Month: March 2011

One wonders how this rash move will harm the chances of getting out of Afghanistan. The Taliban is relishing the West's move:

“The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan strongly condemns this politically motivated and uncalled-for intervention and adventure by the Western countries in the internal conflict of the people of Libya,” the Taliban announced in a statement e-mailed to news organizations with the names the insurgents’ three key spokesmen.

This will be grist for conspiracy theories and Jihadist recruitment for a long time. Suddenly, the whole debate has moved from what the Arabs can do for themselves back into the old, awful dynamic of the Arab world versus the West. This is why so many of us backed Obama in the first place: his pledge never to go back to this dynamic. And yet one can see only one difference between Obama and McCain in this respect: about three weeks.

Welcome to the Clinton-McCain administration.

(Photo: A Libyan rebel walks past dead bodies of a member of Moammer Khaddafi forces in al-Wayfiyah, 35 km West of Benghazi hit by French warplanes on March 20, 2011. Top US military commander Michael Mullen said the first phase of the operation to enforce a no-fly zone over Libya 'has been successful' and that Moamer Kadhafi's forces are 'no longer marching on Benghazi.' By Patrick Baz/Getty.)

Peter Bergen drank the Susan Rice Kool-Aid as well:

The Obama administration was handed a gift by the Arab League, which in its more than six-decade history has garnered a well-earned reputation as a feckless talking shop, but unusually took a stand one week ago by endorsing a no-fly zone over Libya. That endorsement put the Arab League way out in front of the Obama administration, which was then dithering about whether to do anything of substance to help the rebels fighting Gadhafi.

The unexpected action by the Arab League gave the administration the impetus and diplomatic cover to then go to the United Nations Security Council to secure a broad resolution endorsing not only a no-fly zone, but also allowing member states to "take all necessary measures" to protect civilians in Libya.

And it took the Arab League less than 24 hours to abandon the operation. And so almost instantly, a central plank of this war's legitimacy has been revealed as a delusion.

A reader writes:

So utopianists from the right choose to invade Iraq, motivated by the ghosts of Vietnam and now utopianists from the left choose to invade Libya, motivated by the ghosts of Rwanda. Question for Andrew: Who do I vote for? What are my options? I voted Obama for one reason — a sane foreign policy. Yet both parties appear to be over the cliff, clutching copies of the Bush doctrine. I feel like a large, pragmatic section of the country is left without a voice.

Some of us thought that Obama was just such a pragmatic move past the Clinton and Bush mindsets (and so far, in some respects, he has been). But in this endeavor? Back to the conventional wisdom of the past. As if the last ten years have taught us nothing.

“I am deeply aware of the risks of any military action, no matter what limits we place on it. I want the American people to know that the use of force is not our first choice and it’s not a choice that I make lightly. But we cannot stand idly by when a tyrant tells his people that there will be no mercy, and his forces step up their assaults on cities like Benghazi and Misurata, where innocent men and women face brutality and death at the hands of their own government,” – president Obama.

I watched the president stand idly by as countless young Iranians were slaughtered, imprisoned, tortured and bludgeoned by government thugs by day and night. I believed that this was born of a strategy that understood that, however horrifying it was to watch the Iranian bloodbath, it was too imprudent to launch military action to protect a defenseless people against snipers, murderers and torturers.

Now I am told that “we cannot stand idly by” as tyrants tell their people they will be given no mercy. And so one comes to terms with the fact that this administration is willing to throw out its entire strategy and principles in this period of Middle Eastern revolt – in defense of rebels about whom we know almost nothing, whose strategy is violence, not nonviolence, and whose ability to resist Qaddafi even with Western help is unknowable.

My exasperation and anger is not because I want Obama to fail; but because I want him to succeed. But the views of any blogger, or of the American people, or the US Congress seem irrelevant to this. We live in an empire, it must simply be conceded, in which the emperor gets to tell us, after the fact, that we have embarked on a brutal, bloody war against a madman who holds almost all the cards on the ground. God help us.

I’d say the odds of Clinton making it through a single term as secretary of state have declined; and the odds of a primary challenge to Obama have risen.

Of all the nutty arguments made by secretary of state Clinton for the new war in Libya was that the Arab League had signed on. We were told that military forces flying Arab flags would be at the center of the coalition. Now, we find that there are no such military forces. Worse, even the paper tiger of the Arab League has now bolted the mission, ripping the fig leaf of legitimacy off Obama's privates. It took the Arab League less than a day to do this. And yet this was apparently Clinton's trump card in her internal argument.

Drum roll, please:

The head of the Arab League has criticized international strikes on Libya, saying they caused civilian deaths. The Arab League's support for a no-fly zone last week helped overcome reluctance in the West for action in Libya. The U.N. authorized not only a no-fly zone but also "all necessary measures" to protect civilians. Amr Moussa says the military operations have gone beyond what the Arab League backed.

Moussa has told reporters Sunday that "what happened differs from the no-fly zone objectives." He says "what we want is civilians' protection not shelling more civilians." U.S. and European strikes overnight targeted mainly air defenses, the U.S. military said. Libya says 48 people were killed, including civilians.

And so it begins. A western intervention in a Muslim country with no exit plan, inevitable civilian casualties, and no serious backing from the Arab world, and majority opposition among the US public. What could possibly go wrong?

Yesterday the Dish was airing all points of view, including my own, that this is the worst decision yet made by Barack Obama as president. A defense of the Samantha Power position (and its role in the Obama candidacy and presidency) here; why Sarkozy needed a war for domestic politics here; conservative mystification here; a note on the strange absence in the debate of Joe Biden; my thoughts on the president’s reckless breaking of a core campaign promise here; Colin Powell’s skepticism here; the strange coincidence of the date of the launch of this new war – March 19 – with that of the last president’s decision to attack a Muslim country here; my worry about the influence of the Clintons here; a defense of the new multilateralism in this war here; the unpredictable impact of this in the Arab 1848 here; and an airing of the now-glaring double standard with respect to Iran, Yemen and Bahrain here.

(Photo: Franck Prevel/AFP/Getty.)

Jeffrey Mahan summarizes Kathryn Lofton's Oprah: The Gospel Of An Icon:

She speaks of growing up in the Black church, but as an adult she leaves Jeremiah Wright’s Afrocentric congregation as part of a spiritual quest that incorporates New Age eclecticism, bodily improvement, and self-care. She consumes and markets luxury goods as expressions of identity and self-worth. She is compassionate and generous without challenging political, economic, and social structures. Hers is a “gospel of change,” but the change is entirely personal. Oprah never speaks the collective “we”; she is eternally focused on “I.” I believe. I consume.

(Photo: Oprah Winfrey speaks onstage during the OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network portion of the 2011 Winter TCA press tour on January 6, 2011 in Pasadena, California. By Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images)

Ariel Bleicher profiles the secret world of France's Internet archivists:

"We have a lot of so-called crap, and we're happy about that," says Gildas Illien, an archivist at the [French National Library]. His colleagues in other countries might turn up their noses at hard-core porn, advertisements, and obscure newsletters, but not Illien. "In a hundred years, what's totally irrelevant or dirty today will end up becoming of extreme interest to historians," he declares. 

(Hat tip: Arts & Letters Daily)

Peter Montgomery explains their case:

According to [Glenn Beck's pseudo-historian David Barton], a parable from the 20th chapter of the book of Matthew about the owner of a vineyard making different arrangements with workers was about “the right of private contract”—in other words, the right of employers to come to individual agreements with each employee. Jesus’ parable, he said, is “anti-minimum wage” and “anti-socialist-union kind of stuff.” (This is just one of the parables of Jesus cited by Barton and others in support of laissez-faire economic policies.)

Rogier van der Heide explains why great lighting is as much about darkness as it is about light: