By Debra J. Saunders
Sunday, April 03, 2011
"No blood for oil" was a popular slogan chanted by the left in opposition to President George W. Bush's push to send U.S. forces into Iraq. Now that President Obama authorized Operation Odyssey Dawn in Libya, I have been waiting to hear chants of "no blood for oil." I am happy to report, I don't hear them.
I went to the nobloodforoil.org website; its lead item opposes efforts to strike wolves from the endangered species list. In fact, as NATO forces are lobbing missiles to enforce a no-fly zone over the country with Africa's largest oil and gas reserves, the nobloodforoil.org domain name is for sale.
With a Democrat in the White House, the anti-war corner has a much more civil tone. Anti-war House members have asked the GOP leadership to schedule an up-or-down congressional floor vote on the use of military force in Libya. A perfectly reasonable proposal. Congress should take its constitutional responsibilities seriously.
Now the Obama administration is in the hot seat -- crushed between critics who charge the White House was too slow to authorize a no-fly zone and those who claim it was too rash in authorizing cruise missile strikes before notifying Congress. Hawks fear that Obama's promise not to put "boots on the ground" will embolden strongman Moammar Gadhafi to fight to retain power. Doves believe that Obama went back on his no-boots-on-the-ground promise by authorizing a CIA presence in Libya.
Now, there are some smart questions to be asking the Obama administration: Who are the Libyan rebels? Are al-Qaida operatives or other extremists members in their ranks? Can they win? Without answers, it is impossible to support any call to provide them with arms. NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen opposes such a move; Obama said he wouldn't rule it in or out.
What happens if NATO wants to bomb rebel forces to protect civilians?
But the Obama administration isn't going to answer every question. What's the endgame? Obama says Gadhafi must go and that the military mission is not Gadhafi's ouster.
What's the exit strategy? Answer: the endgame.
As Obamaland has discovered once again: It's a lot easier to be asking questions than it is to answer them. On the same day that White House Press Secretary Jay Carney assured reporters that the U.S. military role would be of limited duration, Defense Secretary Robert Gates told Congress "no one can predict" how long it will take before NATO's Operation Unified Protector will shut down.
Some Republicans have used Libya to score easy points against Obama -- Newt Gingrich was for the no-fly zone before he was against it.
Florida's new GOP Sen. Marco Rubio, however, has shown an adult conservative way to push for the necessary outcome -- regime change -- without tying Obama's hands. Last week, Rubio proposed a resolution to back the allied mission in Libya, to state that removing Gadhafi from power is in the national interest and to authorize that Obama act accordingly.
So there is reason to hope that the debate on Libya can focus on questions of principle, and Obama won't have to contend with the sort of cheap shots hurled against Bush as he won congressional authorization for the war in 2002. Why, one little-known state lawmaker charged that the Iraq War was an "attempt by political hacks" to distract the public "from a rise in the uninsured, a rise in the poverty rate, a drop in the median income," corporate scandals and "a stock market that has just gone through the worst month since the Great Depression." His name, as you've no doubt surmised, is Barack Obama.
Sunday, April 3, 2011
Saving America From Greedy Politicians
By Austin Hill
Sunday, April 03, 2011
“…Sadly, we could end up with a generation of Americans who want to work at the Department of Motor Vehicles…”
Without explanation, that quote may seem like the ramp-up to a joke. It might be part of a Jay Leno monolog. Or you could follow it up with the famous Jerry Seinfeld “…not that there’s anything wrong with that” line.
But that analysis actually appeared in last Friday’s edition of the Wall Street Journal. In an editorial entitled “We’ve Become A Nation Of Takers, Not Makers,” Senior Economics Writer Stephen Moore noted that among a large portion of America’s college students and recent graduates, government employment is viewed as superior to private sector enterprise because of the “near lifetime security” that government agencies offer their workers.
“When 23-year-olds aren't willing to take career risks” Moore noted, “we have a real problem on our hands…”
To help make the case of our “real problem,” Moore noted that there are presently more Americans working for their government than there are Americans working in the private sector construction, farming, fishing, forestry, manufacturing, mining and utilities industries combined. And when you compile this bit of information with the reality that government agencies don’t produce wealth at all – they merely “collect” portions of the wealth that is produced in the private sector as tax revenue and then spend it to produce government services – then, yes, one can see a bit more clearly why Moore concludes that we have moved decisively from a “nation of makers to a nation of takers.”
The “takers” and “makers” analysis is powerful, and hopefully makes sense to lots of Americans. One doesn’t have to think too deeply to understand that if an insufficient number of us are “making” things and producing economic value, and too many of us are merely “taking” and consuming the insufficient amount of “things” that are made, well, then, eventually a nation runs out of things to “take.”
Yet understanding the vicious cycle that keeps our nation on this very destructive path is quite challenging for some. It requires one to understand some very basic things about economics, yes, but also requires one to care enough to understand a few things about our nation’s politics – and “politics” and “economics” are two subjects that many Americans find distasteful.
But consider this: many of the politicians that set policy regarding government employment have a personal self-interest in continuing the trend of creating more government employee “takers” – even if to do so is, in the long run, bad for the country. Mayors, County Supervisors, Governors – and yes even our President – can generally count on grass-roots volunteerism, campaign contributions, and votes from large blocks of government employees, as long as they protect and enhance the ranks of government employment and shelter government workers from the ups and downs that the private sector experiences.
President Barack Obama leads the way with this destructive and self-serving politics. He has made it a central theme of his presidency to speak often of the need for “shared sacifice,” noting that we all must be willing to “give a little” in order for our nation to fully recover from the “great recession.”
Yet when the government of Wisconsin sought to let their state employees “share” in the sacrifice, President Obama intervened and insisted that government employees were being “maligned.” In reality, state taxpayers in Wisconsin pay nearly 100% of the costs of government employee retirement pensions, and well over 90% of government employee’s healthcare insurance costs. The uproar in that state was never about Wisconsin indiscriminately firing government workers or cutting the workers’ benefits, but about the necessity of government employees taking more financial responsibility for their own retirement and healthcare.
But President Obama will have nothing to do with government employees being made to sacrifice. The more lavish their employment, the more they will vote for Mr. Obama and his party. And so our President, instead, maligned the Government officials of Wisconsin that were trying to save their state from insolvency.
A similar situation is unfolding in California. Governor Jerry Brown presides over the absolute worst statewide fiscal mess in the history of our country. He prides himself in “cutting government spending” his first ninety days in office, yet most of the “cuts” came from the elimination of taxpayer funded mobile telephone and vehicle privileges for government workers (most of us in the private sector don’t get “free” mobile phones and cars anyway, but this had apparently become the norm for a good many California state employees).
But Governor Brown absolutely must cut state spending further, and to do so requires that he reduce California employee retirement and healthcare benefits. Yet government employee labor unions bankrolled Brown’s campaign last year, and they now “own” him. Thus, Governor Brown has chosen to treat his fiscal mess as a “revenue” issue, rather than a “spending” issue, and is now pursuing a “raise taxes on the rich” solution.
Will America reverse course, and move away from being a nation of mere takers? We must first reject the self-serving politicians who are the greatest benefactors of the “taking.”
Sunday, April 03, 2011
“…Sadly, we could end up with a generation of Americans who want to work at the Department of Motor Vehicles…”
Without explanation, that quote may seem like the ramp-up to a joke. It might be part of a Jay Leno monolog. Or you could follow it up with the famous Jerry Seinfeld “…not that there’s anything wrong with that” line.
But that analysis actually appeared in last Friday’s edition of the Wall Street Journal. In an editorial entitled “We’ve Become A Nation Of Takers, Not Makers,” Senior Economics Writer Stephen Moore noted that among a large portion of America’s college students and recent graduates, government employment is viewed as superior to private sector enterprise because of the “near lifetime security” that government agencies offer their workers.
“When 23-year-olds aren't willing to take career risks” Moore noted, “we have a real problem on our hands…”
To help make the case of our “real problem,” Moore noted that there are presently more Americans working for their government than there are Americans working in the private sector construction, farming, fishing, forestry, manufacturing, mining and utilities industries combined. And when you compile this bit of information with the reality that government agencies don’t produce wealth at all – they merely “collect” portions of the wealth that is produced in the private sector as tax revenue and then spend it to produce government services – then, yes, one can see a bit more clearly why Moore concludes that we have moved decisively from a “nation of makers to a nation of takers.”
The “takers” and “makers” analysis is powerful, and hopefully makes sense to lots of Americans. One doesn’t have to think too deeply to understand that if an insufficient number of us are “making” things and producing economic value, and too many of us are merely “taking” and consuming the insufficient amount of “things” that are made, well, then, eventually a nation runs out of things to “take.”
Yet understanding the vicious cycle that keeps our nation on this very destructive path is quite challenging for some. It requires one to understand some very basic things about economics, yes, but also requires one to care enough to understand a few things about our nation’s politics – and “politics” and “economics” are two subjects that many Americans find distasteful.
But consider this: many of the politicians that set policy regarding government employment have a personal self-interest in continuing the trend of creating more government employee “takers” – even if to do so is, in the long run, bad for the country. Mayors, County Supervisors, Governors – and yes even our President – can generally count on grass-roots volunteerism, campaign contributions, and votes from large blocks of government employees, as long as they protect and enhance the ranks of government employment and shelter government workers from the ups and downs that the private sector experiences.
President Barack Obama leads the way with this destructive and self-serving politics. He has made it a central theme of his presidency to speak often of the need for “shared sacifice,” noting that we all must be willing to “give a little” in order for our nation to fully recover from the “great recession.”
Yet when the government of Wisconsin sought to let their state employees “share” in the sacrifice, President Obama intervened and insisted that government employees were being “maligned.” In reality, state taxpayers in Wisconsin pay nearly 100% of the costs of government employee retirement pensions, and well over 90% of government employee’s healthcare insurance costs. The uproar in that state was never about Wisconsin indiscriminately firing government workers or cutting the workers’ benefits, but about the necessity of government employees taking more financial responsibility for their own retirement and healthcare.
But President Obama will have nothing to do with government employees being made to sacrifice. The more lavish their employment, the more they will vote for Mr. Obama and his party. And so our President, instead, maligned the Government officials of Wisconsin that were trying to save their state from insolvency.
A similar situation is unfolding in California. Governor Jerry Brown presides over the absolute worst statewide fiscal mess in the history of our country. He prides himself in “cutting government spending” his first ninety days in office, yet most of the “cuts” came from the elimination of taxpayer funded mobile telephone and vehicle privileges for government workers (most of us in the private sector don’t get “free” mobile phones and cars anyway, but this had apparently become the norm for a good many California state employees).
But Governor Brown absolutely must cut state spending further, and to do so requires that he reduce California employee retirement and healthcare benefits. Yet government employee labor unions bankrolled Brown’s campaign last year, and they now “own” him. Thus, Governor Brown has chosen to treat his fiscal mess as a “revenue” issue, rather than a “spending” issue, and is now pursuing a “raise taxes on the rich” solution.
Will America reverse course, and move away from being a nation of mere takers? We must first reject the self-serving politicians who are the greatest benefactors of the “taking.”
'No He Can't: Economically'
By Kevin McCullough
Sunday, April 03, 2011
This past week President Barack Obama took additional steps towards the destruction of the very "Hope" and "Change" that he had promised in his campaign.
With the economy, as it relates to America's national security and the global struggle against terrorism, as it relates to the moral values that are distinctly American, and in his accountability to "We The People"--in each of these areas--President Obama has furthered himself from greatness, innovation, but most importantly--from finding solutions.
As the first pundit to predict that President Obama would rise to the office, I've seen it coming for more than four years. And now the challenges sit firmly before him. What will he do? Which direction will he lean? And will he finally begin to show some evidence of leadership?
Let's suspend partisan affiliation and political structures for the moment. Let's merely focus on a handful of ideas that could begin to move America in the right direction with.
Economically speaking: President Obama has to pass a budget. He must halt the rate of spending. And he must reduce the amount of burden placed upon the average small business in America.
The inability for Congress to get a budget passed his first two years in office, on many levels reflects his own ability to lead (or not), and the efforts by those that held power to conduct naked grabs at greater shares of it. Passing a budget is something that simply holds everyone to a measure of seriousness about the conduct of the government and whether or not goals will be met and fiscal priorities will reign in the inclination to go beyond that accountability.
In passing the budget the rate of what has already been promised through the over-reach of the Pelosi era has to not just be halted, but substantively reversed. Defunding Obamacare does help. (Especially this week after it was revealed that yet another $2 billion in set asides were uncovered in the bill.) But it doesn't get America all the way home economically. Deep cuts, significant reinvention, and looking to the private sector for services that can be provided competitively are going to have to be considered.
Most importantly President Obama must do those things that reverse the oppression that his administration has leveled against small businesses in the first two years. The fact that he was unwilling to reconsider his pledge to raise their taxes by default until the 59th minute of the 11th hour was an all too-telling sign of his general demeanor towards the sector of American business that is responsible for the growth in capital, production, and employment for the American future.
Obamacare, if left unattended, will likewise be the most oppressive assault on small businesses to come along in American history. And though it may be settled by the courts even before his re-election campaign, the President could demonstrate seriousness about our financial crisis in leading on the issue, instead of allowing the typical Congressional shell game to play itself out.
Deficit reduction is said to be a priority. But now is the time for President Obama to prove it. Building revenue to the treasury--even for his favorite safety net programs--will only be truly achieved by accelerating the growth of small businesses, not penalizing them.
The key to a healthy economy, is to fan the flame of small businesses--not public sector unions.
My just released book, "No He Can't: How Barack Obama is Dismantling Hope and Change," has been called a book of positive suggestions to move America to a truly better tomorrow. Governor Mike Huckabee, who penned the forward, called it "one of the most positive books to appear in a decade."
But it's ability to work good into the nation's reality will be determined first and foremost if President Obama will embrace the "bits of clarity" suggested at the end of each chapter.
The book itself is divided up into four sections of review of the President's stewardship these first two and half years. We look at his very different direction that he boldly has taken America in terms of foreign policy, and even our ability to defend ourselves. How sad it is that it wasn't until Libya that he finally decided that freedom is good, America is exceptional, and that our decisions matter vibrantly to the rest of the watching world. Additionally we examine the President's refusal to conduct his policies to the social and moral values that have always accompanied American greatness, and we put them into historical context. Finally we also deal with his true accountability to "We The People." And what we will be required to do about--HIM--should he choose to not change course.
But I begin with an in depth analysis of the economy, and I stock the pages full of suggestions to begin righting the ship.
Should he continue to choose to ignore such commonsense, it will cost him the Presidency.
More importantly should he continue choose such recklessness it will cost the American people much, much, more.
Sunday, April 03, 2011
This past week President Barack Obama took additional steps towards the destruction of the very "Hope" and "Change" that he had promised in his campaign.
With the economy, as it relates to America's national security and the global struggle against terrorism, as it relates to the moral values that are distinctly American, and in his accountability to "We The People"--in each of these areas--President Obama has furthered himself from greatness, innovation, but most importantly--from finding solutions.
As the first pundit to predict that President Obama would rise to the office, I've seen it coming for more than four years. And now the challenges sit firmly before him. What will he do? Which direction will he lean? And will he finally begin to show some evidence of leadership?
Let's suspend partisan affiliation and political structures for the moment. Let's merely focus on a handful of ideas that could begin to move America in the right direction with.
Economically speaking: President Obama has to pass a budget. He must halt the rate of spending. And he must reduce the amount of burden placed upon the average small business in America.
The inability for Congress to get a budget passed his first two years in office, on many levels reflects his own ability to lead (or not), and the efforts by those that held power to conduct naked grabs at greater shares of it. Passing a budget is something that simply holds everyone to a measure of seriousness about the conduct of the government and whether or not goals will be met and fiscal priorities will reign in the inclination to go beyond that accountability.
In passing the budget the rate of what has already been promised through the over-reach of the Pelosi era has to not just be halted, but substantively reversed. Defunding Obamacare does help. (Especially this week after it was revealed that yet another $2 billion in set asides were uncovered in the bill.) But it doesn't get America all the way home economically. Deep cuts, significant reinvention, and looking to the private sector for services that can be provided competitively are going to have to be considered.
Most importantly President Obama must do those things that reverse the oppression that his administration has leveled against small businesses in the first two years. The fact that he was unwilling to reconsider his pledge to raise their taxes by default until the 59th minute of the 11th hour was an all too-telling sign of his general demeanor towards the sector of American business that is responsible for the growth in capital, production, and employment for the American future.
Obamacare, if left unattended, will likewise be the most oppressive assault on small businesses to come along in American history. And though it may be settled by the courts even before his re-election campaign, the President could demonstrate seriousness about our financial crisis in leading on the issue, instead of allowing the typical Congressional shell game to play itself out.
Deficit reduction is said to be a priority. But now is the time for President Obama to prove it. Building revenue to the treasury--even for his favorite safety net programs--will only be truly achieved by accelerating the growth of small businesses, not penalizing them.
The key to a healthy economy, is to fan the flame of small businesses--not public sector unions.
My just released book, "No He Can't: How Barack Obama is Dismantling Hope and Change," has been called a book of positive suggestions to move America to a truly better tomorrow. Governor Mike Huckabee, who penned the forward, called it "one of the most positive books to appear in a decade."
But it's ability to work good into the nation's reality will be determined first and foremost if President Obama will embrace the "bits of clarity" suggested at the end of each chapter.
The book itself is divided up into four sections of review of the President's stewardship these first two and half years. We look at his very different direction that he boldly has taken America in terms of foreign policy, and even our ability to defend ourselves. How sad it is that it wasn't until Libya that he finally decided that freedom is good, America is exceptional, and that our decisions matter vibrantly to the rest of the watching world. Additionally we examine the President's refusal to conduct his policies to the social and moral values that have always accompanied American greatness, and we put them into historical context. Finally we also deal with his true accountability to "We The People." And what we will be required to do about--HIM--should he choose to not change course.
But I begin with an in depth analysis of the economy, and I stock the pages full of suggestions to begin righting the ship.
Should he continue to choose to ignore such commonsense, it will cost him the Presidency.
More importantly should he continue choose such recklessness it will cost the American people much, much, more.
Saturday, April 2, 2011
Obama’s Missionless War
If you don’t have a mission, it’s hard to know when it’s accomplished.
Mark Steyn
Saturday, April 02, 2011
If I recall correctly, we went into Libya — or, at any rate, over Libya — to stop the brutal Qaddafi dictatorship killing the Libyan people. And thanks to our efforts a whole new mass movement of freedom-loving democrats now has the opportunity to kill the Libyan people. As the Los Angeles Times reported from Benghazi, these democrats are roaming the city “rousting Libyan blacks and immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa from their homes and holding them for interrogation as suspected mercenaries or government spies.” According to the New York Times, “Members of the NATO alliance have sternly warned the rebels in Libya not to attack civilians as they push against the regime of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi.” We dropped bombs on Qaddafi’s crowd for attacking civilians, and we’re prepared to do the same to you! “The coalition has told the rebels that the fog of war will not shield them from possible bombardment by NATO planes and missiles, just as the regime’s forces have been punished.”
So, having agreed to be the Libyan Liberation Movement Air Force, we’re also happy to serve as the Qaddafi Last-Stand Air Force. Say what you like about Barack Obama, but it’s rare to find a leader so impeccably multilateralist he’s willing to participate in both sides of a war. It doesn’t exactly do much for holding it under budget, but it does ensure that for once we’ve got a sporting chance of coming out on the winning side. If a coalition plane bombing Qaddafi’s forces runs into a coalition plane bombing the rebel forces, are they allowed to open fire on each other? Or would that exceed the U.N. resolution?
Who are these rebels we’re simultaneously arming and bombing? Don’t worry, the CIA is “gathering intelligence” on them. They should have a clear of who our allies are round about the time Mohammed bin Jihad is firing his Kalashnikov and shouting “Death to the Great Satan!” from the balcony of the presidential palace. But America’s commander-in-chief thinks they’re pretty sound chaps. “The people that we’ve met with have been fully vetted,” says President Obama. “So we have a clear sense of who they are. And so far they’re saying the right things. And most of them are professionals, lawyers, doctors — people who appear to be credible.”
Credible people with credentials — just like the president! Lawyers, doctors, just like Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda’s No. 2. Maybe among their impeccably credentialed ranks is a credible professional eye doctor like Bashar Assad, the London ophthalmologist who made a successful mid-life career change to dictator of Syria. Hillary Rodham Clinton calls young Bashar a “reformer,” by which she means presumably that he hasn’t (yet) slaughtered as many civilians as his late dad. Assad Sr. killed some 20,000 Syrians at Hama and is said to have pumped hydrogen cyanide through the town: There wasn’t a dry eye in the house, as the ophthalmologists say. Baby Assad hasn’t done that (yet), so he’s a reformer, and we’re in favor of those, so we’re not arming his rebels.
According to the State Department, Colonel Qaddafi’s 27-year-old son, Khamis, is also a “reformer.” Or at least he was a few weeks ago, when U.S. officials welcomed him here for a month-long visit, including meetings at NASA and the Air Force Academy, and front-row seats for a lecture by Deepak Chopra entitled “The Soul of Leadership.” Ten minutes of which would have me buckling up the Semtex belt and yelling “Allahu Akbar!” but each to his own. It would have been embarrassing had Khamis Qaddafi still been getting the red carpet treatment in the U.S. while his dad was getting the red carpet-bombing treatment over in Tripoli. But fortunately a scheduled trip to West Point on February 21st had to be canceled when young Khamis was obliged to cut short his visit and return to Libya to start shooting large numbers of people in his capacity as the commander of a crack special-forces unit. Maybe he’ll be killed by a pilot who showed him round the Air Force Academy. Small world, isn’t it?
Meanwhile, the same CIA currently “gathering intelligence” on these jihadist lawyers, doctors, and other allies has apparently been in Libya for some time arming them, according to a top-secret memo on their eyes-only clandestine operation simultaneously leaked by no fewer than four administration officials to the press. A reader suggested to me that they’d misheard the Warren Zevon song “Send Lawyers, Guns And Money,” and were sending guns and money to lawyers. And, if some of the guns and money end up in the hands of “al-Qaeda elements,” I’m sure Janet Napolitano can have it re-classified as an overseas stimulus bill. In the old days, simpletons like President Bush used to say, “You’re either with us or you’re with the terrorists.” This time round, we’re with us and we’re with the terrorists, and you can’t say fairer than that.
So this isn’t your father’s war. It’s a war with a U.N. resolution and French jets and a Canadian general and the good wishes of the Arab League. It’s a war with everything it needs, except a mission. And, if you don’t have a mission, it’s hard to know when it’s accomplished. Secretary Gates insists that regime change is not a goal; President Sarkozy says it is; President Obama’s position, insofar as one can pin it down, seems to be that he’s not in favor of Qaddafi remaining in power but he isn’t necessarily going to do anything to remove him therefrom. According to NBC, Qaddafi was said to be down in the dumps about his prospects until he saw Obama’s speech, after which he concluded the guy wasn’t serious about getting rid of him, and he perked up. He’s certainly not planning on going anywhere. There is an old rule of war that one should always offer an enemy an escape route. Instead, David Cameron, the British prime minister, demanded that Qaddafi be put on trial. So the Colonel is unlikely to trust any offers of exile, and has nothing to lose by staying to the bitter end and killing as many people as possible.
Meanwhile, the turbulence in the Middle East has spread to Syria, Kuwait, Yemen, Jordan, and beyond. In Egypt, an entirely predictable alliance between the army and the Muslim Brotherhood seems to be emerging. The “Arab Spring” turns out to be a bit more complicated than it looks on CNN, and a CIA that failed to see the bankruptcy of its own pension plan looming is unlikely to be a very useful guide to the various forces in play. For the Western powers to be bogged down in the least consequential Arab dictatorship’s low-grade civil war desultorily providing air support to incompetent al-Qaeda sympathizers may be an artful if expensive piece of misdirection.
Either that, or we haven’t got a clue what we’re doing.
Mark Steyn
Saturday, April 02, 2011
If I recall correctly, we went into Libya — or, at any rate, over Libya — to stop the brutal Qaddafi dictatorship killing the Libyan people. And thanks to our efforts a whole new mass movement of freedom-loving democrats now has the opportunity to kill the Libyan people. As the Los Angeles Times reported from Benghazi, these democrats are roaming the city “rousting Libyan blacks and immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa from their homes and holding them for interrogation as suspected mercenaries or government spies.” According to the New York Times, “Members of the NATO alliance have sternly warned the rebels in Libya not to attack civilians as they push against the regime of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi.” We dropped bombs on Qaddafi’s crowd for attacking civilians, and we’re prepared to do the same to you! “The coalition has told the rebels that the fog of war will not shield them from possible bombardment by NATO planes and missiles, just as the regime’s forces have been punished.”
So, having agreed to be the Libyan Liberation Movement Air Force, we’re also happy to serve as the Qaddafi Last-Stand Air Force. Say what you like about Barack Obama, but it’s rare to find a leader so impeccably multilateralist he’s willing to participate in both sides of a war. It doesn’t exactly do much for holding it under budget, but it does ensure that for once we’ve got a sporting chance of coming out on the winning side. If a coalition plane bombing Qaddafi’s forces runs into a coalition plane bombing the rebel forces, are they allowed to open fire on each other? Or would that exceed the U.N. resolution?
Who are these rebels we’re simultaneously arming and bombing? Don’t worry, the CIA is “gathering intelligence” on them. They should have a clear of who our allies are round about the time Mohammed bin Jihad is firing his Kalashnikov and shouting “Death to the Great Satan!” from the balcony of the presidential palace. But America’s commander-in-chief thinks they’re pretty sound chaps. “The people that we’ve met with have been fully vetted,” says President Obama. “So we have a clear sense of who they are. And so far they’re saying the right things. And most of them are professionals, lawyers, doctors — people who appear to be credible.”
Credible people with credentials — just like the president! Lawyers, doctors, just like Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda’s No. 2. Maybe among their impeccably credentialed ranks is a credible professional eye doctor like Bashar Assad, the London ophthalmologist who made a successful mid-life career change to dictator of Syria. Hillary Rodham Clinton calls young Bashar a “reformer,” by which she means presumably that he hasn’t (yet) slaughtered as many civilians as his late dad. Assad Sr. killed some 20,000 Syrians at Hama and is said to have pumped hydrogen cyanide through the town: There wasn’t a dry eye in the house, as the ophthalmologists say. Baby Assad hasn’t done that (yet), so he’s a reformer, and we’re in favor of those, so we’re not arming his rebels.
According to the State Department, Colonel Qaddafi’s 27-year-old son, Khamis, is also a “reformer.” Or at least he was a few weeks ago, when U.S. officials welcomed him here for a month-long visit, including meetings at NASA and the Air Force Academy, and front-row seats for a lecture by Deepak Chopra entitled “The Soul of Leadership.” Ten minutes of which would have me buckling up the Semtex belt and yelling “Allahu Akbar!” but each to his own. It would have been embarrassing had Khamis Qaddafi still been getting the red carpet treatment in the U.S. while his dad was getting the red carpet-bombing treatment over in Tripoli. But fortunately a scheduled trip to West Point on February 21st had to be canceled when young Khamis was obliged to cut short his visit and return to Libya to start shooting large numbers of people in his capacity as the commander of a crack special-forces unit. Maybe he’ll be killed by a pilot who showed him round the Air Force Academy. Small world, isn’t it?
Meanwhile, the same CIA currently “gathering intelligence” on these jihadist lawyers, doctors, and other allies has apparently been in Libya for some time arming them, according to a top-secret memo on their eyes-only clandestine operation simultaneously leaked by no fewer than four administration officials to the press. A reader suggested to me that they’d misheard the Warren Zevon song “Send Lawyers, Guns And Money,” and were sending guns and money to lawyers. And, if some of the guns and money end up in the hands of “al-Qaeda elements,” I’m sure Janet Napolitano can have it re-classified as an overseas stimulus bill. In the old days, simpletons like President Bush used to say, “You’re either with us or you’re with the terrorists.” This time round, we’re with us and we’re with the terrorists, and you can’t say fairer than that.
So this isn’t your father’s war. It’s a war with a U.N. resolution and French jets and a Canadian general and the good wishes of the Arab League. It’s a war with everything it needs, except a mission. And, if you don’t have a mission, it’s hard to know when it’s accomplished. Secretary Gates insists that regime change is not a goal; President Sarkozy says it is; President Obama’s position, insofar as one can pin it down, seems to be that he’s not in favor of Qaddafi remaining in power but he isn’t necessarily going to do anything to remove him therefrom. According to NBC, Qaddafi was said to be down in the dumps about his prospects until he saw Obama’s speech, after which he concluded the guy wasn’t serious about getting rid of him, and he perked up. He’s certainly not planning on going anywhere. There is an old rule of war that one should always offer an enemy an escape route. Instead, David Cameron, the British prime minister, demanded that Qaddafi be put on trial. So the Colonel is unlikely to trust any offers of exile, and has nothing to lose by staying to the bitter end and killing as many people as possible.
Meanwhile, the turbulence in the Middle East has spread to Syria, Kuwait, Yemen, Jordan, and beyond. In Egypt, an entirely predictable alliance between the army and the Muslim Brotherhood seems to be emerging. The “Arab Spring” turns out to be a bit more complicated than it looks on CNN, and a CIA that failed to see the bankruptcy of its own pension plan looming is unlikely to be a very useful guide to the various forces in play. For the Western powers to be bogged down in the least consequential Arab dictatorship’s low-grade civil war desultorily providing air support to incompetent al-Qaeda sympathizers may be an artful if expensive piece of misdirection.
Either that, or we haven’t got a clue what we’re doing.
Power for the People
By Paul Driessen
Saturday, April 02, 2011
In a scene reminiscent of Colonial Williamsburg, for 16 years Thabo Molubi and his partner had made furniture in South Africa’s outback, known locally as the “veld,” using nothing but hand and foot power. When an electrical line finally reached the area, they installed lights, power saws and drills. Their productivity increased fourfold, and they hired local workers to make, sell and ship far more tables and chairs of much higher quality, thereby also commanding higher prices.
Living standards soared, and local families were able to buy and enjoy lights, refrigerators, televisions, computers and other technologies that Americans and Europeans often take for granted. They could even charge their cell phones at home! The area was propelled into the modern era, entrepreneurial spirits were unleashed, new businesses opened, and hundreds of newly employed workers joined the global economy.
People benefited even on the very edge of the newly electrified area. Bheki Vilakazi opened a small shop where people could charge their cell phones before heading into the veld, where instant communication can mean life or death in the event of an accident, automobile breakdown or encounter with wild animals.
Thousands of other African communities want the same opportunities. But for now they must continue to live without electricity, or have it only sporadically and unpredictably a few hours each week. Over 700 million Africans – and some two billion people worldwide – still lack regular, reliable electricity and must rely on toxic wood and dung fires for most or all of their heating and cooking needs.
Mothers with babies strapped on their backs must bend over open fires, breathing poisonous fumes and being struck down by debilitating, often fatal lung diseases. Homes, schools, shops and clinics lack the most rudimentary electrical necessities. Impoverished families must live in mud-and-thatch or cinderblock houses that allow mosquitoes to fly in, feast on human blood and infect victims with malaria. And parents and children must carry and drink untreated water that swarms with bacteria and parasites which cause cholera, diarrhea and river blindness. When the sun goes down, their lives shut down.
The environmental costs are equally high. In Rwanda gorilla habitats are being turned into charcoal, to fuel cooking fires. In Zambia, entrepreneurs harvest trees by the thousands along highways, selling them to motorists heading back to their non-electrified homes in rural areas and even parts of cities. As quickly as First World charities hold plant-a-tree days, Africans cut trees for essential cooking.
If eco-activists have their way, it will be like this for decades to come.
In his DotEarth blog for the New York Times, columnist Andrew Revkin lamented this intolerable situation. “Access to the benefits that come with ample energy trumps concerns about their tiny contribution of greenhouse gas emissions,” he wrote. But despite agreeing with the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow on this central issue, Revkin took issue on several items.
CFACT’s “Stop energy poverty” slogan is clever, he wrote. But where are its “substantive proposals for getting affordable energy” to those who don’t have it? Africa sits on vast deposits of natural gas and liquid condensates. Perhaps CFACT could find a business model that can lead to capturing, instead of flaring, those “orphan fuels,” Revkin suggested, while wondering why the Committee offers solar ovens to a Yucatan village and uses its slogan in part to challenge global warming scares.
Converting orphan fuels to productive uses is a terrific idea. That’s why CFACT opposes restrictions on using these fuels and wants to help find investors and build local support for gas-fired power plants that can electrify and modernize homes and businesses, create jobs, improve health and living standards, purify water, and launch companies that can build modern homes. Non-orphan deposits of oil, “tight oil,” natural gas, shale gas and coal could do likewise.
Unconventional US shale gas reserves alone are now estimated at about 57 trillion cubic meters (2000 trillion cubic feet) – enough for 100 years at current US consumption rates, on top of conventional reserves. Africa almost certainly has large gas, oil, coal and uranium deposits of its own, lying untapped beneath numerous poor countries, waiting to fuel an economic boom – if environmentalists, self-interested companies and government agencies would stop using global warming and other scares to justify their opposition to large-scale generating plants.
Until then, the Committee will continue providing interim measures – solar ovens, used laptops and small solar-powered charging systems – while also training people in computer and business skills, and assisting Yucatan and Ugandan villagers with tree farm and other projects.
All these are akin to the help that first responders provide, before getting disaster victims to hospitals. They are important steps toward individual and community empowerment that comes from having property rights, free enterprise, and full access to modern technologies that improve, enhance and safeguard lives. But none of this is possible without reliable, affordable energy to power those technologies.
“If abundant, affordable, clean energy and water were readily available to everyone, all the other problems would become much easier to solve,” Nobel Laureate Richard Smalley observed. Of course, “clean” does not have to mean non-carbon dioxide emitting, though Mr. Revkin seems reluctant to support energy that comes from fossil fuels, notes CFACT executive director Craig Rucker. “However, you cannot champion the poor, while supporting policies that perpetuate poverty,” Rucker emphasizes.
Modern coal-fired power plants are far cleaner than their predecessors, posing few environmental or health problems, except in the minds and propaganda of eco-activists. They are infinitely cleaner than the open fires that provide pitiful, polluting, often deadly energy for the barest necessities. Gas-fired plants are cleaner still, and safe, modern nuclear plants could also support major economic booms.
To suggest that impoverished nations must worry more about CO2 than about tuberculosis, cholera or malaria is absurd. To tell them their energy options must be limited to expensive, unreliable, insufficient wind and solar power is immoral. To impose anti-hydrocarbon restrictions on poor countries ensures that they will remain poor and diseased, with life expectancies in the low forties.
As Dambisa Moyo and others suggest, it is time for rich Western nations to provide less aid, fewer restrictions – and much more trade, investment and banking expertise and opportunity; business, agricultural and property rights know-how; and energy technologies that will harness and utilize abundant, reliable, affordable hydrocarbon energy. They also need to stop propagating scare stories and imposing restrictions on the use of hybrid and genetically modified seeds to reduce malnutrition, and insecticides to reduce disease.
CFACT’s goal is simple, says Rucker. “Give poor families, communities and nations the same opportunities we had, the same freedoms to chart their destinies, the same rights to create and manage their own wealth, develop their own free and healthy institutions, solve their own environmental and health challenges – and even make their own mistakes along the way.”
Brazil, China, India and Indonesia are not about to stop building new coal-fired power plants; nor are developed countries going to tear their plants down or abandon their fossil fuel-powered vehicles. Africa and other poor regions need to adopt the same attitude – and also seek investors and trade opportunities, rather than just more aid that is often merely life support for corrupt dictators and bureaucrats.
CFACT’s plan is also simple, Rucker adds. Help now with solar ovens, laptops and other first aid. Challenge and change harmful, immoral, lethal policies that limit access to energy and other modern technologies, hobble job creation, impair health and kill millions. And help persuade investors and Third World communities to provide the energy technologies that will make health and prosperity happen.
“We hope Andrew Revkin and millions of other caring people will join us in supporting a global energy quest that advances human progress, while limiting actual environmental risks.”
Saturday, April 02, 2011
In a scene reminiscent of Colonial Williamsburg, for 16 years Thabo Molubi and his partner had made furniture in South Africa’s outback, known locally as the “veld,” using nothing but hand and foot power. When an electrical line finally reached the area, they installed lights, power saws and drills. Their productivity increased fourfold, and they hired local workers to make, sell and ship far more tables and chairs of much higher quality, thereby also commanding higher prices.
Living standards soared, and local families were able to buy and enjoy lights, refrigerators, televisions, computers and other technologies that Americans and Europeans often take for granted. They could even charge their cell phones at home! The area was propelled into the modern era, entrepreneurial spirits were unleashed, new businesses opened, and hundreds of newly employed workers joined the global economy.
People benefited even on the very edge of the newly electrified area. Bheki Vilakazi opened a small shop where people could charge their cell phones before heading into the veld, where instant communication can mean life or death in the event of an accident, automobile breakdown or encounter with wild animals.
Thousands of other African communities want the same opportunities. But for now they must continue to live without electricity, or have it only sporadically and unpredictably a few hours each week. Over 700 million Africans – and some two billion people worldwide – still lack regular, reliable electricity and must rely on toxic wood and dung fires for most or all of their heating and cooking needs.
Mothers with babies strapped on their backs must bend over open fires, breathing poisonous fumes and being struck down by debilitating, often fatal lung diseases. Homes, schools, shops and clinics lack the most rudimentary electrical necessities. Impoverished families must live in mud-and-thatch or cinderblock houses that allow mosquitoes to fly in, feast on human blood and infect victims with malaria. And parents and children must carry and drink untreated water that swarms with bacteria and parasites which cause cholera, diarrhea and river blindness. When the sun goes down, their lives shut down.
The environmental costs are equally high. In Rwanda gorilla habitats are being turned into charcoal, to fuel cooking fires. In Zambia, entrepreneurs harvest trees by the thousands along highways, selling them to motorists heading back to their non-electrified homes in rural areas and even parts of cities. As quickly as First World charities hold plant-a-tree days, Africans cut trees for essential cooking.
If eco-activists have their way, it will be like this for decades to come.
In his DotEarth blog for the New York Times, columnist Andrew Revkin lamented this intolerable situation. “Access to the benefits that come with ample energy trumps concerns about their tiny contribution of greenhouse gas emissions,” he wrote. But despite agreeing with the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow on this central issue, Revkin took issue on several items.
CFACT’s “Stop energy poverty” slogan is clever, he wrote. But where are its “substantive proposals for getting affordable energy” to those who don’t have it? Africa sits on vast deposits of natural gas and liquid condensates. Perhaps CFACT could find a business model that can lead to capturing, instead of flaring, those “orphan fuels,” Revkin suggested, while wondering why the Committee offers solar ovens to a Yucatan village and uses its slogan in part to challenge global warming scares.
Converting orphan fuels to productive uses is a terrific idea. That’s why CFACT opposes restrictions on using these fuels and wants to help find investors and build local support for gas-fired power plants that can electrify and modernize homes and businesses, create jobs, improve health and living standards, purify water, and launch companies that can build modern homes. Non-orphan deposits of oil, “tight oil,” natural gas, shale gas and coal could do likewise.
Unconventional US shale gas reserves alone are now estimated at about 57 trillion cubic meters (2000 trillion cubic feet) – enough for 100 years at current US consumption rates, on top of conventional reserves. Africa almost certainly has large gas, oil, coal and uranium deposits of its own, lying untapped beneath numerous poor countries, waiting to fuel an economic boom – if environmentalists, self-interested companies and government agencies would stop using global warming and other scares to justify their opposition to large-scale generating plants.
Until then, the Committee will continue providing interim measures – solar ovens, used laptops and small solar-powered charging systems – while also training people in computer and business skills, and assisting Yucatan and Ugandan villagers with tree farm and other projects.
All these are akin to the help that first responders provide, before getting disaster victims to hospitals. They are important steps toward individual and community empowerment that comes from having property rights, free enterprise, and full access to modern technologies that improve, enhance and safeguard lives. But none of this is possible without reliable, affordable energy to power those technologies.
“If abundant, affordable, clean energy and water were readily available to everyone, all the other problems would become much easier to solve,” Nobel Laureate Richard Smalley observed. Of course, “clean” does not have to mean non-carbon dioxide emitting, though Mr. Revkin seems reluctant to support energy that comes from fossil fuels, notes CFACT executive director Craig Rucker. “However, you cannot champion the poor, while supporting policies that perpetuate poverty,” Rucker emphasizes.
Modern coal-fired power plants are far cleaner than their predecessors, posing few environmental or health problems, except in the minds and propaganda of eco-activists. They are infinitely cleaner than the open fires that provide pitiful, polluting, often deadly energy for the barest necessities. Gas-fired plants are cleaner still, and safe, modern nuclear plants could also support major economic booms.
To suggest that impoverished nations must worry more about CO2 than about tuberculosis, cholera or malaria is absurd. To tell them their energy options must be limited to expensive, unreliable, insufficient wind and solar power is immoral. To impose anti-hydrocarbon restrictions on poor countries ensures that they will remain poor and diseased, with life expectancies in the low forties.
As Dambisa Moyo and others suggest, it is time for rich Western nations to provide less aid, fewer restrictions – and much more trade, investment and banking expertise and opportunity; business, agricultural and property rights know-how; and energy technologies that will harness and utilize abundant, reliable, affordable hydrocarbon energy. They also need to stop propagating scare stories and imposing restrictions on the use of hybrid and genetically modified seeds to reduce malnutrition, and insecticides to reduce disease.
CFACT’s goal is simple, says Rucker. “Give poor families, communities and nations the same opportunities we had, the same freedoms to chart their destinies, the same rights to create and manage their own wealth, develop their own free and healthy institutions, solve their own environmental and health challenges – and even make their own mistakes along the way.”
Brazil, China, India and Indonesia are not about to stop building new coal-fired power plants; nor are developed countries going to tear their plants down or abandon their fossil fuel-powered vehicles. Africa and other poor regions need to adopt the same attitude – and also seek investors and trade opportunities, rather than just more aid that is often merely life support for corrupt dictators and bureaucrats.
CFACT’s plan is also simple, Rucker adds. Help now with solar ovens, laptops and other first aid. Challenge and change harmful, immoral, lethal policies that limit access to energy and other modern technologies, hobble job creation, impair health and kill millions. And help persuade investors and Third World communities to provide the energy technologies that will make health and prosperity happen.
“We hope Andrew Revkin and millions of other caring people will join us in supporting a global energy quest that advances human progress, while limiting actual environmental risks.”
Friday, April 1, 2011
The Libyan Boomerang
Obama is unintentionally creating the most favorable conditions for the worst-case scenario.
Mario Loyola
Friday, April 01, 2011
The worst thing that could foreseeably happen in Libya is for the situation to degenerate into an indefinite insurgent conflict in a failed state. Just a few weeks ago, that possibility did not realistically exist. It was created by our intervention, which managed somehow to combine the qualities of being too late, too hasty, and of the wrong kind.
The beginnings of Libya’s slide into a chaotic insurgency are plain to see in the tactics Qaddafi’s forces have adopted: They now dress like the rebels and drive around in “technicals” (armed pickup trucks) rather than tanks. In a classic example of asymmetric strategy, Qaddafi has stopped presenting the West with its preferred targets: warplanes, military vehicles, and identifiable installations. His forces are melting into the urban landscape, and it will not take them long to start appearing well behind rebel lines.
Obama’s strategy of diplomacy backed by air power is stripping the Qaddafi regime of the attributes of a functioning state. But those policies pose little threat to the regime’s tribalistic and terroristic core.
That core has now become Qaddafi’s only hope for survival. As we have learned elsewhere, absent an effective occupation, he could subsist in that core indefinitely, deep within a web of insurgent forces and terrorist networks that he controls or influences to varying degrees — and which protect him. Beyond that, the situation in Libya is sui generis. We are deep into the realm of unknown unknowns.
Obama has promised that there will be “no boots on the ground.” Regardless of his relaxed approach to keeping the promises he makes, Obama’s multilateral answer to the current crisis and his exquisite sensitivity to Arab grievances virtually guarantee that there will be no invasion by Western combat troops anytime soon. We have started a war of choice, and we are denying ourselves the means to win it.
Credible reports indicate that Obama has authorized the insertion of CIA and other U.S. operatives into Libya, in an apparent attempt to help organize the resistance into some sort of effective fighting force.
According to Ahmed Sanalla, a medical student turned rebel in Benghazi, the front-line rebel forces are several thousand strong. About a quarter of them are former military, most of whom defected with their units under Gen. Abdel Fattah Younes, the former interior minister. Most of the rest are simply members of the pro-democracy movement, which has been armed from army stocks since the fighting started. The military component of the rebellion is trying to organize the larger mass into units, but they face daunting challenges.
In Iraq, where cost was no object and we had more than 100,000 troops on the ground — and where an effective local force was desperately needed — a similar task took years. Granted, in Libya we have the benefit of scale: Qaddafi’s forces have been reduced to perhaps just a few tens of thousands. That means that if we could train and organize just a single brigade-size formation of rebel forces (say, several thousand effectives), we could — assuming plenty of U.S. and allied special forces on the ground, and the continued application of air power — conceivably defeat Qaddafi.
But regardless of scale, just training and organizing a force that large takes time; it cannot be compressed into a period of weeks. And besides, all of that basic training, equipping, and organizing has to occur away from the battlefield, whereas the rebels right now cannot afford to lose a single man.
If Obama intends to train and organize the rebels into a force he can use for diplomatic leverage, the obvious precedent is Nicaragua. But in Nicaragua, we were arming an insurgency against a more or less established dictatorship that we could negotiate with. And in Nicaragua, the rebels could hide in impenetrable forests. Here we are arming one of the sides in a desert civil war that is quickly degenerating into God knows what.
The stated war aim is to force Qaddafi to stop attacking civilians. But that would not be an end state. Unless a truce is negotiated and enforced (which would almost certainly require an international peace-keeping force), a “stabilization” of the “front” would create a highly explosive state of affairs. Qaddafi will be on war footing until he wins, and the same is true of the rebels. At some point, some central authority will have to assert itself in Libya and establish control of the whole territory. Almost by definition, the conflict will last until then.
The rosiest possible scenario is for Qaddafi to step down as a result of the diplomatic inducements and sanctions that Obama’s national-security team has shown so much faith in. Obama’s advisers hope that high-level defections and military desertions will reach a point where Qaddafi realizes that his rule is untenable and he must step down. But this scenario totally mistakes the character and capabilities of Qaddafi. He lives for war — and he is vastly well-armed.
With several organized paramilitary forces (including thousands of foot soldiers from sub-Saharan Africa), in addition to at least two well-trained and -equipped Libyan Army brigades — all under his direct personal control — Qaddafi is well placed to make the transition to a powerful insurgency. There is perhaps a 5 percent chance that the hoped-for outcome is achievable within a year.
The Obama administration’s immediate objective may be to achieve a de facto stalemate on the ground. But such a stalemate would be highly volatile — and dangerous for everybody. Qaddafi would resort to terrorist and insurgent tactics, against which a “no boots on the ground” strategy will be totally ineffective, and which could claim thousands of lives. The remains of his military and intelligence assets could evolve into a powerful terrorist network of global reach. And one thing we know for sure is that we’ve earned ourselves a bitter enemy. As soon as he feels safe, Qaddafi will turn on his Western tormentors.
If we were going to intervene in Libya at all, it should have been on the basis of a strategy designed to achieve a favorable outcome from the point of view of both humanitarianism and vital U.S. interests. Instead, our strategy seems risky for both.
A logical strategy for intervention in Libya — assuming you really wanted one at all — would almost certainly have entailed boots on the ground. But nobody wants an occupation. No wonder Obama is trying to transfer control of the operation to NATO. He is searching desperately for some way to shift onto somebody else responsibility for the consequences of what he started and facilitated for no other reason than that everyone seemed to want it.
Obama’s national-security policy is not based on strategy, properly so called. It is based on the rote application of political talking points and academic theories to immediate crises, with little consideration of long-term consequences, or of how those crises are interrelated. As is only natural given his background, he lacks an overarching strategic vision of foreign affairs, such as what Kissinger and Baker were able to impart on behalf of their presidents. So in practice, the process of policy formulation defaults to the least common denominator of the consensus you can achieve within the national-security establishment.
After a decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, the national-security establishment has become overwhelmingly risk-averse. But if we only attack what we’re not afraid of, at the end of the day we’ll be facing what we’re most afraid of. Obama is unintentionally creating the most favorable conditions for the worst-case scenario. In the heart of North Africa, a motorboat’s ride from the undefended coast of southern Europe, we are systematically creating a terrorist insurgency that we may not be able to defeat except through some kind of occupation.
It would be an occupation that nobody wants and one that, just a month ago, would have been impossible to justify on the basis of any vital interest of the United States.
Mario Loyola
Friday, April 01, 2011
The worst thing that could foreseeably happen in Libya is for the situation to degenerate into an indefinite insurgent conflict in a failed state. Just a few weeks ago, that possibility did not realistically exist. It was created by our intervention, which managed somehow to combine the qualities of being too late, too hasty, and of the wrong kind.
The beginnings of Libya’s slide into a chaotic insurgency are plain to see in the tactics Qaddafi’s forces have adopted: They now dress like the rebels and drive around in “technicals” (armed pickup trucks) rather than tanks. In a classic example of asymmetric strategy, Qaddafi has stopped presenting the West with its preferred targets: warplanes, military vehicles, and identifiable installations. His forces are melting into the urban landscape, and it will not take them long to start appearing well behind rebel lines.
Obama’s strategy of diplomacy backed by air power is stripping the Qaddafi regime of the attributes of a functioning state. But those policies pose little threat to the regime’s tribalistic and terroristic core.
That core has now become Qaddafi’s only hope for survival. As we have learned elsewhere, absent an effective occupation, he could subsist in that core indefinitely, deep within a web of insurgent forces and terrorist networks that he controls or influences to varying degrees — and which protect him. Beyond that, the situation in Libya is sui generis. We are deep into the realm of unknown unknowns.
Obama has promised that there will be “no boots on the ground.” Regardless of his relaxed approach to keeping the promises he makes, Obama’s multilateral answer to the current crisis and his exquisite sensitivity to Arab grievances virtually guarantee that there will be no invasion by Western combat troops anytime soon. We have started a war of choice, and we are denying ourselves the means to win it.
Credible reports indicate that Obama has authorized the insertion of CIA and other U.S. operatives into Libya, in an apparent attempt to help organize the resistance into some sort of effective fighting force.
According to Ahmed Sanalla, a medical student turned rebel in Benghazi, the front-line rebel forces are several thousand strong. About a quarter of them are former military, most of whom defected with their units under Gen. Abdel Fattah Younes, the former interior minister. Most of the rest are simply members of the pro-democracy movement, which has been armed from army stocks since the fighting started. The military component of the rebellion is trying to organize the larger mass into units, but they face daunting challenges.
In Iraq, where cost was no object and we had more than 100,000 troops on the ground — and where an effective local force was desperately needed — a similar task took years. Granted, in Libya we have the benefit of scale: Qaddafi’s forces have been reduced to perhaps just a few tens of thousands. That means that if we could train and organize just a single brigade-size formation of rebel forces (say, several thousand effectives), we could — assuming plenty of U.S. and allied special forces on the ground, and the continued application of air power — conceivably defeat Qaddafi.
But regardless of scale, just training and organizing a force that large takes time; it cannot be compressed into a period of weeks. And besides, all of that basic training, equipping, and organizing has to occur away from the battlefield, whereas the rebels right now cannot afford to lose a single man.
If Obama intends to train and organize the rebels into a force he can use for diplomatic leverage, the obvious precedent is Nicaragua. But in Nicaragua, we were arming an insurgency against a more or less established dictatorship that we could negotiate with. And in Nicaragua, the rebels could hide in impenetrable forests. Here we are arming one of the sides in a desert civil war that is quickly degenerating into God knows what.
The stated war aim is to force Qaddafi to stop attacking civilians. But that would not be an end state. Unless a truce is negotiated and enforced (which would almost certainly require an international peace-keeping force), a “stabilization” of the “front” would create a highly explosive state of affairs. Qaddafi will be on war footing until he wins, and the same is true of the rebels. At some point, some central authority will have to assert itself in Libya and establish control of the whole territory. Almost by definition, the conflict will last until then.
The rosiest possible scenario is for Qaddafi to step down as a result of the diplomatic inducements and sanctions that Obama’s national-security team has shown so much faith in. Obama’s advisers hope that high-level defections and military desertions will reach a point where Qaddafi realizes that his rule is untenable and he must step down. But this scenario totally mistakes the character and capabilities of Qaddafi. He lives for war — and he is vastly well-armed.
With several organized paramilitary forces (including thousands of foot soldiers from sub-Saharan Africa), in addition to at least two well-trained and -equipped Libyan Army brigades — all under his direct personal control — Qaddafi is well placed to make the transition to a powerful insurgency. There is perhaps a 5 percent chance that the hoped-for outcome is achievable within a year.
The Obama administration’s immediate objective may be to achieve a de facto stalemate on the ground. But such a stalemate would be highly volatile — and dangerous for everybody. Qaddafi would resort to terrorist and insurgent tactics, against which a “no boots on the ground” strategy will be totally ineffective, and which could claim thousands of lives. The remains of his military and intelligence assets could evolve into a powerful terrorist network of global reach. And one thing we know for sure is that we’ve earned ourselves a bitter enemy. As soon as he feels safe, Qaddafi will turn on his Western tormentors.
If we were going to intervene in Libya at all, it should have been on the basis of a strategy designed to achieve a favorable outcome from the point of view of both humanitarianism and vital U.S. interests. Instead, our strategy seems risky for both.
A logical strategy for intervention in Libya — assuming you really wanted one at all — would almost certainly have entailed boots on the ground. But nobody wants an occupation. No wonder Obama is trying to transfer control of the operation to NATO. He is searching desperately for some way to shift onto somebody else responsibility for the consequences of what he started and facilitated for no other reason than that everyone seemed to want it.
Obama’s national-security policy is not based on strategy, properly so called. It is based on the rote application of political talking points and academic theories to immediate crises, with little consideration of long-term consequences, or of how those crises are interrelated. As is only natural given his background, he lacks an overarching strategic vision of foreign affairs, such as what Kissinger and Baker were able to impart on behalf of their presidents. So in practice, the process of policy formulation defaults to the least common denominator of the consensus you can achieve within the national-security establishment.
After a decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, the national-security establishment has become overwhelmingly risk-averse. But if we only attack what we’re not afraid of, at the end of the day we’ll be facing what we’re most afraid of. Obama is unintentionally creating the most favorable conditions for the worst-case scenario. In the heart of North Africa, a motorboat’s ride from the undefended coast of southern Europe, we are systematically creating a terrorist insurgency that we may not be able to defeat except through some kind of occupation.
It would be an occupation that nobody wants and one that, just a month ago, would have been impossible to justify on the basis of any vital interest of the United States.
Unanswered Questions
By Linda Chavez
Friday, April 01, 2011
The president's speech on Libya this week raised more questions than it answered. And with fighting there escalating, as Gadhafi's troops battle poorly trained and armed rebels driving them back from strategic territory they had gained, it seems likely that circumstances will force a more expansive role than President Obama outlined.
We are already under pressure from our allies to provide arms to the rebels, directly or indirectly. But we are not positioned to make an informed decision unless we have a better understanding of what is happening on the ground. In his speech, the president stated U.S. goals as narrowly as possible -- to protect civilian populations from slaughter at the hands of Gadhafi's forces. He has demurred on the larger issue of whether it is the goal of the military operation to remove Gadhafi from power, though clearly, any outcome short of Gadhafi's departure would harm U.S. interests. But the problem in Libya, as it was in Iraq, is that we have too little idea what will happen after we achieve our declared military aims.
The administration seems to have been taken totally by surprise, first by popular uprisings in Tunisia, then Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen, and now Syria. But the fault is not Obama's alone. Despite billions of dollars invested each year in intelligence-gathering by a myriad of government agencies, we continue to miss what's happening in places vital to our national interests. It's a problem that dates back for decades.
Our intelligence agencies gave us little advance warning that the Soviet Union was on the point of collapse in the 1980s and that the Berlin Wall would fall in 1989, or to predict that the Soviet Empire in Eastern Europe would disintegrate and the Soviet Union would dissolve in 1991. Ten years later, our intelligence agencies failed to uncover a careful and well-planned al-Qaida operation in the United States that resulted in the most devastating attack on American soil in the nation's history. Two years after that, we went into Iraq confident that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and that, when we deposed him, we would be embraced as liberators.
These are not minor intelligence failures. Despite a massive intelligence reorganization and the claim that we have better coordination and information-sharing among agencies in the aftermath of 9/11, we still keep coming up short on basic facts our leaders need in order to make the right policy choices.
News reports claim that CIA operatives are now on the ground in Libya gathering information about the rebel forces: Who are they? What are their goals? What role are Islamist terrorists -- especially those who have fought against us in Afghanistan and Iraq -- playing in this rebellion? Will a post-Gadhafi Libya be a secular or an Islamist state?
Some of these questions apply not just to Libya but more importantly to Egypt. Libya and Tunisia are far less significant to U.S. interests than Egypt is. But we have no idea what will happen in Egypt once the military relinquishes control. Opinion is, at best, divided on what role the Muslim Brotherhood will play in upcoming Egyptian elections. And the administration can't even seem to make up its mind about whether the Muslim Brotherhood is a secular organization with a terrorist past or an increasingly Islamist outfit.
You can bet that even if U.S. intelligence agencies don't know what's happening on the ground in Egypt, Israel certainly does. The fate of Egypt poses a direct threat to the existence of Israel. But Obama has so soured relations with America's one true ally in the Middle East that it cannot help but affect cooperation on intelligence-sharing. This is the time when we most need Israel's insights, but is the Obama administration too worried about how such cooperation would be perceived to even ask for Israel's help? And how willing would the Israelis be to share such information given the administration's lukewarm support of Israel and its inability to control leaks?
The president cannot afford to fly by the seat of his pants. He needs answers -- and so do the American people.
Friday, April 01, 2011
The president's speech on Libya this week raised more questions than it answered. And with fighting there escalating, as Gadhafi's troops battle poorly trained and armed rebels driving them back from strategic territory they had gained, it seems likely that circumstances will force a more expansive role than President Obama outlined.
We are already under pressure from our allies to provide arms to the rebels, directly or indirectly. But we are not positioned to make an informed decision unless we have a better understanding of what is happening on the ground. In his speech, the president stated U.S. goals as narrowly as possible -- to protect civilian populations from slaughter at the hands of Gadhafi's forces. He has demurred on the larger issue of whether it is the goal of the military operation to remove Gadhafi from power, though clearly, any outcome short of Gadhafi's departure would harm U.S. interests. But the problem in Libya, as it was in Iraq, is that we have too little idea what will happen after we achieve our declared military aims.
The administration seems to have been taken totally by surprise, first by popular uprisings in Tunisia, then Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen, and now Syria. But the fault is not Obama's alone. Despite billions of dollars invested each year in intelligence-gathering by a myriad of government agencies, we continue to miss what's happening in places vital to our national interests. It's a problem that dates back for decades.
Our intelligence agencies gave us little advance warning that the Soviet Union was on the point of collapse in the 1980s and that the Berlin Wall would fall in 1989, or to predict that the Soviet Empire in Eastern Europe would disintegrate and the Soviet Union would dissolve in 1991. Ten years later, our intelligence agencies failed to uncover a careful and well-planned al-Qaida operation in the United States that resulted in the most devastating attack on American soil in the nation's history. Two years after that, we went into Iraq confident that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and that, when we deposed him, we would be embraced as liberators.
These are not minor intelligence failures. Despite a massive intelligence reorganization and the claim that we have better coordination and information-sharing among agencies in the aftermath of 9/11, we still keep coming up short on basic facts our leaders need in order to make the right policy choices.
News reports claim that CIA operatives are now on the ground in Libya gathering information about the rebel forces: Who are they? What are their goals? What role are Islamist terrorists -- especially those who have fought against us in Afghanistan and Iraq -- playing in this rebellion? Will a post-Gadhafi Libya be a secular or an Islamist state?
Some of these questions apply not just to Libya but more importantly to Egypt. Libya and Tunisia are far less significant to U.S. interests than Egypt is. But we have no idea what will happen in Egypt once the military relinquishes control. Opinion is, at best, divided on what role the Muslim Brotherhood will play in upcoming Egyptian elections. And the administration can't even seem to make up its mind about whether the Muslim Brotherhood is a secular organization with a terrorist past or an increasingly Islamist outfit.
You can bet that even if U.S. intelligence agencies don't know what's happening on the ground in Egypt, Israel certainly does. The fate of Egypt poses a direct threat to the existence of Israel. But Obama has so soured relations with America's one true ally in the Middle East that it cannot help but affect cooperation on intelligence-sharing. This is the time when we most need Israel's insights, but is the Obama administration too worried about how such cooperation would be perceived to even ask for Israel's help? And how willing would the Israelis be to share such information given the administration's lukewarm support of Israel and its inability to control leaks?
The president cannot afford to fly by the seat of his pants. He needs answers -- and so do the American people.
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