The Professor’s War

Dr. K isn’t impressed with the president’s foreign policy:

Well, let’s see how that paper multilateralism is doing. The Arab League is already reversing itself, criticizing the use of force it had just authorized. Amr Moussa, secretary-general of the Arab League, is shocked — shocked! — to find that people are being killed by allied airstrikes. This reaction was dubbed mystifying by one commentator, apparently born yesterday and thus unaware that the Arab League has forever been a collection of cynical, warring, unreliable dictatorships of ever-shifting loyalties. A British soccer mob has more unity and moral purpose. Yet Obama deemed it a great diplomatic success that the League deigned to permit others to fight and die to save fellow Arabs for whom 19 of 21 Arab states have yet to lift a finger. And what about that brilliant U.N. resolution?

Pathetic.

[Afternoon update]

The Libya farce gets turned up all the way to eleven:

Even though an American sits at the apex of NATO, it appears as though the command decisions involving American military forces will be coming from a NATO committee rather than from the commander-in-chief. This is almost certainly an unconstitutional delegation of the President’s command responsibilities; it is incompatible with the “commander-in-chief” clause of Article II of the Constitution. Among other things, it dilutes Obama’s accountability for the results. This may well be Obama’s strongest innermost desire, of course. He clearly has no stomach for his duties as commander-in-chief, and in handing over to NATO is voting “present” once again.

As I wrote, pathetic.

[Update a few minutes later]

Hard thoughts on Libya:

Fairly or not, Obama almost single-handedly is rewriting the history of dissent between 2003 and 2008 — from Guantanamo, renditions, tribunals, Predators, Iraq, and preventative detention to now-optional war-making in the Middle East — and proving that prior loud protests were more partisan attacks than matters of principle. More than any other individual in recent history, the career of Obama (2002–2011) will be a historical touchstone for understanding the nature of protest in the war-on-terror years.

Second, much of this mess hinges on a number of puerile assumptions: that a bunch of televised rebels swarming a Libyan city equals the birth of democracy, as if an unknown group of dissidents could be assumed to be competent and well-intentioned; and that a monster like Qaddafi — with a four-decade pedigree of near-constant violence — could be expected to simply step down. Apparently, we were to believe that he would follow the example of Mubarak’s tail-between-the-legs flight; or that he would depart because Barack Hussein Obama ordered him to, or because there was some chance of serious violence if he did not; or that he would find exile a preferable alternative to a stormy continuance of his rule. I think most adolescents in the real world would know that the above assumptions were all fantasies.

A ruler like Qaddafi is part Milosevic, part Saddam, part Noriega, and part Kim Jong Il. They stay in power for years through killing and more killing (to paraphrase Dirty Harry, “They like it”), and they do not leave, ever, unless the U.S. military either bombs them to smithereens or physically goes into their countries and yanks them out of their palaces. Period. They most certainly do not care much for the concern of the Arab League, the U.N., or a contingent from Europe, or a grand verbal televised threat from a U.S. president — again, even if his name is Barack Hussein Obama and he is not George Bush.

I hope the country can survive another couple years of this.

8 thoughts on “The Professor’s War”

  1. It could have been very shrewd political maneuvering to organize an attack on Libya and passing off leadership to someone else shortly after.

    But all the events since have shown that there was not a plan for who would take over and it makes one wonder if the Obama administration had told the coalition of his plans.

  2. “….it appears as though the command decisions involving American military forces will be coming from a NATO committee rather than from the commander-in-chief. This is almost certainly an unconstitutional delegation of the President’s command responsibilities; it is incompatible with the “commander-in-chief” clause of Article II of the Constitution.”

    On this one I’m not so sure the author is right. There has to be a Constitutionally acceptable means to fight with an ally, and the US cannot ALWAYS be in charge. The Founders would have known this. For example, in WWII we worked out a deal with Churchill that, for each campaign, whichever country had the most soldiers in the battle, that country would supply the Supreme Commander for the campaign. So there were battles/campaigns where the Brits were in charge, and then as US power grew, we gradually took over.

    I do believe that from time to time, units from one country were attached to command structures of another. In Tunisia in 1942-3, the British 1st Army contained two British Corps (5th and 9th), and a US Corps (the 2nd) as well as a French one (19th).

  3. I believe the country can survive another 2 years of this, but not another 6. The scary part is I’d say BHO has at least a 50-50 chance of re-election no matter what happens in the next 19 months or so. Thinking about what I just wrote for a moment, I need to take it back. The really scary part of the BHO phenomenon is that a significant percentage and perhaps majority of the voters will WANT him in charge for an additional 4 years. It’s scary to contemplate why that could be so.

  4. People that understand the problem have been derelict. We’ve allowed the progressive to win losing arguments, take over the education of future generations and backed down rather than fight demagoguery. You can’t blame children (no matter how loud and spoiled) adults have to take responsibility.

    We need to figure out what we agree on and focus like a laser to make it so.

    Hopefully it still isn’t too late.

  5. Foch was Supreme Commander of all Allied forces, including the AEF, late in WWI. I think some US naval forces, including at least one BB division and several DD and SS squadrons, were under Royal Navy operational direction late in WWI, also. And I believe the USS Houston (heavy cruiser) and several smaller USN ships were under tactical command of a Netherlands or Australian admiral (ABDA command (Australian-British-Dutch-American)) in late ’41/early’42 during the Japanese invasions of the then-Dutch East Indies.

    Montgomery was commander of 21 Army Group, which included the US First Army for the first six weeks or so of the Normandy campaign. And I think US Ninth 9th Army or First Army, or both, were subordinated to 21 Army Group for a short period towards the end of 1944. Field Marshall Alexander was Supreme Commander of forces in the Mediterranean after Eisenhower left for SHAEF. I think.

  6. “I think some US naval forces, including …..and several DD …. were under Royal Navy operational direction late in WWI, ”

    Thus the source of one US Navy commander’s reply to a Brit in WWII, when asked if he was ready for sea:

    “Taussig, 1916”

    At any rate it looks to me like this is one objection to Obama’s transfer of control to NATO that doesn’t hold much water. I have mixed feelings about the transfer:

    On the one hand it’s about time European Nations pulled some weight and took some political lumps for military actions that THEY wish to occur.

    On the other hand the US has the preponderance of forces, and I like Churchill’s formula.

    And part of me thinks this is Obama’s way of washing his hands from something he never wanted to do in the first place – i.e. cowardly – not willing to take a step and suffer the consequences.

    For the last 60 years, Western Europe and the US has had a sort of deal where we defend them in exchange for us having lots of influence in the region (and we do).

    Both sides prospered. Do we want to throw a grenade into all of that?

    As I say – mixed feelings.

  7. Biden may have a career as a soothesayor after his political career; he did predict this after all.

  8. I think it was clear that the representatives of the Arab League never really wanted to approve the resolution. They finally did so because they thought that it would never pass in the Security Council and now they are afraid that the same situation might occur in their own countries.

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