In the Illinois legislature, state senator Barack Obama voted “present” 129 times. Today, he seems to be voting present on two major issues — Libya and the budget.
National Security Adviser Tom Donilon told reporters Thursday that the United States and other nations have “taken a range of steps . . . to squeeze (Moammar) Qaddafi, isolate him, really turn him into a pariah.”
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But the steps the United States has taken may well have bolstered Qaddafi’s determination to crush the rebellion against his regime.
On the one hand, we supported the United Nations resolution giving the International Criminal Court jurisdiction to prosecute Qaddafi and his minions. That means we have blocked off any escape route to a safe retirement.
On the other hand, we have interpreted the Security Council resolution ordering an arms embargo as applying to the Libyan rebels as well as the Qaddafi regime.
Or at least that was the interpretation of P. J. Crowley, who was the State Department spokesman until he resigned yesterday. An anonymous White House source said maybe the resolution doesn’t apply to the rebels.
The White House has said the U.S. will send aid to the rebels and that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will meet with their transitional council next week.
Aid, not arms; a meeting, but (unlike France and Portugal) no official recognition. The president seems to be voting “present” once again.
It is perhaps understandable that he has not chosen to impose a no-fly zone, as Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman John Kerry has urged — military intervention is an enterprise with serious risks.
But the hesitancy to recognize the rebels as an alternative to a regime the president has said “must go,” as urged by former Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, is harder to fathom.
Meanwhile, the news is that Qaddafi’s forces have captured cities in both eastern and western Libya that were held by the rebels. Military outcomes are hard to predict, but the time when we might have helped turn the tide against Qaddafi may have passed or be rapidly passing. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told a Senate committee he thought Qaddafi would survive.
Obama seems to be voting “present” on the budget, as well. His proposed budget for 2012 failed to address the looming problem of entitlements identified as critical by his own bipartisan economic commission.
Four years of Obama will be quite enough. God help America if he gets a second term. The man projects weakness to the world and here at home he is spending us into oblivion.
You forget, Barack was nothing more than a community organizer like Jackson or Sharpton.
He can tell you who he thinks is racist, he can help the unions get more money and he can get money for his cronies. He can speak and get minorities/union workers frothing at the mouth rabidly and blindly with his rhetoric.
But the man has no clue how to deal with world issues - all he has been taught is how to punish America for its sins.
Financially, outside of making deals for his thugs, he couldn't balance his own check book and only sees the American monies/finances as a reason to party like it's the 60s, which is the time he has stated he wanted to live through.
So [he goes] on in strange paradox, decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all-powerful to be impotent.
Mr. Obama is doing what his political instincts are telling him to do, lay low, don't take a position and wait for the dust to clear so that he may later note how the final outcome was exactly what he had been working for.
Our President seems allergic to decision making that involves uncomfortable choices. But considering his track record - nothing may be the best thing he has done yet.
Maybe BHO can do what he does best....he could just talk, talk, talk, and talk to Qaddafi so very much that Q would leave the country to avoid having to listen to him. He's very good at that.
Regarding Libya: I agree with the writer about the ICC. Ridiculous and typical of this administration's slavish devotion to international institutions. Qaddafi should be tried by an American court, since he personally ordered the murder of hundreds of Americans, both civilians and service personnel.
What I find somewhat baffling is the unqualified admiration for Libya's "freedom fighters" that prevails among many on the political right. A lot of my fellow conservatives seem to be positively punch drunk at the prospect of knocking Qaddafi out of power and replacing him with - what? That's the question, isn't it? We have no real idea what the long-term goals of the so-called National Council are as regards US interests. Libyans are among the most violently anti-American of all Middle Easterners. Libya, as the Economist recently noted, sent more jihad fighters to kill American troops in Iraq than any country in the world, per capita. The man who has been touted as Osama bin Laden's potential successor is a Libyan. Osama bin Laden's ex-chaffeur is leading one of the rebel groups fighting to overthrow Qaddafi. An al Qaeda-affiliated outfit, the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, has been described by Libya's Foreign Minister, Musa Kusa, as the "core of the military threat presented by rebel forces," according to REUTERS.
Granted, Kusa, an assassin whose nickname is 'The Envoy of Death', may not be the most objective or trustworthy source of intel in this situation - even if he does have "usa" in his name twice. And of course Qaddafi, a liar and a murderer, may be lying when he says that hundreds of al Qaeda fighters are driving the uprising. But the fact is that Qaddafi's regime did release hundreds of Islamist militants from prison in the years and months leading up to the outbreak of violence. As former SecDef Rumsfeld observed when asked why we were caught off guard by the unexpected chaos and violence that followed our invasion of Iraq, Saddam Hussein released 100,000 prisoners and called for jihad against the Americans just months before we went in.
The rebels in Libya, as far as I can tell from what I've read, are a murky mix of what passes for "secular liberals" over there, and hardcore Islamists who want to kill Americans. This, according to an article in today's Washington Post, proves that the strength of the rebel movement lies in its "diversity". Great. Just fantastic. Echoes of brain-dead Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey, who believes that allowing bloodthirsty jihadists to infiltrate out own military is a similar sign of strength through diversity.
To sum up, we need to be very wary about providing arms and intel or anything else except possibly humanitarian assistance, to the "Libyan people". I don't know who the "Libyan people" are, and neither do you. All I know is that quite a few of the "Libyan people" - including many of those currently engaged in the fight against Qaddafi - have shown great willingness in the recent past to murder my fellow citizens.
To sum up, the kind of soft-headed, romantic view of "revolutionaries" that seems to have gripped many of my fellow conservatives is less worthy of the National Review than it is the WaPo or maybe of a certain old ABBA song. You might remember it:
Had President Obama acted immediately, the rebels may have had a chance. Now, Qadaffi has now had an opportunity to concentrate his forces and make use of his huge advantages. In my opinion, even if the President DOES act (and I don't think he will), it is probably too late, and we will be dealing with the damage for a generation.
Shhhhh.... The noose is tightening, our President is a Ninja, it just seems that all he does is play golf. In reality he is all over it, the debt is almost gone, the deficit is history, our medical plan saved the world, Libya is all but liberated, Guantanamo has been closed for well over a year, what more could you ask for?
Once again warlord conservative are looking for way to destroy America. 2 wars and most citing Obama's calmness as a threat when he knows that a war on a 3rd front is perilous. Stupid Republicans are hell bent onf destroying both the Pres and America.
