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The Obama foreign-policy team utterly fails its first real-world test in Libya.
Just my opinion, but I don’t buy the argument that if everybody else is a wimp, and hypocritical ones at that, we have to be the same.
3 comments
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sliv_the_eli Thu, Mar 17, 2011 11:30:09am |
My only quibble is that the title of your post assumes there was ever a “rise” or any true existence of internationalism. In truth, internationalism has been largely a function of the willingness of the U.S.A. to take action, with various “coalitions of the willing” joining us from time to time as they deemed their interests to be at stake and, often times, while pulling less than their fair share of the weight. The Korean War, for example, was (with no disrespect to our allies in that fight) largely a U.S. led operation, even if nominally as a United Nations force. In the Balkans, the Europeans largely twiddled their collective thumbs, despite that conflict being in their own backyard, until the U.S. took up the mantle and intervened.
Libya presents a quandary in this context. If we have learned nothing else as a nation as a result of our more active involvement in Arab affairs during the past decade, it is that our good intentions and any actions we take to rid the Arab world of its despots will not necessarily result in any love from the “Arab street”. For too long, our so-called “allies” in Europe and elsewhere have understood this phenomenon and have been content to let the U.S. do the world’s “dirty work” and earn the enmity of the local population, while they swoop in and secure the commercial contracts and profits that the locals are then not willing to give to us. This dynamic has played itself out for decades in the Middle East and appears to be repeating itself with Libya, as the Europeans sit idly by waiting for the U.S. to take action. Unfortunately, those who dared to stand up to the murderous thug in Tripoli will pay the price.
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Achilles Tang Thu, Mar 17, 2011 12:26:02pm |
I can’t disagree with you on most of this, except to say that is the way it is. In this case Gaddafi is a madman, worse in many ways than Saddam because of his insanity, not to mention his playboy sons, which Saddam also had.
We should have backed out fully at the beginning if we were not prepared for any action, instead of encouraging the rebellion and in effect leading them on with words and suggested promises, probably to die.
We will not have heard the end of Gaddafi by any means after this and he has the potential to be a worse benefactor of terrorists than even Iran.
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sliv_the_eli Thu, Mar 17, 2011 1:52:12pm |
re: #2 Naso Tang
I agree 100%. Although the problem is deeper and of longer standing than the current administration, its general approach to the region has been amateruish. Of course, it does not help that the administration is advised by, among others, a DNI who believes the Muslim Brotherhood to be a largely secular and moderate organization and a Secretary of State whose only real qualification for the job seems to have been getting her pants beaten by the current President in a race in which she was heavily favored at the outset (although, granted, I don’t know that President Obama relies much on Secretary Clinton’s advice).
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