Barack Obama’s cluelessness in regards to Lybia became glaringly obvious when the U.S. military was put in the spot of providing air support for “rebels” that were, in fact, al Qaeda allies.
Many FReepers wondered how Obama could be that incompetent. Some FReepers thought that nobody could be that incompetent and wondered if Obama was helping al Qaeda on purpose. Some FReepers agreed.
Obama will be pleased. …. FReeper comment Number 1.
Why do you think he acted so quickly …. FReeper comment Number 2.
Here is what I posted in answer to that question:
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Because of stupidity. Because, in foreign affairs, Barack Obama is totally clueless. Because Barack Obama never bothered to do his homework and educate himself. Because Barack Obama was an Affirmative Action candidate that too many irrational people gushed over because of the way he looked and sounded instead of what he knew and you can't realistically expect anything but FUBAR's from such a President.
Barack Obama got into the "Let's overthrow Gadhafi" chess game without ever bothering to study what would happen beyond the first move of "Pawn to King 4".
Barack Obama had not thought out the chess game beyond the extremely naïve notion that you can:
1.) Topple Gadhafi so that
2.) America can then Cut & Run so that
3.) The Democracy Fairy can wave her Magic Wand and everybody lives happily ever after
The three major problems with that childishly naïve lunacy are that:
1.) There is no such thing as a Democarcy Fairy
2.) In all of military history, air power has never, ever, secured a single square mile of territory. To secure territorry, you need "boots on the ground". The 8th Air Force may have flattened East Berlin in World War II but East Berlin became Communist because, after the bombing, it was the Soviets with "boots on the ground" there.
3.) The one warring faction that is pouring fighters into Libya in order to have "boots on the ground" to secure the final Victory in Libya is al Qaeda. ("Thank you, U.S. air power, for giving us the future Billions of dollars of Libyan oil revenues that we will use to kill Americans!")
After his intial blunder, saner heads at the Pentagon pointed out to Obama:
"Mr. President, what about the fact that al Qaeda has been flooding Libya with radical Islamist fighters in order to be the only warring faction with the necessary "boots on the ground" to secure the final control over Libya? You specifically expect to "get out" and leave a power vacuum in Libya that al Qaeda is already mobilized to fill? It will turn over Libya and it's oil wealth over to the Islamic radicals just as surely as Jimmy Carter's blundering with another dictator turned Iran over to the Islamist fanatics."
Then, Obama realized what an idiot he has been.
"What should I do now? How can I fix this?"
"Stalemate, Mr. President. We will claim a stalemate. With Gadhafi still in power, we can use him as a proxy to keep the radical Islamists in check just like George H. W. Bush used Saddam to keep the Iranian-backed, radical Islamists in southern Iraq in check in 1991 after the Gulf War."
So, the Pentagon starts making statements about "Stalemate".
This is the Charlie Foxtrot that happens when voters support a ridiculously unprepared and unqualified Affirmative Action candidate just because they absolutely adore how that candidate looks and sounds without ever bothering to figure out if that candiate would lead America into FUBAR after FUBAR through sheer ignorance and incompetence.
You do not have to be a secret al Qaeda supporter to get America into such a FUBAR and hand Billions of dollars of future oil revenue over to al Qaeda.
You just have to be so utterly unqualified to be Commander-in-Chief that you actually have the extremely naïve notion that you can:
1.) Topple Gadhafi so that
2.) America can then Cut & Run so that
3.) The Democracy Fairy can wave her Magic Wand and everybody lives happily ever after
Case in point:
"So what our president said at first, that our mission is to see Qaddafi go, he's got to go, but then we're told by one of his top advisers, the president's top advisers, saying, Well, no, really, Qaddafi is probably going to prevail on this. He's probably going to prevail over the opposition. And then our president changes the tune again, saying, Well, it's not our mission to oust Qaddafi. A lot of confusion. I would like to see, of course, as long as we're in it -- we better be in it to win it. And if there's doubt, we get out. Win it means Qaddafi goes and America gets to get on out of there and let the people of Libya create their own government" .... Sarah Palin in interview with Greta van Sustern
"But, Governor Palin, what about the fact that al Qaeda has been flooding Libya with radical Islamist fighters in order to be the only warring faction with the necessary "boots on the ground" to secure the final control over Libya? You specifically expect to "get out" and leave a power vacuum in Libya that al Qaeda is already mobilized to fill? It will turn over Libya and it's oil wealth over to the Islamic radicals just as surely as Jimmy Carter's blundering with another dictator turned Iran over to the Islamist fanatics."
"Umm ... What do you mean by "boots on the ground"? What's an "Islamist"? What does al Qaeda have to do with any of this and the Democracy Fairy?"
Heck, she's already made significant inroads with India and Israel.
It’s sad that there is no mention that going to war must be a decision made by the representatives of the people, not by the president, as provided for in our Constitution.
Unfortunately the 2nd Bush administration to this day believes that they followed all five points when they prosecuted 'Operation Iraqi Freedom.' Somehow they have convinced themselves that they went in with a well-defined plan, with overwhelming force, to fight a quick and efficient war.
That we are still there is proof positive that they were wrong. However, the essayist correctly states that even if we find out later that the war is tougher than we had imagined the conservative thing is to not just cut and run.
So basically every president from all time can claim that they followed the five points, was surprised that the war lasted longer than they had hoped, and because they couldn't just cut and run we ended up staying longer and spending more money and lives than we intended.
According to this politician "logic" even the Vietnam War followed Palin's five points.
Basically Palin's Five Points are not original to her. They have been stated, restated, and affirmed by many, if not all, administrations. In theory they are great. In practice they are turned on their head and we end up going to war far more often than we should, and get stuck in many more quagmires than is justified.
After the wall fell Bush the 1st launched the USA on a new path of foreign affairs which he termed the New world order. In that doctrine was the need for international support and the defacto veto of the UN over American actions. after that point it become a needed thing to get partners to engage in armed conflict. be it Somalia, the first gulf war, kosovo, Iraq Afghanistan, Libya etc....Palin called for a rejection of that policy and replacement with the Reagan doctrine.
a very good move by Gov Palin. The only reaganite on the field both in domestic policy and now in foreign policy.
To put some interesting spin on things, at some point, the Bush family developed and acquired the equivalent of diplomatic data mining software. Perhaps from the CIA, perhaps somewhere else.
As background, for some years, police agencies have had software that correlates vast amounts of data about criminals, their associations and families, their m.o.’s, their victims, etc. This creates a huge number of “linkages” that can be pursued when a crime is committed, far more than any human could figure out. The software is so successful that it was adapted for use by the US military in Iraq, to discover terrorist networks.
When H.W. Bush was president, he mentioned the thousands of interconnections, “linkages”, that exist between nations, and how if they could be figured out, US foreign policy could be a dimension greater than anything anyone else had. Acting invisibly, the US could almost always get what it wanted, even if it had no direct involvement.
Then, even before the campaign season had begun, W. Bush began building the soon to be presidential ranch in Crawford, TX; and had also cornered all the big money Republican contributors, so that the primary race was over before it had begun. This level of prior planning seems to jibe with some kind of advice oracle.
But the Bush family seems to be keeping this capability in the family, and a few, trusted allies. So it is not a “Republican” foreign policy.
If she supported the Iraq war, she violated her principles.