, he would be complaining. I hope I would have the same stance as I do today.

[Bill Fleming]

Syria is next, and it's an entirely different set of logistics, due to the geography. Turkey is probably the prime mover there.
p.s. KB, okay, I'll take back the "all." My sentence was ill considered.

[Bill Fleming]

...then Yemen... THEN Iran (if they haven't come to their senses by then.)

[duggersd]

Obviously your tongue is in your cheek, Bill. But since you mentioned Iran, we did have an opportunity to help a rising tide and instead of offering support, President Obama accepted a stolen election. There was a groundswell, but.... well, opportunities lost.

[Bill Fleming]

You are correct, duggerSD. As you suspected, I don't agree philosophically with ANY violent method of political action. But even Gandhi admitted that it may, under certain circumstances b necessary. I note that the various revolutions in the Middle East have been a mixture of both, and that the movement in Iran was for the most part non-violent. Non-violence won't work if there are no witnesses, and the Iranians in power were successful in cutting off all communications both internally and externally. You have to stop doing it when that happens and regroup. They (the Iranian youth) will be back.

[duggersd]

"It is up to Iranians to make decisions about who Iran's leaders will be. We respect Iranian sovereignty and want to avoid the United States being the issue inside of Iran," --President Obama. When 1 1/2 million took to the streets, they got no support from this administration. That is the point. President Obama could have called upon that guy with the really weird last name to step down as president as he lost. But instead he backed the despot.

[Bill Fleming]

The smart people in your party agree with the President:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/06/22/745432/-Unbelievable-!-Scarborough,-Will,-Noonan,-Buchanan-defend-Obama-on-Iran

[Jimi]

Bill,

The smart people are Scarborough, Will, Noonan and Buchanan? Umm...No!

[Bill Fleming]

Every country is a different situation. Every nation's people have the same inalienable rights that we do. The Libyan rebels, the Arab League, and the NATO countries all requested our support. Not to dominate... support.

This has not been the case with every Middle East rebellion. Some don't want any help at all. Diplomatically speaking, it's not up to us who we help and who we don't, it's up to them. From a humanitarian perspective, there are some ways we can be effective, and in others nothing we can really do to help (at least not militarily.)

And our involvement will vary depending on which is the best strategic and diplomatic situation at the time. It's never a one-size-fits-all, cookie-cutter problem solving exercise.

If you or the people you think are smart are thinking otherwise, Jimi, you are mistaken.

[Ed Hardy clothes]

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