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Rather than clarify,
Pres. Obama’s speech Monday night just gave more fuel to his critics.
For example:
Redstate...
Obama’s Not Just
Bombing Libya: The Main Course Speech That Felt More Like an Appetizer
Obama: Wherever people
long to be free, they will find a friend in the United States. Except
in Syria. And in Iran. And in...
Posted by Jeff Emanuel (Profile)
Monday, March 28th
You might have heard that President Obama (finally) gave a speech about
the shelling of Libya he ordered well over a week ago. Or, you might
not have; he’s been trying pretty hard to keep our involvement in it
out of the public eye, despite the US having the leading role in every
phase of this “kinetic military action” except (1) decision-making, and
(2) actually talking publicly about what the heck it is that we’re
doing there.
The speech can be boiled down into five basic phrases, four of which
carry qualifiers:
(1) It’s the U.S.’s role to intervene anywhere that there are
atrocities or persecution going on, unless there’s a vital national
interest there and/or they have the ability to shoot back at us in any
meaningful form whatsoever;
(2) Our goal is not to depose Qaddafi, whatever I may have said
yesterday, last week, etc., except when it is our goal, which is
whenever it isn’t not our goal to do so;
(3) This will not be like the Iraq kinetic military action, because
that one wasn’t referred to by such a clever, lawyerly phrase, and
because that “regime change…took 8 years” [Note: This supposed history
savant is only off by about 7 years and 11 months on that figure],
except that regime change isn’t our goal (see #2 above);
(4) The U.S. will prevail in Libya, except that we won’t be the ones
doing it - NATO will - and, to ensure that this is true, we’re going to
refrain from consistently communicating any goals whatsoever for our
mission there, even as we send pilots (and, not at all unlikely,
specialized ground forces) into harm’s way in pursuit of some nebulous
objective which, again, we’re not going to bother telling you about;
and,
(5) To quote Jim Geraghty, “Look, I realize none of you understand my
decision making, but at the end of the day, you can rest easy knowing
I’m right.”
Here are just a couple examples of the Twitter reax (this really needs
its own post):
@JSTrevino
The President’s war metrics rely on projections of Libyans created or
saved.
The President’s done a poor job of articulating war aims and means
both; and he errs in assuming we may disclaim ownership.
@frog129
From Claueswitz: #2 Objective: Direct every military operation towards
a clearly defined, decisive, & attainable objective . Didn’t hear it
@calebhowe
Obama: I authorized this war that is not a war, which is narrowly
focused but broad in scope, so we could lead. As helpers.
@EWErickson:
In a nutshell “Libya is not Iraq, Syria, Iran, or Yemen. I don’t know
why, but because I said so. And ignore Al Qaeda helping the rebels.”
@jimmiebjr:
What I wonder is why the President sent our soldiers to Libya instead
of the army of strawmen he built to make this speech.
@baseballcrank:
Obama’s supporters must be proud this night to sound exactly like Bill
Kristol
That last one is quite interesting, because, from reading the utterly
ridiculous quickblog he posted on TWS’s site tonight, I’m fairly
certain that Bill Kristol didn’t even watch the same speech the rest of
us did (or who, like @mcassil, happily didn’t watch). Forgetting for a
moment the rah-rah, “let’s use our military to liberate the world!”
rhetoric (how’s that “pro-democracy” revolution working out so far in
Egypt, by the way?), Kristol leaves his readers with this
head-scratcher:
The president was unapologetic, freedom-agenda-embracing, and didn’t
shrink from defending the use of force or from appealing to American
values and interests. Furthermore, the president seems to understand we
have to win in Libya. I think we will.
Mr. Kristol, if you’d like to drop me a line to let me know where in
this speech you saw or heard anything that even resembled so much as a
hint at what “winning” in Libya means to the Obama team, I’ll be happy
to take your call or email to hear/see it, because I sure as heck saw
nothing of the sort whatsoever.
What I did see was a very poor effort at communicating by a man who
resented having to lower himself to even appearing to explain his
actions and decisions to the American people, who has no clear thoughts
whatsoever on what we’re doing in LIbya, who is so honored that Europe
asked his military (the only one worth its salt across the board in the
Western world) to go to war to protect its own oil interests, and who
has no understanding whatsoever of the world outside his own
Ivy-covered Ivory Tower.
So what’s the next step in Libya? Judging by tonight’s performance, I
don’t think Obama himself knows. I’m sure that’s an incredibly
encouraging thought to those men and women in uniform who are waging
this third simultaneous kinetic military action in hopes that whatever
they achieve will, somehow, align with whatever Obama’s Wheel of Libyan
Objectives eventually lands on.
Read it at Redstate
More Redstate Comments...
Regime Change for Sissies
More Libya Muddling
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