Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Never thought I'd see the day...

I agree wholeheartedly with a Eugene Robinson column:

Anyone looking for principle and logic in the attack on Moammar Gaddafi’s tyrannical regime will be disappointed. President Obama and his advisers should acknowledge the obvious truth: They are reacting to the revolutionary fervor in the Arab world with the arbitrary “realism” that is a superpower’s prerogative.

RTWT.  Even if you usually hurt yourself rolling your eyes at him.  I am shocked, honestly shocked, at the way even the Left is turning on Obama in regard to the Libya thing.  Kucinich is calling for impeachment, and several other Democrats are raising holy hell too.  I'm frankly used to them just sticking their  noses in the air and pretending nothing's going on; I expected that to happen here as well.  Democrats seem to be so enamored of the UN in specific & international actions in particular, I reckoned no one would bat an eye at Obama making the (patently false) claim that he is justified in ignoring the Constitution because he's in compliance with international law.

Sometimes, it's good to be wrong.

In general, on the Libya situation I find myself in a funny place.  See, I agree Ghaddafi needs to go bye-bye.  He's a heinous man and an oppressor of his own people, much as Saddam Hussein was.  I could totally support assisting the Libyan people in ridding themselves of a dictator.  Were it not for that pesky little issue of the Constitution.  I have a real problem with crap like this:

White House National Security Adviser Tom Donilon told reporters this weekend that the administration “welcomes the support of Congress in whatever form that they want to express that support,” but said the limited scope of the operation already falls within the president’s powers to act independently.
Not that it's news to anyone at this point, but holy hell have these people ever read that document they're supposed to follow and defend? The limited scope falls within the President's powers to act without Congress?  Huh?  Scope isn't in there.  This isn't a police action by any stretch of the imagination!

Robinson also nails another problem with what Obama's doing right now:

Why is Libya so different? Basically, because the dictators of Yemen, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia — also Jordan and the Persian Gulf sheikdoms, for that matter — are friendly, cooperative and useful. Gaddafi is not.
It's really truly an all-for-none thing, morally.

2 comments:

suz said...

Oil. If Libya were a major source of, say, potted palms, we* wouldn't give a rat's ass about its human rights violations and psychotic dictator. Imagine what would happen if we took all the money we've spent to protect our oil imports, and used it to develop "alternative" energy.

*the government

Les said...

We still don't know who (besides being gang rapists) the "rebels" are. Some say they are Al-Qaida from outside of Libya which would explain Obama and the media support. And the civilians killed during air strikes. Al-Qaida usually puts military equipment behind a civilian shield.
If the media is for the rebels, they must be worse than the present leadership and worse for our interests.