On the latest O!-bloviation

29Mar/110

On the latest O!-bloviation

I've kept my trap shut on the Libya action, in general, because I believe that partisan politics end at the water's edge in time of armed conflict, and I don't want to engage in the same petty behavior I've spent the last 8 years criticizing; namely, using foreign conflicts as a cudgel to unfairly bash the President. But that's a two-way street.

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There are some folks swooning this morning over Obama's speech, and recounting how it was chock full of memorable explanation, rhetorical nuance, heartfelt genuineness, emphasized the moral authority of multilateral-ism, and clearly explained "The Obama doctrine!". They must have watched a different channel than I, or than AP fact check. I found it to be disjointed, filled with misleading half-truths, and an overall lackluster delivery by an obviously uncomfortable Obama; in short, completely and utterly forgettable. This very cheerleading, though, has crystallized into a "Popeye moment" for this old salt; I've had all I can stands, and I can't stands no more!

This entire speech made my guts grind. In the first part, he essentially patted himself on the back for “taking the lead”; He must truly think that we’re all idiots and don’t remember it was Sarkozy who first called for action, or that, in the usual and customary way, if the Sorelian "Big Lie" is repeated enough that it will somehow become truth. Then, in the middle, he contradicted himself by going on about letting “our partners” in this vast international coalition “bear the burden of responsibility”. And in the last part, he patted himself on the back some more, for being such a great humanitarian and, of course, for being the anti-Boooooosh!, as well as for his promise not actually expiring, as is usually the case; that promise being that the entire operation would be handed off to NATO; MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!

I've been on the pointy end of a few of these kind of operations in my time, and I can assure you that there is little difference between a US military action with allied participation and a NATO action; save for the decisions being made by committees that include folks that may despise, or be jealous of, the US military, I might add, which is unusual outside of certain Congressional caucus meetings...

But don't take my word for this, here's the NY Times revealing this inconvenient truth:

In his speech on Monday night, Mr. Obama, as he has in the past, portrayed the mission as a limited one, and described the United States’ role as “supporting.”

But interviews in recent days offer a fuller picture of American involvement, and show that it is far deeper than discussed in public and more instrumental to the fight than was previously known.

From the air, the United States is supplying much more firepower than any other country. The allies have fired nearly 200 Tomahawk cruise missiles since the campaign started on March 19, all but 7 from the United States. The United States has flown about 370 attack missions, and its allied partners have flown a similar number, but the Americans have dropped 455 precision-guided munitions compared with 147 from other coalition members.

So it's not just me wallowing in ODS driven hateful wingnuttery when I say that we should all count on US forces continuing to provide an inordinately high percentage of the precision strike sorties and TLAM attacks; that is, "inordinate" in light of Obama's pronouncement that we've turned the operation over to our allies. Indeed, Cap'n Ed has coined an amusing acronym for this; "NINO"-NATO In Name Only.

Oh, and not forget the strong implication and ersatz justification that he needn’t consult with Congress since, you know, he had such an awesome international consensus and UN mandate-something he still hasn't felt the need to do...

CHANGE!

Let me be very clear about this. I have no problem going after K'Daffy. But let's not act like there's some formidable coalition of Extraordinary Magnitude! assembled here, the likes of the world has never seen, because it's just not true. And I want to see the US President get approval from Congress before embarking on such an undertaking, especially considering all of the previous sanctimonious, and now patently hypocritical, statements made by Mr. Obama and other national level Democrats regarding the need for such approval; and not imply that a UN resolution is a reasonable facsimile. While he's at it, I'd also like to see an oval office address to the public, you know, a good old school one like Presidents used to give, in order to explain to the American people what's going on in their name at the time hostilities commence or as soon as reasonably possible (hint-not 10 days later). And once engaged, I'd like to see the most overwhelming firepower possible brought to bear in order to bring about a swift end to the fighting as well as prevent casualties amongst our warriors to as great an extent as possible.

I fear that something entirely different is going on here, and I call upon the self-proclaimed, "Most Transparent Administration EVAH!", to be honest with the public, not politicize this action, be aggressive with our adversaries, and mindful of our warriors in harms way. May God bless them, and may He continue to bless the United States of America.