Barack Obama is secretly pro-Gadaffi - or he's a *****.

[DaShi]

To be fair, neither side has a strong case. Oerdin's article is calling conservative hacks based on what it expects them to post. But the criticisms of Kurtz are fair. Obama's Libyan gamble paid off, while Bush's Iraq gamble did not. By comparison, the Libyan effort was handled far better than Iraq and will have far less negative impact for American foreign policy. The argument that America could be considered weak because of this is ludicrous on its face and any foreign policy analyst should turn in his/her badge for making such a claim.

[Uncle Sparky]

Holy crap. Why did it take so long for the penny to drop this time?

The whole thing is a European and US companies after the control of oil. Again.

Libya was a north African paradise, as long as you weren't into regime change. IIRC, every family in Libya were given $4k by the government, and when a new couple got married, they would get $40k to start their life. Furthermore, it had the highest GDP per capita and one of the highest (might have been the highest, I don't remember) life expectancy in all of Africa.

not to mention the lowest level of infant mortality,
an incarceration rate lower than the Czech Republic,
free healthcare
free education
subsidised cars
subsidised petrol

And Khadafi was/is as crazy as dozens of other tin pot dictators who don't have oil. But the Corporations didn't have an American president and VP to do their bidding and invade, so they found locals to start a revolution, then had their European political lackies 'support' the rebels in a real way, by having them take out the Libyan heavy war machines.

Canada's foreign affairs minister met the rebels last week. The press from his own department said the meeting will help Canadian trade efforts after Khadafi is gone. Gee... do you think they'll trade cous-cous for poutine? Canada is still letting our oil interests operate in Syria.

Its all about oil, baby!

[Zevico]

Obama's Libyan gamble paid off, while Bush's Iraq gamble did not.

1. What was his "gamble", exactly? Provide his definition of success and maybe we can actually discuss this issue according to some set of common facts.
2. Comparisons to Bush are irrelevant. The merits of this exercise depend upon its success or failure. I'm not discussing that any further.

The argument that America could be considered weak because of this is ludicrous on its face

When a person says that something will be done in "days", and it takes half a year, it is not ludicrous to call that person's judgement into question. (The Bush comparison matters in terms of international standing--Bush's goals were (1) invading and controlling Iraq; (2) ensuring its stability post-invasion. At least he achieved one of them when he stood on the aircraft carrier. Not that it's saying too much as he underestimated severely the number of troops necessary for the occupation on the false assumption that the Americans would be welcomed as liberators. And that is a good reason to call its judgement into question of course.)

[MOBIUS]

It just comes off as an angry right-winger posting faster than he can think.

So, basically anyone with a typing speed > 5WPM...

[MOBIUS]

....
The rest was Kurtz asskissing.

Colonel Kurtz?

Now he would have kicked ass and taken some names...

[DaShi]

Obama's Libyan gamble paid off, while Bush's Iraq gamble did not.

1. What was his "gamble", exactly? Provide his definition of success and maybe we can actually discuss this issue according to some set of common facts.

Is English not your first language? Obama's definition of success is completely irrelevant, Ben What matters is the actual outcome.

2. Comparisons to Bush are irrelevant. The merits of this exercise depend upon its success or failure. I'm not discussing that any further.

You haven't even begun to discuss the key points.

The argument that America could be considered weak because of this is ludicrous on its face

When a person says that something will be done in "days", and it takes half a year, it is not ludicrous to call that person's judgement into question. (The Bush comparison matters in terms of international standing--Bush's goals were (1) invading and controlling Iraq; (2) ensuring its stability post-invasion. At least he achieved one of them when he stood on the aircraft carrier. Not that it's saying too much as he underestimated severely the number of troops necessary for the occupation on the false assumption that the Americans would be welcomed as liberators. And that is a good reason to call its judgement into question of course.)

Do you have a learning disorder? That didn't address what I said at all.

[Zevico]

Obama's definition of success is a matter of first importance.

An example: Bush's proclamation that the mission in Iraq was 'accomplished' was soon proven wrong, and it signalled that it had made a gamble; that it was not prepared; and hence, American credibility suffered. The lesson learnt was that the Americans did not fully understand Iraqi society and were not then equipped to deal with its vagaries. (Whether the surge repaired American credibility is another matter.)

Back to Obama: he declared this operation, and by implication, Qaddafi's downfall, would be accomplished in days.

The implication is that America would bring the full force of its military to achieve that goal. Six months later, Qaddafi is overthrown but, until his final capture, will still not quite be 'out of the way.' The lesson drawn from that is that Obama was unwilling to accomplish his stated objective within the timeframe he stipulated. The natural inference is that he simply did not know what resources were necessary to accomplish his goals and the time it would take to achieve them, and that it took him about 5 months to realise what he needed to do and then one more month to actually achieve his objective.

In sum, the President had no idea how much time it would take to overthrow Qaddaffi when he confidently predicted that it would take 'days.' As a result, there is good reason to discount his ability to make considered judgements in matters of foreign policy.

[C0ckney]

[giblets]

Back to Obama: he declared this operation, and by implication, Qaddafi's downfall, would be accomplished in days.

The implication is that America would bring the full force of its military to achieve that goal. Six months later, Qaddafi is overthrown but, until his final capture, will still not quite be 'out of the way.' The lesson drawn from that is that Obama was unwilling to accomplish his stated objective within the timeframe he stipulated. The natural inference is that he simply did not know what resources were necessary to accomplish his goals and the time it would take to achieve them, and that it took him about 5 months to realise what he needed to do and then one more month to actually achieve his objective.

In sum, the President had no idea how much time it would take to overthrow Qaddaffi when he confidently predicted that it would take 'days.' As a result, there is good reason to discount his ability to make considered judgements in matters of foreign policy.

When did Obama declare Qaddafi would be gone within days?

[dannubis]

hmm... widespread looting nd killings. Should Nato start to bomb the rebels now to product civilians who supported Kadhaffi ?

[DinoDoc]

When did Obama declare Qaddafi would be gone within days?

March, 18 2011: http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpu...not-weeks.html

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Cue predictable response "that says nothing about qdaffy"

[BeBMan]

Cue predictable response "that says nothing about qdaffy"

Well the key line there is:

President Obama said he expected that the period that the US would be involved in heavy kinetic activity would be "days, not weeks," after which he said the US would then take more of a supporting role.

So unless my English is totally down it's about the length of the involvement in the "leading role", not the time it will take to take down G-man. This is also how I remember the speeches from tv news, he said something like " we will bomb like mad for the first days, then the Franco-British crusaders will take over while we sit back and wait if they'll come whining for help".

Nah, but seriously, this link doesn't prove Z's point.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Yes I know hence my comment that it said nothing about Qdaffy.

Realisitically I think Z is misremebering much of the Libyan runup and follow through.

The point always was that the US was leading from behind (i.e not leading) this endeavor. The case made unmade made and unmade again that the intent was removal of Qdaffy as leader or perhaps they were stopping genocide or perhaps they were about supporting a democratic movement. Realisitically the objectives were never clear.

(I would add that all these supposed reasons never (IMO) gave any compelling US national interest as the rationale for the actions as alluded to by then Sec. Def. Gates.)

The net result of this little international adventure still needs to play out. It is at the same point in time that the infamous Mission Accomplished meme was broadcast namely the dictator is out of power, what comes next? Realize the US has no further appetite for peace keeping in order to transition Libya to a stable governement. Does the EU?

[BeBMan]

The net result of this little international adventure still needs to play out. It is at the same point in time that the infamous Mission Accomplished meme was broadcast namely the dictator is out of power, what comes next? Realize the US has no further appetite for peace keeping in order to transition Libya to a stable governement. Does the EU?

I don't think so. So far the hope is that it will not be needed, not sure how much of this is wishful thinking though. There's also voices saying western troops there would be bad since their presence could fuel islamism or the POV that it's some neo-colonial adventure.

However, personally I think they'll provide peacekeepers if needed, Britain and France because they can't let "their" op go downhill, and because Libya is so close to Europe with lotsa implications (oil, refugees etc.). Germany would probably take part then since the UNSC vote raised a lot of eyebrows and our gov is seen since then as some kind of an unsure candidate by allies - so they think they have to to something to make good for that. Maybe they try to bring in the AU and Arab League in that case too so that it doesn't look too "western".