●Into Libya: The birth of an Obama doctrine(3)_自考专本|专升本|高升专|高升本|在职研究生-学历教育网

Now Obama's got people shredding him for rushing into action prematurely. But there will be a lot fewer innocent casualties this way (if he's right, and we can pull this off).

If he's going to be regarded as wrong, no matter what he does, being wrong in the way that minimizes the body count isn't a bad way to go...

(Yes, I know, what he's doing is going to cause casualties, even among civilians. Balance that against Qaddafi's declared intentions to show no mercy, and to kill his opponents like rats. Couple that with Qaddafi's track record. It's still most likely that Obama's action is a net win in terms of number of survivors.)

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wrote:

Mar 29th 2011 12:50 GMT

On why we can't simply bomb Qaddafi himself, that would also be disturbing at the least to many other nations around the world. There seems to be an international sense that you don't kill recognized leaders anymore, not even ones that you despise. It's one thing to bomb his country and quite another to actually kill him.
As for Saddam, the uprisings in the 90s didn't include a good portion of the military, the military defeats were happening in Kuwait instead of Iraq and the Iraqi government was mostly united in support of him. Qaddafi doesn't have such advantages.

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wrote:

Mar 29th 2011 12:54 GMT

Is a policy with a host of vague exceptions and qualifications really policy?

Let's call this what it is: wag the dog opportunism. Obama's just lost an election and his handling of the economy and of Congress isn't looking so good.

The solution: start a war to shift everyone's attention.

So in the end, we blow hundreds of millions of dollars on cruise missiles instead of spending it on saving after school programs, teachers jobs or even NPR. Give me a break.

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wrote:

Mar 29th 2011 12:57 GMT

Good speech. Certainly doesn't assuage all of the doubts people such as myself have, but he's trying to put his actions in context.

My take: The Administration is ad-libbing as events occur. Clearly, the Administration is satisfied with how they handled Egypt - sticking with the status quo until the status quo was no longer tenable, at which point they backed change fully - and they are going to do the same in the Middle East until the dust settles.

It's a middle ground between attempting to dictate events that are mostly out of America's control and isolating America from it and watching from afar. As I'm sure everyone here knows, just because a strategy is a middle-ground doesn't mean it's a great strategy. The President will always remain vulnerable to accusations of inconsistency. However, if in 2 months, the nations of Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya have new governments at least somewhat favorable to America, President Obama will get a lot of credit. If Tunisia fails to form a new government, and the military takes over in Egypt and installs a new dictator, and Libya devolves into chronic civil war, then President Obama's strategy of limited involvement will backfire badly.

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wrote:

Mar 29th 2011 12:59 GMT

There are no simple, universal answers to any important question. The specific circumstances have to justify any action. Not to see this is to remain a child.

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wrote:

Mar 29th 2011 1:14 GMT

I think Obama wanted to show the Facebook crowd that although he missed the boat in Egypt and Tunisia, he's right on schedule in Libya. Too bad it wasn't his idea -- it was France and Britain that led the way. And they have led him into a civil war, on the side of an opposition he doesn't even know.

How will Iran and North Korea take western promises of incentives for giving up nuclear weapons, now that the west has abandoned Gadhafi like a used kleenex?

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wrote:

Mar 29th 2011 1:57 GMT

Frankly, Obamas Doctrine is a Pentagons Doctrine. Simply, nothing new.

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wrote:

Mar 29th 2011 2:14 GMT

Very strange way for the only superpower in the world to behave. It's wrong for Ghadaffi to murder his own people but it's okay for Syria to murder theirs? Secretary of State Clinton's absurd "clarity" on this issue today stating that "we have to intervene in Libya because Ghadaffi is sending his planes and helicopters to slaughter his own people while Syria is only using guns firing at the protesters" is a shameful, immoral, dereliction of duty by the one country the world looks up as a bullwark against oppression, brutality, and genocide. If the way a terrorist and police State like Syria murders its own people is looked upon as not as bad or as reprehensible as another dictatorship does because the weapons it uses then we have very sadly driven off the moral cliff of decency and humanity.

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