President Obama's Most Amazing Libyan Achievements

Townhall.com ^ | March 31, 2011 | Victor Davis Hanson

[Kaslin]

By bombing Libya, President Obama accomplished some things once thought absolutely impossible in America:

a) War-mongering liberals. Liberals are now chest-thumping about military "progress" in Libya. Even liberal television and radio cite ingenious reasons why an optional, preemptive American intervention in an oil-producing Arab country, without prior congressional approval or majority public support -- and at a time of soaring deficits -- is well worth supporting, in a sort of "my president, right or wrong" fashion. Apparently liberal foreign policy is returning to the pre-Vietnam days of the hawkish "best and brightest."

b) Europe first. Many Americans have long complained about the opportunistic, utopian Europeans. Under the protective U.S. defense shield, they often privately urged us to deal with dangerous foreign dictators -- while staying above the fray to criticize America, at the same time seeking trade advantages and positive global PR. But now the wily Obama has out-waited even the French. He has managed to shame them into acting with a new possum-like U.S. strategy of playing dead until finally even Europe was exasperated -- almost as if the president were warning them, "We don't mind the Gadhafi bloodletting if you, who are much closer to it, don't mind." The British Guardian and French Le Monde will be too knee-deep in the Libyan war, busy chalking up Anglo-French "wins" and worrying about European oil concessions, to charge America with the usual imperialism, colonialism and militarism. We are almost back to the 1956 world of the Suez crisis.

c) Iraq was just a Libyan prequel. Conservatives have complained that past opposition -- especially in the cases of then-Sens. Barack Obama and Joe Biden -- to George W. Bush's antiterrorism policies and wars in Afghanistan and Iraq was more partisan than principled. Obama ended that debate by showing that not only can he embrace -- or, on occasion, expand -- the Bush-Cheney tribunals, preventative detentions, renditions, Predator attacks, intercepts and wiretaps, and Guantanamo Bay, but now preemptively attack an Arab oil-exporting country without fear of Hollywood, congressional cutoffs, Moveon.org "General Betray Us"-type ads, Cindy Sheehan on the evening news, or "Checkpoint"-like novels. In short, Obama has ensured that the exasperated antiwar movement will never be quite the same.

d) Monster-in-recovery. The Gadhafi clan has been wooing Westerners through oil money and multicultural gobbledy-gook. In the last few years, the British released the Lockerbie bomber, a native of Libya; Saif Gadhafi, the would-be artist and scholar and the son of Col. Muammar Gadhafi, essentially bought a Ph.D. from the prestigious London School of Economics; the creepy Harvard-connected Monitor Group hired out cash-hungry "scholars" to write on-spec tributes to Gadhafi's achievements; and singers Mariah Carey, 50 Cent, Beyoncé and other entertainers earned a pile of petro-dollars for crooning before the Gadhafis. Then, suddenly, Obama spoiled the fun and profits by turning Gadhafi from a rehabilitated monster back into Ronald Reagan's old "Mad Dog of the Middle East."

e) Stuff happens. Many supporters of the Iraq war condemned Abu Ghraib as the poorly supervised, out-of-control prison it was. Lax American oversight resulted in the sexual humiliation of detained Iraqi insurgents. It was a deplorable episode in which, nonetheless, no one was killed, and yet it took an enormous toll on the credibility of administration officials. But while the media covered the Libyan bombing and the Middle East uprisings, a number of Afghan civilians allegedly were executed by a few rogue American soldiers. That was a far worse transgression than anything that happened at Abu Ghraib under Bush's tenure -- but apparently an incident that in the new media climate, can legitimately be ignored. Obama made "stuff happens" a legitimate defense for those doing their best to run a war from Washington.

f) War really is tiring. The media serially blamed a supposedly lazy Ronald Reagan for napping during military operations abroad. George W. Bush was criticized for cutting brush at his Texas ranch while soldiers fought and died in Iraq. Obama rendered all such presidential criticism as mere nitpicking when he started aerial bombardment in the midst of golfing, handicapping the NCAA basketball tournament and taking his family to Rio de Janeiro.

g) The road to Damascus? After Bush's interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan, many war-weary Americans believed that we would never again get involved in a Middle East war. But now, with Obama's preemptive bombing of Libya, giddy American interventionists are again eyeing Iran, Syria -- and beyond!

In short, Obama turned America upside down when he bombed Libya -- and in ways we could have scarcely imagined.

[screaminsunshine]

Obamas Hero's! They look like the Mob of bad guys in the road rage movies.

[Kartographer]

Face it OBAMA IS AWESOME!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAyCdfOXvec

[pingman]

No need for satire here, all truth.

[Travis McGee]

Obama has launched more cruise missiles than all other Nobel Peace Prize winners combined.

[y6162]

“Obama rendered all such presidential criticism as mere nitpicking when he started aerial bombardment in the midst of golfing, handicapping the NCAA basketball tournament and taking his family to Rio de Janeiro. “

Many Americans said WTF? on this chain of events.

[John123]

President Obama accomplished some things once thought absolutely impossible in America:

Is there anything this guy can't do?

[onedoug]

But now, with Obama's preemptive bombing of Libya, giddy American interventionists are again eyeing Iran, Syria -- and beyond!

To Israel.

[eak3]

Like Saddam before him, I have no problems with someone taking Ghaddafi out, the way we are doing this is just wrong. To support the very people we have been at war with the last decade is shameful at the least and treasonous at its worst. Our govt has let Obama hoodwink us into accetping R2P as policy. We are going to be forced into jumping into every mix up the Muslims get themselves involved in now. The inevitable conclusion to this is we will be forced into dealing militarily with Israel. This will be the final nail in our countrys coffin. We are already a Godless nation, and woe to the enemy that comes against Israel. I believe the proper quote from the Bible is that God will smite his enemies from the Earth. We, as a nation, are quickly jumping into that category.

[mewzilla]

I'll just post this for anyone wondering what those wacky royals have been up to....

Libyan gun-runner and friend of Prince Andrew 'gave Princess Beatrice £18k necklace' before Duke allegedly lobbied British company for him

[griswold3]

“I fear we are in the hands of madmen led by a madman, and our allegiance to the rule of law will be our undoing.’-Chuck
“Cold, calculating, controlling madmen - and rule of law is dismissed by ridiculous street demonstrations without a clue.”-Senior1

[tsowellfan]

For Obama the road to the White House 2012 goes through Tripoli

[MrB]

He also has the record for being the only Nobel Peace Prize winner to host a state dinner for a Marxist dictator that is holding another Nobel Peace Prize winner as a political prisoner.

[Travis McGee]

Perfect.

[MrB]

In 2009-10, we saw that “elections have consequences”, and we woke up and organized and voted.

In 2011, we see that the left is making sure that “elections DON’T have consequences” for them, and we may have to have another “awakening”... snickety-snack.

[240B]

The problem with ‘responsibility to protect’ doctrine is who decides who gets ‘protected’ and who is allowed to be attacked.

We have many examples of American resources and American lives being spent to ‘protect’ some group only to have them turn on us later.

We just do not have the resources to be involved in every skirmish in world especially when both sides are just as bad as each other. There is no good guy.

Also, we really have no right to get involved in other nation's national issues when they have nothing to do with us. This really is like America trying to ‘control’ or you could say ‘run’ the world. That is just not our job.

There must be hundreds of insurgencies in South America and Asia. Now, we have to choose a side and get involved in all of these?

Who chooses which side? And, to what end? The whole thing is crazy IMO.

I really just don't trust Obama or any President and especially the U.N. with that much power. It is just too much. This really is like SPECTER or Dr. Evil stuff.

[Roninf5-1]

War-mongering liberals

Barry Soetoro, aka Barrack Hussein Obama, is not a liberal. He's a Globalist. He lied to liberals to get into office just like Globalist Bu$h lied about being a conservative. So-called liberals make all kinds of excuses for Obama's behavior just like so-called conservatives make all kinds of excuses for Bu$h despite the fact that they both constantly stab their supporters in the back. There's not a dimes worth of difference between Dumbocans and Republicrats and the Globalist Agenda moves ever forward.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss

[Christian4Bush]

VDH bump

[sniper63]

"Obama has launched more cruise missiles than all other Nobel Peace Prize winners combined."

Now that, would make a good bumper sticker.......

[eak3]

thats why I think its only a ruse to get in bed even more with the Arab nations and get rid of Israel.