The Libya Speech–From the Middle East

AP‘S ’FACT CHECK‘ HAMMERS OBAMA’S SPEECH
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OBAMA: “Our military mission is narrowly focused on saving lives.”
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THE FACTS: Even as the U.S. steps back as the nominal leader, reduces some assets and fires a declining number of cruise missiles, the scope of the mission appears to be expanding and the end game remains unclear.
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Despite insistences that the operation is only to protect civilians, the airstrikes now are undeniably helping the rebels to advance. U.S. officials acknowledge that the effect of air attacks on Gadhafi’s forces — and on the supply and communications links that support them — is useful if not crucial to the rebels. “Clearly they‘re achieving a benefit from the actions that we’re taking,” Navy Vice Adm. William Gortney, staff director for the Joint Chiefs, said Monday.
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The Pentagon has been turning to air power of a kind more useful than high-flying bombers in engaging Libyan ground forces. So far these have included low-flying Air Force AC-130 and A-10 attack aircraft, and the Pentagon is considering adding armed drones and helicopters.
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Obama said “we continue to pursue the broader goal of a Libya that belongs not to a dictator, but to its people,” but spoke of achieving that through diplomacy and political pressure, not force of U.S. arms.
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OBAMA: “Some nations may be able to turn a blind eye to atrocities in other countries. The United States of America is different. And as president, I refused to wait for the images of slaughter and mass graves before taking action.”
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THE FACTS: Mass violence against civilians has also been escalating elsewhere, without any U.S. military intervention anticipated.
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More than 1 million people have fled the Ivory Coast, where the U.N. says forces loyal to the incumbent leader, Laurent Gbagbo, have used heavy weapons against the population and more than 460 killings have been confirmed of supporters of the internationally recognized president, Alassane Ouattara.

The Obama administration says Gbagbo and Gadhafi have both lost their legitimacy to rule. But only one is under attack from the U.S.
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Presidents typically pick their fights according to the crisis and circumstances at hand, not any consistent doctrine about when to use force in one place and not another. They have been criticized for doing so — by Obama himself.
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In his pre-presidential book “The Audacity of Hope,” Obama said the U.S. will lack international legitimacy if it intervenes militarily “without a well-articulated strategy that the public supports and the world understands.”
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He questioned: “Why invade Iraq and not North Korea or Burma? Why intervene in Bosnia and not Darfur?”
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Now, such questions are coming at him.

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There is more of course, the entire speech was predicated on feeding Americans more bull-crap to justify his actions sprinkled with some “well, it’s all Bush’s fault”, or “Bush did it this way, I did it another way”.
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“But it has been a diversion. I hope we can get rid of Gaddafi quickly. But we need to focus on Egypt, and Pakistan, and Ohio. Especially Ohio.”

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As in England? As in revolt in our own streets, Joe? As in the destruction of the United States of America as we have learned SEIU and the AFL-CIO have pledged to “take down the American banking system”. To collapse this country just like it is being done in Syria, Bahrain, Egypt, Jordon and Libya?
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“And so the question would be, what would happen if we organized homeowners in mass to do a mortgage strike. Just say if we get, and, and, if we get half a million people to agree, we’ll all not, we’ll agree we won’t pay our mortgages, it would literally cause a new financial crisis.
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There are four things we can do that could really upset Wall Street. One is if city and state and other government entities demanded to renegotiate their debt because they’re paying too much interest. And you might say, well why would the banks ever do it? Because they, the cities and counties could say we won’t do this and this in the future with you if you don’t renegotiate the debt now. Meaning, about a third of bank profits generate from dealing with cities and states. So we could leverage the power we have of government to say we won’t do business with you, JP Morgan Chase, anymore unless you do two things: you reduce the price of our interest, since your interest rate is down; and second, you rewrite the mortgages for everybody in the community so they can stay in their homes. We, we could make them do that.
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The second thing is there’s a whole question in New York now about austerity and student’s rates and the question of the debt structure. What would happen if students said we’re not going to pay? It’s a trillion dollars. Think about your …sweeping that debt, a trillion dollars from students debt?
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There’s a third thing that we could think about, what about if public employee unions, instead of them being on the defensive, put on the collective bargaining table when they negotiate they said we demand as a condition of negotiation that the government renegotiate, we want, we believe in good financial management. It’s crazy that you’re paying too much interest to your buddy the bankers. It’s a strike issue for us. We will strike unless you force the banks to relieve the debt of the city. I’m not going to go through all the detail except to say there’s extraordinary things we could do and if you add on top of that, if we really thought about moving to the kind of disruption in Madison, but moving that to Wall Street and moving that to other cities around the country where we basically said you stole $17 trillion, you’ve impoverished us and we’re going to make it impossible for, for you to operate.
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Labor can’t lead it, but we can be a critical part of it. We do have money, we have millions of members who are furious, but I don’t think this kind of movement can happen unless actually the community groups and other activists take the lead. And that’s a big reversal of how a lot of these coalitions have even thought about it, so unions helping community groups, or communities who cover this narrowly. And if you’re se, if we really believe that we’re in a transformative stage and what’s happening in capitalism, and we need to confront this in a serious way and develop a real ability to put a boot in the wheel, then I think we have to think not about labor community alliances. We have to think about how together we’re building something that really has the capacity to disrupt how the system operates.”

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SEIU and Labor Unions Take Down Of America (“Yes even in Ohio”)

It can’t be said often enough. War costs money. If you care about deficits then that fact should matter. If OTOH you think that saving lives are worth the cost then you should believe that the same thing is true within our borders. The standard divisions of left/right in this country literally make no sense.

Pointing out “mistakes” doesn’t help matters here. Give it up. No one’s going to take the time to pour through your tripe anyway.

“OBAMA: “Some nations may be able to turn a blind eye to atrocities in other countries. The United States of America is different. And as president, I refused to wait for the images of slaughter and mass graves before taking action.”
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THE FACTS: Mass violence against civilians has also been escalating elsewhere, without any U.S. military intervention anticipated.”
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Ideologues as pacifists…making the same argument libruls are making.

In one lengthy meeting with a former Mossad leader, we toured the entire region–and, I realized as I left, he never brought up Gaddafi. He was vehement on the need to provide economic assistance to Egypt, however.
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I’m curious about this “economic assistance”. What kind of assistance was discussed?
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In the past, money was given to the Mubarak regime to purchase weaponry from US manufacturers. Given the uncertainty of today’s Egypt, this seems odd. Is this individual talking about maintaining or enhancing Egypt’s military capabilities? -perhaps as an incentive for their future government to preserve the integrity of their mutual border.
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Also, is it possible that Israel has been conveying their concerns to US officials over Egypt’s planned elections- specifically that the winner may not be friendly toward her- and encouraging a US military presence in Libya in order to surround and hold leverage over the future Egyptian government?

I honestly find this intervention very revealing of Obama’s approach to the world. For all his rhetoric this intervention is very much an example of practicing politics as the “art of the possible,” while it might be nice to intervene in all sorts of places where violence is occurring Libya happened to be politically feasible.

with really limited resources
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It’s just not that hard to get out of the hole we’re in. Do what Reagan and Eisenhower did– raise taxes. Not all the way to Ike levels, or anything, but pre-Bush Jr. levels. Then draw down the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. Then we’re most of the way there. See: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/11/13/weekinreview/deficits-graphic.html?choices=809205qv
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[Iraq] may tip the balance of power in the region
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People say stuff like that; I kinda don’t get it. Is it that Iraq will provide military assistance for an Iranian attack on Israel? That doesn’t seem very likely. Is it that Iraq will provide diplomatic assistance for Iran when it says mean awful things about Israel? I’m sure that Israel can handle it. But everyone talks about that kind of thing, so it must be important.
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saw Libya as an acceptable intervention
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Well, intervening when people request it because they’re being bombarded, & when the regional & global institutions that determine legitimacy & legality push for it as well, is darn well an awful lot more acceptable than other scenarios one might imagine.
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I’m not sure how their fate differs from the dozens already murdered by Bashar Assad in Syria, or the hundreds killed in Yemen
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Because there were clear lines of control, & Gaddafi was threatening to obliterate Benghazi. I don’t see how intervention is possible in Yemen or Syria– what could would a no fly zone do? And no one anywhere, even re: Libya, wants Western troops on the ground.

Joe:
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Of all things, talking to Mossad in Jerusalem is exactly the wrong place to broadcast these sentiments.
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Was Avigdor Lieberman there?

So you only want me to talk to people YOU agree with? Over the years, I’ve found Mossad’s view of the region to be far more realistic than that of many Israeli, or American, politicians.

Great to see you in the thread! Thanks for engaging with commenters.
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Also, for the record, I would like you to talk almost exclusively to people I agree with.
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Maybe… Paul Krugman, John Cole, & Juan Cole, for starters. And Nate Silver, I guess, unless he’s predicting the Yankees win the East this year.

My question is, wouldn’t Mossad be naturally more focused on Egypt? Would Mossad be inclined to speak about Ghadaffi when they are probably most concerned with keeping Egypt stable? Not to say the effect of the doings in Libya is of no importance to them, but I guess I wonder that the person felt time best spent on Egypt, which is certainly still an ongoing story, despite its ouster on our news scene, and highly important to them.

I thought it was a pretty decent speech, in that Obama let us know why we went in, and what he sees as the limits of our being there.

What I am most struck by is that no one, but no one, seems satisfied. McCain’s unhappy that he put limits on the mission and doesn’t intend to go in after Ghaddafi, and just about everyone else seems disturbed that he didn’t tell us what the “end game” is, or why we aren’t going in to Syria, and that his explication of the Obama Doctrine was incomplete.

Who said he intended to lay out an Obama Doctrine? Why would anyone want him to announce to Syria the circumstances under which he would or wouldn’t want us to go in? He seemed to be saying to the other Mideast countries: “you may not slaughter your own people. Don’t try it.”

I’m not certain how I feel about our having gone in, but count me skeptical of wanting simple rules for how we’re going to approach our responsibilities in such a rapidly changing situation.

Elvis – Nate’s too good a baseball analyst to predict the Yankees win the East. Not that they couldn’t, but who would think so right now? Tampa Bay and Toronto are both a lot stronger than the conventional wisdom, I think, and I won’t be surprised if the Yankees finish out of the hunt. Go Sox.

“And while I’m sure that Gaddafi had a particularly grisly version of hell prepared for the rebel holdouts in Benghazi, I’m not sure how their fate differs from the dozens already murdered by Bashar Assad in Syria, or the hundreds killed in Yemen, which are countries that have far greater strategic importance.”
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The difference would be scale and opportunity, if you really want to know. Think Assad or Saleh are going to start strafing their populace any time soon? I don’t.

Re 30+ year president of Yemen, Ali Abdullah Saleh:
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“At least 120 Houthis have lost lives and 44 others sustained injuries as US fighter jets took part in air strikes in the northwestern Yemeni province of Sa’ada.
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The conflict in northern Yemen began in 2004 between Sana’a and Houthi fighters. The conflict intensified in August 2009 when the Yemeni army launched Operation Scorched Earth in an attempt to crush the fighters in the northern province of Sa’ada.
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The Houthis accuse the Yemeni government of violation of their civil rights, political, economic and religious marginalization as well as large-scale corruption.
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The Saudi air force has further complicated the conflict by launching its own operations against Shia resistance fighters.
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Houthi fighters say that Riyadh pounds their positions and that Saudi forces strike Yemeni villages and indiscriminately target civilians. According to the fighters, Saudis use toxic materials, including white phosphorus bombs, against civilians in northern Yemen.
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The UN High Commissioner for Refugees estimates that since 2004, up to 175,000 people have been forced to leave their homes in Sa’ada and take refuge at overcrowded camps set up by the United Nations.” -link

Some questions in the Sox’ rotation, but obviously we can’t really complain about how the team looks. And they should score a few runs. Just as with Beltre last year, people say that Adrian Gonzalez’s hitting style is perfect for Fenway. It should be a fun season.

nflfoghorn@1.1,
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Of course, pointing out the mistakes of the Obama administration is a full time job. There are so many new ones every day.

“Why would anyone want him to announce to Syria the circumstances under which he would or wouldn’t want us to go in? He seemed to be saying to the other Mideast countries: “you may not slaughter your own people. Don’t try it.”

This. If I could ask *any* question of every single pundit or politician who continually says he is confusing or unclear or vague on the endgame and his “doctrine”, this is the question I would ask.

BTW, anyone watch Colbert last night? The Libyan professor related the story of how, on the way to work one day, he and every car in town was shuffled on a tour, forced to take a route, that made them see square after square where people were being hanged, just to make the point “if you say anything about us, this will be you”. I haven’t heard this kind of thing from even Yemen or Syria. If anyone knows of similar evidence those countries are summarily and indiscriminately exterminating their own people and forcing the rest to watch, let us know.

Begging the question, what do we do with our “allies,” in Saudi Arabia? For the record, I’d be perfectly happy if we told them that Yemen had just become a “no fly” zone for Saudi jets, if they’d like to keep them.

Harvard Men At War

From up upon the podium in tailored suit and tie,
Between the flags of freedom crossed, and in the public eye,
The Harvard man made his address to critics, in reply,
And laid out for the audience his modern battle cry.

Recall that other Harvard man, who at the San Juan Hill,
Did call ‘Rough Riders, follow me!’ and led the charge until
The foot soldiers and cavalry were summoned by his will,
And overcame the enemy with valor and with skill.

Not for our modern Crimson man do words like those resound,
For in their stark grave melody is heroism found.
Instead we hear of diplomats who finally come around,
And handing off the fighting with no boots upon the ground.

So rally ’round the UN flag: we fight for powder blue!
Leave well behind the stars and stripes, and patriotic hue.
We’ll fight for days or weeks for sure, and then we’ll say adieu,
And hope our allies have resolve and heart to follow through.

thebardofmurdock.com

No, actually, I don’t.
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However, Mossad is not exactly an unbiased source for policy, or for that matter, matters of humanity. If anything pertains, we should be doing the opposite of what Mossad wants.
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We should be, instead of working on Egypt (obviously so they are more amenable to Israel), forcing Israel to pull back the “settlements” and actually make peace with the Palestinians.
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That is the conflict that needs to end. Israel would be better off if it did.
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But of course, paranoia rules the waves, and Mossad is certainly one of the surfers…

Newfreedomblog was quoting extensively from a fact-checking piece on Slate: http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2011/03/29/us_obama_libya_fact_check/index.html
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It’s probably the first time in Swampland history that rusty and I have seen eye to eye on something.
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That said, I still feel it’s too early to say if the Libyan intervention was a foolish misadventure, or a shrewd move to re-establish American credibility in the middle east after 8 years of disastrous foreign policy under Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz.
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Much as John McCain’s impulsive choice of Sarah Palin as his running mate determined the outcome of the 2008 presidential election, Obama appears to have bet the bank on this, and Libya will be either his undoing, or a brilliant stroke that guarantees his re-election in 2012.

Joe: Please read 3 good authorities of the Middle East;
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Tom Ricks, Juan Cole and Bernard Henri Levy
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They might enlighten your opinion.
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http://ricks.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/03/28/obama_on_libya_watch_out_saudi_arabia
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http://www.juancole.com/2011/03/obama-on-libya-vs-trump-bachmann-romney-gingrich-and-carrot-top.html
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bernardhenri-levy/answers-to-three-questions-about-libya_b_841734.html