Blog Comments of the Day

Heh:

I’m watching with interest how people react to the military action that started on March 19th.

I’m sure you’ve seen the news, right? The U.S. is participating in action with other countries in strikes that, truth be told, are simply to remove a bad guy from power.

This dictator came to power decades ago. He’s been a thorn in the side of the west for some time. He’s sponsored terrorism, and he has been killing his own people.

Some in the U.S. are concerned that we don’t have a clearly-defined mission. But here’s the truth of the matter. The president, whether you like his politics or not, decided not to take unilateral action, but to get the U.N. to say that if the dictator doesn’t stop, force will be used.

He didn’t. And now force is being used.

There will be lots of people in the U.S. opposed to this action. Others will support it. At least one Democrat has called for impeachment. And the media don’t really know how to handle all of this.

What will I do? Well, I’ve decided to get in my time machine and go forward eight years. 2003 looks like it will be a rough one. 2011 will have to be better, right? In fact, when I get to 2011, I’ll post these thoughts on the Internet somewhere for people to read. They’ll read what I wrote and think how silly it all was.

And heh:

What I like about Obama:

Obviously, the biggest problem with Bush was sending the military into an Arab Muslim country that hadn’t even attacked us. Among the several things that made that offensive were

* the rush to war – it was only several months after the possibility of military involvement was raised that combat operations began

* lack of United Nations sanction – only 17 relevant resolutions were ever passed before they were enforced

* lack of Congressional oversight – the President authorized the use of military force based on the flimsy pretext of a bill passed by Congress titled “Authorization of the Use of Military Force”, rather than seeking a document that had the words “declaration of war” in it; that’s every bit as bad as getting no Congressional approval at all

* obvious financial motives – clearly no one approved of the murderous dictator or sought a normal working relationship with him besides the French; at the same time, one couldn’t help but be suspicious of the fact that the population we were ostensibly protecting was located conveniently near the oil fields

* stretching our military – we were overburdened as it was, and our brave military despite its courage lacked the resources for yet another operation

* inflating our military – the only way to keep the bloodthirsty Pentagon beast fed was to give it the hordes of jobless young men who had no prospects in an economy that saw unemployment skyrocket above 4% in most states

* ignoring our generals – the decision to go to war was made by political hacks who had never worn a uniform

* inflaming the Arab Street – despite some touchy-feely talk about Islam, it was impossible for the Muslim world not to notice how the President made repeated, insistent proclamations of his Christianity, how he only ever used the military against Muslim targets, and how at the time the war started he’d kept the concentration camp at Guantanamo open for over a year

* wasting money – it was completely irresponsible to commit the military to an expensive mission when the President’s fiscal mismanagement had resulted in a budget deficit of over $150 billion in 2002

But anyway, what I really like about Obama is that he’s gone 29-3 in his bracket picks over the first two days. You have to spend a lot of time watching college basketball to be that good.

On a similar topic, Prof. Stephen Clark writes:

By all means, rub their whole faces in the facts of this latest intervention. To be clear: if the left and Democrats generally do not savage this President in much the same manner they savaged Bush, if they are not out in the streets protesting, if they are not opposing his reelection, if they are not demanding his impeachment and trial, if they are not hoping for his very death, then they will have shown themselves to be every bit the craven hypocrites that many have long claimed.

Oh, and by the way — America had twice as many Coalition partners in Iraq under President Bush than it has Coalition partners in Libya under President Obama:

Coalition Countries – Iraq – 2003

Afghanistan,
Albania
Australia
Azerbaijan
Bulgaria
Colombia
Czech Republic
Denmark
El Salvador
Eritrea
Estonia
Ethiopia
Georgia
Hungary
Italy
Japan
South Korea
Latvia
Lithuania
Macedonia
Netherlands
Nicaragua
Philippines
Poland
Romania
Slovakia
Spain
Turkey
United Kingdom
Uzbekistan

[Source: US State Department]

Coalition – Libya – 2011

United States
France
United Kingdom
Italy
Canada
Belgium
Denmark
Norway
Qatar
Spain
Greece
Germany
Poland
Jordan
Morocco
United Arab Emirate

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