Victor Davis Hanson: 'Bomb's away' Obama turns America

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

•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.

•Europe first. Many Americans long have 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 outwaited even the French. He has managed to shame them into acting, using a new possum-like U.S. strategy of playing dead until, finally, even Europe was exasperated.

•Stuff happens. Many supporters of the Iraq war condemned Abu Ghraib as the poorly supervised, out-of-control prison it was. 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 can legitimately be ignored. Obama made "stuff happens" a legitimate defense.

•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. Obama rendered all such presidential criticism as mere nitpicking...

Hanson Obama has ensured that the exasperated anti-war movement will never be quite the same.

Oh, I'm sure they can whip up outrage at a Republican war mongering president. Don't write off the depths of their hypocritical minds so easily.

Hell, they did it in Iraq after looking the other way during Clinton's $100 billion dollar adventure in Kosovo. I already have the meme for the next Republican led action: "We learned our lesson in Libya, and we can't let that happen again." (Tag on the appropriate "Bush lied people died" slogan.)

“Obama lied, people died!!!!”

AT LEAST 40 CIVILIANS DEAD IN TRIPOLI STRIKES: VATICAN OFFICIAL -— http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/-/world/9113812/at-least-40-civilians-dead-in-tripoli-strikes-vatican-official/

Obama already is the worst natural disaster to hit the USA.

I cannot get the image of George C. Scott playing Patton in the movie of the same name thumping a map of Sicily tacked to the wall and exclaiming "Messina Brad Messina!" He meant that taking Mussina was the key to trapping the German army and liberating the whole of Sicily.

I can envision Patton standing before a map of the Persian Gulf thumping it and saying, "Iran Brad Iran!" That is the key to the whole of the Islamist movement. If the United States in its last paroxysm of power before it descends into 2nd rank status brought on by its own bankruptcy wants to actually strike a blow, it must strike against Iran. That is the key. Iraq was not the key and Libya is certainly not the key.

That is why the war in Iraq is ultimately a failure and a mistake. Iran is emerging as the strategic victor. Libya, although not as big a mistake because it is not on the same scale, rather it is a worse mistake because it is so mindless and done having gone to school on Iraq. At least when I supported the Iraq war, I had the reason that we were setting out to interdict weapons of mass destruction before they could be passed off to terrorists and infiltrated into the Homeland.

Now we should strike Iran and interdict them from acquiring the atomic bomb and doing the same. But, alas, we have no moral courage, no moral standing, and no coherent policy. The results will be far worse than what we feared might occur in Iraq, the result will be the eclipse of American influence in the Persian Gulf, the realignment of Gulf states against America as they are intimidated by a nuclear armed Iran, the astronomical increase in the price of oil, the acceleration of the American insolvency.

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