Posted by
Bert Chapman on Saturday, April 02, 2011 9:13:34 AM
Operation Odyssey Dawn becomes more surreal as the weeks go on. We've now apparently turned over operations to NATO and remain steadfast in our delusional belief that we can't insert ground troops and aren't interesting in overthrowing Qaddafi. Why have we spent several hundred million dollars on our efforts so far to stop the Libyan dictator's atrocities if we don't intend to overthrow him? Are we still afraid of the "Arab Street?" We still don't know the ultimate political objectives of Qaddafi's opponents other than their justifiable anger at his rule. We don't know if their political objectives will really improve the lives of the Libyan people and are compatible with our long-term geopolitical interests in that region. We're reluctant to arm them and give the training they need to have a chance of defeating Qaddafi's degraded but still superior military forces. Barack Obama has proven himself to be a half-hearted warrior who wants the feel-good fuzzies of helping people in distress, but doesn't want to do the dirty work of destroying Qaddafi's forces and overthrowing his bloodthirsty regime.
Obama and his administration, which are congenitally incapable of providing consistent communication and policy coordination on this critical issue, have also left unanswered whether they will use U.S. military forces to intervene in other humanitarian crises regardless of whether intervening in those situations is in U.S. strategic interests or whether there is a clear plan for victory and force removal. Even a power has large and wealthy as we are can't resolve all global humanitarian problems that tug at our heart strings. We also have serious fiscal limitations that the Obama Administration has failed to address and has even worsened by its spendthrift ways such as its healthcare law. Obama has also weakened our military with idiotic social experimentation that will weaken combat effectiveness such as allowing open military service by homosexuals and promoting the diversity cult delusion of achieving a military that "looks like America." This at a time when we are still military involved in Iraq and Afghanistan and may require the deployment of military forces to other global crisis areas such as Iran, North Korea, and the South China Sea in the years to come.
It's been particularly amusing to hear the normally pacifistic mainstream media get behind this incompetently designed utilization of U.S. military forces by messiah Obama. Just a couple years ago, they were virulently denouncing President Bush's use of military force in Iraq and Afghanistan. Despite the mistakes which were made in these operations, Bush and his colleagues actually deployed these forces to achieve victory. Such intellectual and moral clarity in using military forces is beyond the intellectual capacity of Barack Obama and his national security policymakers. Congress needs to hold Obama's feet to the fire on this because there are far more important strategic challenges to the U.S. from more formidable competitors such as Iran, North Korea, and China awaiting us in the years ahead.