It's a fine, fine illustration of bad Photoshop by yours truly, but it illustrates a point... a point made by the Bam himselfQuote...
"Now, just as there are those who have argued against intervention in Libya, there are others who have suggested that we broaden our military mission beyond the task of protecting the Libyan people, and do whatever it takes to bring down Gadhafi and usher in a new government...
"In just one month, the United States has worked with our international partners to mobilize a broad coalition, secure an international mandate to protect civilians, stop an advancing army, prevent a massacre, and establish a no-fly zone with our allies and partners."
Mission Accomplished.
And now, to the above bit of mocker... er satire... add scathing review.
The president’s speech
Being a leader is about more than reading off a teleprompter
--Washington Times Editorial, Monday, March 28, 2011
When King George VI gave his Sept. 3, 1939, war message to the people of the British Empire, it was a time of great moment. It was a “grave hour,” he began, “perhaps the most fateful in our history.” The king said that “for the second time in the lives of most of us, we are at war.” That, however, was back when war was war. Now it is just kinetic military activity.
The king’s speech, so recently dramatized in an Oscar-winning film starring Colin Firth, was significant because though George VI suffered a speech impediment, his message was of the highest importance. President Obama, by contrast, has always been given ludicrously high marks for his abilities as an orator but seldom has anything substantive to say.
Mr. Obama waited nine days after U.S. forces began to engage in hostilities in Libya to make a major address to the nation. He initially avoided making more than perfunctory remarks because U.S. involvement in the nonwar was supposed to be brief and limited. But as the kinetic became more frenetic, and Mr. Obama didn’t see the favorable bump in public opinion most presidents enjoy after unleashing military force, he was compelled to address the issue head on. Unbeknownst to the novice commander in chief, Mr. Obama faces a mass of contradictions that makes this conflict a hard sell.All of these contradictions were of the president’s making and are the product of trying to preserve an exalted image that now only a few members of the White House inner circle still believe. The Nobel Prize-winning man of peace who expanded America’s wars; the champion of Muslims who only helps them when it’s convenient; and the great global leader who continually emphasizes America’s declining influence: What a long strange odyssey the Obama presidency has become.
- Mr. Obama has started a war that is not a war.
- Mr. Obama is using military force, but his secretary of defense says there is no vital American interest involved.
- Mr. Obama sold the country and the United Nations on a no-fly zone, but coalition forces are targeting Libyan ground troops.
- Mr. Obama’s mandate was to protect civilian lives, but he is actively siding with the rebellion.
- Mr. Obama has praised the “legitimate aspirations of the Libyan people,” but many of the rebels are Islamist radicals and even members of al Qaeda.
- Mr. Obama has gone to war to prevent a “bloodbath” in Libya but only offers empty words to innocent Syrians being gunned down by the Assad dictatorship.
- Mr. Obama has said the United States is not seeking to force regime change but believes that Moammar Gadhafi “has to go.”
- Mr. Obama said there would be no “boots on the ground” in Libya but reports are emerging that some boots have landed.
- Mr. Obama said the operation would be handed over to NATO but the United States will still be doing the heavy lifting.
- Mr. Obama said Operation Odyssey Dawn would be limited to “days, not weeks,” but now it is projected to go on for months, or longer.
- Mr. Obama denounced his predecessor President George W. Bush for unilateralism but the O Force has gone to war with no congressional authorization, fewer coalition partners and weaker support from the Arab world.
Ouch! Bad marks for the boy king.
The difference is Bush's coalition had a bomb sniffing dog from Lichtenstein as a highlight. Where the action in Libya include fighter from Qatar and France flying air sorties.
ReplyDeleteWhere the Bush administration declared they would "go it alone" in Iraq, The Arab League came to the UN first asking for a No-Fly zone before the US got involved.
I'm not a proponent of this mission in Libya, I have fears and skepticisms about our involvement. I question how this serves our national interests, but... If you can't see how this is different from the war in Iraq then your are blinded.
Bush only declared he would "go it alone" after coalition members began to grow weary and pull out. It's not what he said in the beginning; he had no reason to because he had all the democratic support he could use here in the US and abroad.
ReplyDeleteI too am very skeptical of this kinetic military action. No good is going to come of it. Take Eqypt for example. The Muslim Brotherhood is poised to take control with the Egyptian military's blessing. And it was publicly stated during the Egyptian uprising by leaders in the Muslim Brotherhood, that should they win, Egypt should prepare for war with Israel.
That's right, Obama could very well preside over the collapse of the Camp David Accord, presided over by then president Carter.
Obama is walking a tight rope. I personally don't want to see him fall; too much chaos (on top of what's already building) will result. But neither do I want to see him in office another day longer than January 20, 2013.
I added to this post, by the way, while you were commenting.
"but many of the rebels are Islamist radicals and even members of al Qaeda."
ReplyDeleteThis assertion is based on what?
"Mr. Obama said the operation would be handed over to NATO but the United States will still be doing the heavy lifting."
No, the US is providing intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance support, not the "heavy lifting."
"the O Force has gone to war with no congressional authorization, fewer coalition partners and weaker support from the Arab world."
You seem to forget the Senate passed unanimously a resolution on March 1, 2011 calling for a no-fly zone, UN coalition and for Qhadaffi to leave. What support for the Iraq invasion did Bush have from the Arab world?
Have you noticed the press has not been providing us with daily reports and estimations of the number of people killed in this "kinetic military action"? This is how the media stir up political support or dissension among the American people. no death toll reported = out of sight, out of mind. Death toll reported daily = something must be done to stop the horror, immediately!
ReplyDeleteBTW--"Kinetic military action"? All those Harvard and Yale educated intellectual mucky-mucks on Obama's advisory staff, and the best they can come up with is "kinetic military action"?
You, Jim, seem to have forgotten that the Senate is not the sum total of Congress. The Senate passing a resolution 'calling' for a no-fly zone is not 'permission granted.' If the president consulted Congress by going to the Senate, he knocked on the wrong door; the House controls the purse strings. 'Calling' for a no-fly zone does not grant permission to spend a million and a half bucks each time a tomahawk is launched.
ReplyDeleteForget what the Senate did, what Obama did not do was consult Congress; he did not consult democrats in the house, nor did he consult republicans. He went to the UN.
Furthermore, cloaking Obama's war with legitimacy simply because the 'Arab world' supported a no-fly zone is specious. Saudi Arabia supported Bush; as did Kuwait, as did Bahrain, as did Turkey and other Muslim countries.
Who is the Arab League, and what relevance do they have in the larger world? Little to none. Besides which, by Obama's own stated standard for doing right in the world, the test is not whether any government or group or league grants permission (what right do the sovereign governments of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Tunis, Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Iran, etc., have to declare action against another sovereign government? By that standard alone there can have been no wrong done by Bush in taking out Saddam) but whether lives should be spared and governments kept from wholesale slaughter of its own people.
Obama did not consult congress. Even worse, he didn't even bother to speak to the American people until it appeared he might gain a little uptick in the polls. It doesn't, however, appear to have done him any good. Quite the contrary in fact. If Obama hopes to come out of this reasonably intact he has to pray (for real this time) that the Libya debacle ends favorably. But even that won't save him if Egypt falls to the Muslim Brotherhood, which looks more and more likely.
Yes, I've noticed, Mark. But also, the only 'boots on the ground' in Libya, at present, are those of the CIA. That's right, another Obama misspeak. 'No boots on the ground,' and yet... Americans are at risk in Libya.
ReplyDeleteAnd that includes the press. Consummate political cowards though many of them are, they still go into places like Libya knowing the risks. Gotta admire them for that.
To clarify, what I mean by political cowards... the press enters a war zone armed with little more than camera, mic, body armor, and their political ideologies. They fight not against any enemy on the field their covering, but rather they use their weapons against the people they don't particularly like or believe in thousands of miles away, sitting in front of their televisions, soaking in these banal Pulitzer-directed pot-shots.
ReplyDelete"BTW--"Kinetic military action"? All those Harvard and Yale educated intellectual mucky-mucks on Obama's advisory staff, and the best they can come up with is "kinetic military action"?"
ReplyDeleteActually, no. It's Princeton. That's where Donald Rumsfeld went to school. According to this article in 2002, he used the term all the time.
Actually, Jim, Rumsfeld use(d/s) "kinetic", "non-kinetic" all the time. He did not invent the latest euphemism for killing people: kinetic military action. If you had actually read the article you'd have known that.
ReplyDeleteThe author, Timothy Noah, as it turns out, is a poster boy for the NAULWC: North American Union for Liberal Water Carriers. The last paragraph is a specious attribution to Rumsfeld for the specific purpose of painting Obama as only following in the footsteps of tradition. It is Noah that makes the leap from Woodward's 'page 150' to Obama's penchant for euphemism.
BTW, what is this president so afraid of? Why can't he call, seemingly anything like it is? Who is he trying to impress? 'Cause it sure ain't the American people. If you can't define a problem properly, you can't fix it. "Kinetic Military Action" means the Obama Administration is clueless.
But I like how Noah ends his latest carry... "Is it too late to remove this word from the Washington lexicon? Chatterbox suggests a substitute: 'fighting.'"
Amen, brother! That's the way to stick it to the prez!
You should go back and look at the date of the article, EL. It was written in November 2002, and I doubt that your so-called Liberal Water Carrier had even heard of the Illinois State Senator.
ReplyDeleteYou know this sub-topic is really silly. Obama and team didn't invent euphemisms and certainly not these. MoveOn.