At war with the meaning of war
Image by Marion Doss via FlickrIt is tempting and certainly very easy to point out that Obama's war (or Obama's "kinetic military action," or "time-limited, scope-limited military action," or whatever the latest, ever more preposterous evasion is) is at odds with everything candidate Obama said about U.S. military action before his election.There is much more.
And certainly every attempt the president makes to explain his Libyan adventure is either cringe-makingly stupid ("I'm accustomed to this contradiction of being both a commander in chief but also somebody who aspires to peace") or alarmingly revealing of a very peculiar worldview:
"That's why building this international coalition has been so important," he said the other day. "It is our military that is being volunteered by others to carry out missions that are important not only to us, but are important internationally."
That's great news. Who doesn't enjoy volunteering other people?
The Arab League, for reasons best known to itself, decided that Col. Gadhafi had outlived his sell-by date. Granted that the region's squalid polities haven't had a decent military commander since King Hussein fired Gen. John Glubb half a century back, how difficult could it be even for Arab armies to knock off a psychotic transvestite guarded by Austin Powers fembots?
But no: Instead, the Arab League decided to volunteer the U.S. military.
Likewise, the French and the British. Libya's special forces are trained by Britain's SAS. Four years ago, President Sarkozy hosted a state visit for Gadhafi, his personal security detail of 30 virgins, his favorite camel and a 400-strong entourage that helped pitch his tent in the heart of Paris.
Given that London and Paris have the third- and fourth-biggest military budgets on the planet and that between them they know everything about Gadhafi's elite troops, sleeping arrangements, guard-babes and dromedaries, why couldn't they take him out? But no: They too decided to volunteer the U.S. military.
But, as I said, it's easy to mock the smartest, most articulate man ever to occupy the Oval Office. Instead, in a nonpartisan spirit, let us consider why it is that the United States no longer wins wars. Okay, it doesn't exactly lose (most of) them, but nor does it have much to show for a now-60-year-old pattern of inconclusive outcomes.
...
Steyn captures the irrationality of the Obama rationale. He tries to puzzle out any strategic interest in the outcome of the fight and finds none. We have already found that we will not inherit any goodwill from even the Muslims at the Arab League to invited us to the kinetic operation. They seemed shocked that we were using live ammo. We may gets some hugs from the survivors of Qaddafi's attacks on Benghazi but it yet to be seen if the warm feelings will last to the end of our kinetics.
Comments
Post a Comment