I’m getting some nyah-nyah from Radio Derb listeners for having applauded Barack Obama’s Taoism just a few hours before he unleashed the dogs of war. I said:

I am … totally on board with President Obama’s Taoist approach to the situation — that is, watchful inaction. In the matter of Libya, no policy is the right policy …

In any case, anything we tried to do would most probably leave the Middle East Muslims hating us even more. Taoism is right, and the commentators bleating that Obama should be more proactive are wrong. Just for once — go ahead, say it Derb — just for once, I’m with Obama here.

One is naturally disappointed, though not very surprised. It seems that Obama is no better acquainted with the Law of Unintended Consequences than was his predecessor. Current U.S. geostrategic thinking seems to be: If two futile, budget-busting, decade-long wars don’t get Islamia on the right path, try three. So off we go with another missionary war on borrowed Chinese dollars. Hey ho.

Or is this another instance of the (W.J.) Clinton doctrine: Only go to war when you can be quite sure America’s national interest is not involved?

The motives of the British, French, and Italians are equally hard to figure. One would have thought that the French, for example, would be mainly interested in stemming the flow of young Africans eager to join their compatriots burning cars in the inner suburbs of Paris. Yet Qaddafi has been entirely sympathetic to this goal, and has — for a price, of course — helped damp down the migrant flows. So why bomb him?

And then here’s Upper-Class Twit of the Year David Cameron, telling the people of Airstrip One that action against Libya is “necessary, legal, and right. How so? Let Dave “explain”:

Necessary:  “Because we should be trying to prevent him using his military against his own people.” The government that follows Gaddafy will of course be one that, in common with every other government in the region, whether secular or Islamist, does not ever — perish the thought! — use military force against its own people. Barry, Dave, and Sarko will make sure of that, never fear!

Legal:  “Because we have the backing of the United Nations Security Council and also of the Arab League and many others.” How many, Dave? And would that be “United Nations” as in “United Nations Human Rights Commission“?

Right:  “Because I believe we should not stand aside while this dictator murders his own people.” The most charitable construction I can put on that is that it may be a killer joke targeted at Kim Jong Il.

At 1m20s into that 1m25s clip, Cameron tells the Brits to be confident that “what we are doing is … in our national interest.” Nice of him to mention that. Care to elaborate, Dave? How is it in Britain’s national interest? Or anyone’s? — other than, of course, the fanatical jihadists of eastern Libya.

I am more and more convinced that I live in a world gone mad, and that the best I can hope to accomplish is to steer my own little four-person boat safely through the white water.

Meanwhile, in the faint hope of bringing the president back to the Taoist path, I offer him the following advice from the 63rd stanza of the Tao Teh Ching:

夫輕諾必寡信
多易必多難
是以聖人猶難之
故終無難矣

In John Wu’s translation:

He who promises lightly must be lacking in faith
He who thinks everything easy will end by finding everything difficult.
Therefore the Sage, who regards everything as difficult,
Meets with no difficulties in the end.