Let me make it clear that I think Obama is doing the right thing, right now. I’m not too eager to hang the man for his past words, even though there’s obviously a bit of schadenfreude in seeing President Obama hamstrung by Candidate Obama’s criticisms of the then-President.
But the real question is: is he right, right now? Do we want to make it easy, or hard, for him to do the right thing right now? If the political cost of doing the right thing is too high, then perhaps he won’t do it, and that doesn’t seem like one of those win-win dealies, does it? As a candidate, or as a senator from a relatively liberal state with a power base in a VERY liberal city, Obama may have taken some positions he now sees were short-sighted. Let him change his mind without slaughtering him.
[QUOTE=Bricker]
As a candidate, or as a senator from a relatively liberal state with a power base in a VERY liberal city, Obama may have taken some positions he now sees were short-sighted. Let him change his mind without slaughtering him.
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Which is fine, as long as he makes it clear that he has indeed changed his mind.
If he and his supporters say, “I was wrong about Bush’s authority under the Constitution” that’s one thing. If he says “it’s OK for me” and then changes the subject, that’s something else.
As far as I am concerned, that is still an open question. Because I still have not heard answers to the questions (I thought) we all agreed needed to be asked.
There is also such a thing as doing something stupid for all the right reasons. I have heard people define the invasion of Iraq that way.
As I mentioned above, ISTM that Obama is reacting. He has (as far as I know) no idea of what exactly he wants to accomplish, and how to tell when and if he has accomplished it. If he is just delaying the inevitable defeat of the rebels, then he is an idiot, who is putting our people in harm’s way for no valid reason.
Now they are widening the no-fly zone. Next it will be “we will give air cover to the rebels so they can take this one city.” And then to hold the city. And then the next city.
If there was any misreading, it was unintentional, I assure you. When you stated:“I see no qualitative difference between then and now. None.”
I took you at your word and laid out some substantial qualitative differences. When you also said: “Both are unwarranted interferences in the affairs of a sovereign nation for no better reason than that we don’t care for its leader.”
I provided a reason far better than, “we don’t care for its leader,” which was: “There is a war going on in Libya. A war that not only threatens the lives of tens of thousands (or more) of innocent civilians, but a war that threatens to destabilize an entire region that is teetering on very shaky political ground right now. . . The region is delving into instability. The Arab League wants Western help in preventing that from happening in those areas where they can’t handle it themselves.”
I don’t have a problem if you simply disagree that that’s a strong enough reason to engage our military forces. But it’s disingenuous to first claim there are no qualitative differences, then accuse me of deliberately misreading your posts when I provide several, while then dismissing those differences as irrelevant to you.
There is a good reason for what we’re doing in Libya. It’s been spelled out to you. You are free to disagree that those reasons are sufficiently good in your opinion. But to repeatedly say there is no reason, or no good reason to be doing this is, well, less than I’ve come to expect from you, Frank.
I understand why you’re so upset by this. I don’t like it, either. But we can at least have an honest conversation about it, don’t you think?
I don’t expect everyone to agree with this, particularly when our country is already mired in enormous debt, but I think that’s financially a small price to have paid for the incredible good will we are getting in return.
*"One of the airmen landed in a field and approached a crowd of people, not knowing whether they were supporters of Moammar Gadhafi or members of the opposition, Britain’s Daily Telegraph reported.
"It turned out they were locals who opposed the Libyan leader, the paper said. “I hugged him and said, ‘Don’t be scared, we are your friends,’” witness Younis Amruni told the Telegraph.
"Locals reportedly lined up to shake the airman’s hands in thanks.
““We are so grateful to these men who are protecting the skies,” Amruni said. “We gave him juice and then the revolutionary military people took him away.””*
To paraphrase Cecil, if sanctimonious stupidity were cornflakes, you would put General Mills out of business. The real world isn’t a goddamn debating society; actions have consequences and the consequences of Libyan intervention will be serious. When people I have found to be consistently wrong advocate a policy, you’re fuckin’ A right I question my support for it or whether I should support it. If you had the sense of a block of sandstone, you would be questioning why you’re siding with Republicans and Faux News.
FoieGrasIsEvil: Yes, we could get someone who is just as evil and considerably more competent. We could get a Taliban. We could get fanatics who think it’s peachy to stone women for death for adultery and execute anyone who professes a faith other than Islam.
So if you had to put a percentage figure on it, about how important is it that the right people take an action for you to support it? 80? 90? When you criticize an action as wrong, how much of your decision is based on the factor that the wrong people took the action?
It seems to me that your post above is a fairly blatant admission that what counts for you is not the merits of any particular policy, but rather who’s pushing it. But perhaps I read that wrong.
Right… I guess it’s clear from your posts that Shayna has neither dug into any of the facts, nor reconsidered her immediate gut reaction nor sought conflicting opinion, while you’ve put in lots of time on the problem, eventually condensing your thought process into a complex but largely infallible algorithm.
You my new role model for thoughtful policy analysis, PC.
As for some of the consequences I’ve mentioned:
If this is a civil war, as it appears, then that means a considerable portion of the population supports Gaddhaffi. What are our fearless interventionists going to when those people arise against the rebels? How is that going to contribute to the stability of the region?
What kind of government are those rebels going to install? How trustworthy are their leaders? Thus far I’ve seen or heard nothing on this board or the networks about this. If someone has some information, I would be grateful if they would post it.
As Oakminister has related, we’ve already lost a plane and, regardless of how many we’ve fired, those missiles aren’t cheap. How are we going to pay for this?
If I were Gaddhaffi, I would simply go to ground in the areas loyal to me, hide my tanks and planes, spread out my troops among the civilian population, put out as much propaganda as I can, and wait for the Western nations to pull out. Do you interventionists have an answer for this?
Oh, please. He could have gone to Congress and gotten authority to do this. He was speaking on principal before, and nothing has changed since then. Nothing.
His problem is that he really didn’t want to do this, but changed his mind at the last minute and it was too late to go to Congress. That’s no good reason to change your mind about what the constitution says.
[QUOTE=John Mace]
No. A few were launched by the British, but most were US. We’re also in charge of operation right now.
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Figures. Last report I saw said we were doing about half of all of the sorties (though they said that the number of air missions was dropping at that point and should continue to drop as things wind down).
Obama has effectively said that. He’s adopted and expanded on all the executive powers that Bush claimed for himself. Dennis Kucinich has made noise about impeaching him for usurping Congress’ power to authorize military action (which would be a legitimate reason for impeachment in my eyes; doesn’t Congress care about maintaining control of their enumerated powers?), but I foresee all the DC insiders rolling their eyes and blowing him off. Most people there seem to like the idea of the dominant executive.
I can’t recall where I read it, but someone drew a parallel between Obama legitimizing all the Bush-era executive overreach and the way Eisenhower and subsequent presidents made all the FDR-era welfare programs a permanent part of our government. Unless Congress pushes back, future presidents will have no reason to feel constrained in their ability to send our military off on adventures.
Bricker, I don’t give a flying fuck what percentage of the population supports a proposition. What matters to me is the rightness of a proposition. As Anatole France said: “A foolish thing remains a foolish thing even if 50 million people support it.”
In my previous post, I posted a list of questions. When you, Shayna, elucidator, xeonophon41, and the other interventionists can give me some solid answers to those, then I will reconsider my position.
If Congress hasn’t authorized this action, then I agree that Obama should be held to the statement flickster quoted (though I think it’s implied that he could use force in defense of US allies as well as just the US).
As far as whether US involvement is a good thing in general, I’m not sure how I feel about that. I do think it would make us look rather hypocritical if we didn’t get involved.
Couple the lack of an identified rebel leader with the fact that the Arab League asked for western support, then got upset when we actually started bombing stuff on the ground (the nerve of our military!), and I can’t stop doing this :smack: :smack: :smack:.
Thank you for an informative post, MOIDALIZE. I think that within a short order of time, I and a few others are going to be telling the rest of the Dopers “I told you so.”
And, Shayna, Les McCann said it better than I ever could:
“The President, he’s got his war;
folks don’t know exactly what it’s for.
Nobody gives us a rhyme or reason;
have one doubt and they call it treason.
We always end up in a rut,
tryin’ to make it real
compared to what?”
Well, if one isn’t inclined to support the administration’s current policy, the alternative formulation of his having changed his mind is “power corrupts.”
My concern is whether this goodwill can last. Sooner or later we’re going to send an accidental cruise missile into a Bedouin wedding party, and we may find ourselves right back to being the ugly Americans.
