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Getbig Main Boards => Politics and Political Issues Board => Topic started by: Soul Crusher on March 26, 2011, 05:03:28 AM
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Never Over 'Over There' When U.S. Goes To War
By MARK STEYN
Posted 03/25/2011 05:24 PM ET
It is tempting and certainly very easy to point out that Obama's war (or Obama's "kinetic military action," or "time-limited, scope-limited military action," or whatever the latest, ever more preposterous evasion is) is at odds with everything candidate Obama said about U.S. military action before his election.
And certainly every attempt the president makes to explain his Libyan adventure is either cringe-makingly stupid ("I'm accustomed to this contradiction of being both a commander in chief but also somebody who aspires to peace") or alarmingly revealing of a very peculiar worldview:
"That's why building this international coalition has been so important," he said the other day. "It is our military that is being volunteered by others to carry out missions that are important not only to us, but are important internationally."
That's great news. Who doesn't enjoy volunteering other people?
The Arab League, for reasons best known to itself, decided that Col. Gadhafi had outlived his sell-by date. Granted that the region's squalid polities haven't had a decent military commander since King Hussein fired Gen. John Glubb half a century back, how difficult could it be even for Arab armies to knock off a psychotic transvestite guarded by Austin Powers fembots?
But no: Instead, the Arab League decided to volunteer the U.S. military.
Likewise, the French and the British. Libya's special forces are trained by Britain's SAS. Four years ago, President Sarkozy hosted a state visit for Gadhafi, his personal security detail of 30 virgins, his favorite camel and a 400-strong entourage that helped pitch his tent in the heart of Paris.
Given that London and Paris have the third- and fourth-biggest military budgets on the planet and that between them they know everything about Gadhafi's elite troops, sleeping arrangements, guard-babes and dromedaries, why couldn't they take him out? But no: They too decided to volunteer the U.S. military.
But, as I said, it's easy to mock the smartest, most articulate man ever to occupy the Oval Office. Instead, in a nonpartisan spirit, let us consider why it is that the United States no longer wins wars. Okay, it doesn't exactly lose (most of) them, but nor does it have much to show for a now-60-year-old pattern of inconclusive outcomes.
American forces have been fighting and dying in Afghanistan for a decade: Doesn't that seem like a long time for a non-colonial power to be spending hacking its way through the worthless terrain of a Third World dump? If the object is to kill terrorists, might there not be some slicker way of doing it? And, if the object is something else entirely, mightn't it be nice to know what it is?
I use the word "non-colonial" intentionally. I am by temperament and upbringing an old-school imperialist: There are arguments to be made for being on the other side of the world for decades on end if you're claiming it as sovereign territory and rebuilding it in your image, as the British did in India, Belize, Mauritius, the Solomon Islands, you name it.
Likewise, there are arguments to be made for saying sorry, we're a constitutional republic, we don't do empire. But there's not a lot to be said for forswearing imperialism and even modest cultural assertiveness, and still spending 10 years getting shot up in Afghanistan helping to create, bankroll and protect a so-called justice system that puts a man on death row for converting to Christianity.
Libya, in that sense, is a classic post-nationalist, post-modern military intervention:
As in Kosovo, we're do-gooders in a land with no good guys. But, unlike Kosovo, not only is there no strategic national interest in what we're doing, the intended result is likely to be explicitly at odds with U.S. interests.
A quarter-century back, Gadhafi was blowing American airliners out of the sky and murdering British policewomen. That was the time to drop a bomb on him. But we didn't. Everyone from the government of Scotland (releasing the "terminally ill" Lockerbie bomber, now miraculously restored to health) to Mariah Carey and Beyonce (with their million-dollar-a-gig Gadhafi party nights) did deals with the colonel.
Now suddenly he's got to go — in favor of "freedom-loving" "democrats" from Benghazi. That would be in eastern Libya — which, according to West Point's Combating Terrorism Center, has sent per capita the highest number of foreign jihadists to Iraq. Perhaps now that so many Libyan jihadists are in Iraq, the Libyans left in Libya are all Swedes in waiting. But perhaps not.
If we lack, as we do in Afghanistan, the cultural confidence to wean those we liberate from their less attractive pathologies, we might at least think twice before actively facilitating them.
Officially, only the French are committed to regime change. So suppose Gadhafi survives. If you were in his shoes, mightn't you be a little peeved? Enough to pull off a new Lockerbie? A more successful assassination attempt on the Saudi king? A little bit of Euro-bombing?
Alternatively, suppose Gadhafi winds up hanging from a lamppost in his favorite party dress. If you're a Third World dictator, what lessons would you draw? Gadhafi was the thug who came in from the cold, the one who (in the wake of Saddam's fall) renounced his nuclear program and was supposedly rehabilitated in the chancelleries of the West. He was "a strong partner in the war on terrorism," according to U.S. diplomats. And what did Washington do? It overthrew him anyway.
The blood-soaked butcher next door in Sudan is the first head of state to be charged by the International Criminal Court with genocide, but nobody's planning on toppling him. Iran's going nuclear with impunity, but Obama sends fraternal greetings to the "Supreme Leader" of the "Islamic Republic." North Korea is more or less openly trading as the one-stop bargain-basement for all your nuke needs, and we're standing idly by.
But the one cooperative dictator is getting million-dollar-a-pop cruise missiles lobbed in his tent all night long. If you were the average Third World loon, which role model makes most sense? Colonel Cooperative in Tripoli? Or Ayatollah Death-to-the-Great-Satan in Tehran?
America is teaching the lesson that the best way to avoid the attentions of whimsical "liberal interventionists" is to get yourself an easily affordable nuclear program from Pyongyang or anywhere else as soon as possible.
The United States is responsible for 43% of the planet's military spending. So how come it doesn't feel like that? It's not merely that "our military is being volunteered by others," but that Washington has been happy to volunteer it as the de facto expeditionary force for the "international community."
Sometimes U.S. troops sail under U.N. colors, sometimes NATO's, and now in Libya, even the Arab League's. Either way, it makes little difference: America provides most of the money, men and materiel. All that changes is the transnational fig leaf.
But lost along the way is hard-headed, strategic calculation of the national interest. "They won't come back till it's over/Over there!" sang George M. Cohan as the doughboys marched off in 1917. It was all over 20 minutes later and then they came back. Now it's never over over there — not in Korea, not in Kuwait, not in Kosovo, not in Kandahar. Next stop Kufra?
America has swapped The Art of War for the Hotel California: We psychologically check out, but we never leave.
© Mark Steyn, 2011
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>:(
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lol at pics!!!
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WTF is wrong with the POTUS? He just doesn't get it
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WTF?
Way to lead, Barry...way to lead. ::)
C'mon 2012
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I asked this question the other day. When did our army start answering to Europe? This guy is doing everything he can to cede our sovereignty to the UN. ::)
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Dang. :-\
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You guys just don't understand the subtle nuances of Osama's strategy. He's just so smart and black and articulate, you guys aren't really qualified to pass judgement on any of his policies.
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WTF?
Way to lead, Barry...way to lead. ::)
C'mon 2012
What's the rush for 2012?
So the hillbilly, starstruck GOP primary voters can vote for the loudest, most obnoxious candidate promising to execute abortion doctors... guaranteeing another 4 years of Obama reign?
I thought for 5 minutes that repubs learned their lesson after choosing senile mccain and dimwit palin... it's 3 years later, and they're trumpeting the greatness of anti-gun, pro-obamacare Trump, and anti-intellect, anti-maturity reality tv skell Palin. It's like they intentionally choose the candidates with the most flaws cause they have the most sparkles.
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240 - which repub do you think has the best chance of winning?
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240 - which repub do you think has the best chance of winning?
The nomination, or the general election?
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All of the above.
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Palin has the best chance of winning the nomination.
Romney has the best chance of winning the general.
Palin would get destroyed by Obama, but Romney actually has a decent chance at winning the GOp nomination.
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At this point madoff vandersloot should be able to beat bama.
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At this point madoff vandersloot should be able to beat bama.
40% of people are going to vote Obama no matter what, and 40% will vote Repub no matter what. You're in that 40% Repub group.
There are 20% of voters who are still up in the air. They will vote because one person has a vagina, one person makes an embarassing quote, one candidate has a position on some silly issue they dislike, one candidate went to their college, one candidate would be more fun to have a beer with, etc.
33, you should work to convince this 20% that "anybody but obama" isn't enough. Cause they don't buy that argument. See: 2008.
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You guys just don't understand the subtle nuances of Osama's strategy. He's just so smart and black and articulate, you guys aren't really qualified to pass judgement on any of his policies.
Racist Post Reported.
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All kidding aside, Obama was really cheerleaded and protected by a complicit media. They refused to ask any serious questions, they refused to look into his credentials and they certainly used the "you're racist" charge to deflect any sort of criticism.
And now we have a president and an administration that seems to be rudderless, leaderless and totally unprepared.
But hey, we got that black president so racism is officially over!
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Yet we were all crazy when we said Barry was a naive, dangerous moron.
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Does anybody feel that we have somebody in charge in DC. He plays golf and fly's around on AF1. He does nothing. If you saw Robocop or any of the 80's sci-fi movies where they would do fake news clips....Barry picking the basketball brackets while the world fell apart would fit right in. This guy is a world class idiot. Gates and Hil have no idea whast he's doing, no idea what we're supposed to be doing...no clear messages....what a mess.
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He is creating chaos and disorder on purpose. Cloward and piven. Its alinsky tactics onm a global scale.
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A handfull of conservative posters on this website saw the shitstorm coming a mile away.
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What's the rush for 2012?
So the hillbilly, starstruck GOP primary voters can vote for the loudest, most obnoxious candidate promising to execute abortion doctors... guaranteeing another 4 years of Obama reign?
I thought for 5 minutes that repubs learned their lesson after choosing senile mccain and dimwit palin... it's 3 years later, and they're trumpeting the greatness of anti-gun, pro-obamacare Trump, and anti-intellect, anti-maturity reality tv skell Palin. It's like they intentionally choose the candidates with the most flaws cause they have the most sparkles.
Here's an idea. Just a thought. How about you stop talking endless shit about what the Repubs MIGHT do, and wait to see what they actually do.
You've been droning on endlessly since Obama won about Palin being the next nominee and she hasn't even indicated she's going to run.
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it's fun to speculate what will happen in the GOP races. We don't tell people to STFU about what may happen in a football game until monday monring. it's interesting to discuss it ahead of time.
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it's fun to speculate what will happen in the GOP races. We don't tell people to STFU about what may happen in a football game until monday monring. it's interesting to discuss it ahead of time.
You don't speculate - you cry like a bitch and make superfulous claims about the future as though they were factual.