I’ll admit, there is an argument – a thin, riddled, web of an argument – that it was U.S. interests that drove military interventions gone wrong in Iraq and Afghanistan. I don’t buy the argument: As it morphed into a nation-building fantasy, it became disastrously, tragically and recklessly mistaken. But I can see at least that tarnished glimmer of national interest flash in the sludge before sinking from sight.
Nothing like this is to be found in the sands of Libya. This is why the weirdo-bizarre assault on Gadhafi’s forces led, but supposedly not really, by the United States under order of the U.N. Security Council (motley crew) and the Arab League (rogue’s gallery), crossed a fat, red line. The president of the United States sent the U.S. military, already stretched and worn by nearly a decade of wars, into harm’s way for no compelling American reason.
And I mean none. The sudden whim to rid the planet of Gadhafi, while never a bad notion, is, if anything, oddly anticlimactic after his Bush-era debut as a newly minted ally in the “war on terror.” Funny thing: “ally” sounds like a ghastly stretch, but WikiLeaks tells us Gadhafi was in fact most cooperative in providing anti-jihad intelligence – which may or may not have been credible. Still, he should know. It was Libyans, according to a 2007 West Point study, who made the strongest showing, per capita, of foreign insurgents in Iraq. It’s hard not to believe that some who didn’t end up dead or in Gitmo are now “rebels” receiving U.S. air and sea support.
Ain’t it ironic? Or something. It helps explain why Sunni Islam leading cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi – proponent of jihad, Shariah, the caliphate, the Muslim Brotherhood, suicide-bombing all Israelis and U.S. soldiers – is supporting the rebels. According to the Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Report, the umbrella group for anti- Gadhafi forces prominently features Qaradawi’s endorsement on its website.
There’s more. Abu Yahya al-Libi, the al-Qaida star-honcho who escaped from American clutches in Afghanistan, posted a rah-rah video on jihadist websites urging the Libyan “rebels” to keep fighting Gadhafi, predicting dire consequences from defeat.
Just think: Those are “our” rebs, too. I can’t imagine the crew of the USS Kearsarge, now in the Mediterranean, would like that very much. Or the pilots flying F-15s over Libya, either. But what about our Congress? Flat-lining. As for President Obama, if it isn’t impeachable to fight on behalf of America’s enemies, what is?
The fact is, when it comes to American interest, Obama couldn’t care less. He demonstrated that by seeking and taking America’s marching orders solely from the United Nations and the Arab League, without even saying howdy-do to Congress (whose answering chorus of silence is a disgrace), later kicking soccer balls around Rio instead of addressing the American people as to why he was ordering another U.S. military intervention – this one with al-Qaida support.
It’s as if Obama considers the interest he serves as being above all that Congress-American-people-stuff. “Humanitarians” are like that, and what we’re seeing is so-called humanitarian military intervention, the doctrine is promulgated by Obama’s human rights adviser Samantha Power. Known as a genocide expert, Power has gone so far as to argue for the insertion of a “mammoth” American “protection” force into Israeli-Palestinian environs to prevent “human rights abuses” – code for neutralizing Israeli self-defense.
Writing at National Review Online, Stanley Kurtz explains: “Obama dithered when it was simply a matter of replacing Gaddafi, yet quickly acted when slaughter in Benghazi became the issue. What Samantha Power and her supporters want is to solidify the principle of ‘ responsibility to protect’ in international law. That requires a ‘pure’ case of intervention on humanitarian grounds. Power’s agenda would explain why Obama acted when he acted, and why the public rationale for action has not included regime change.”
Kurtz continues: “Yet Obama has so far been reluctant to fully explain any of this to either Congress or the American public, perhaps because he realizes that the ideological basis of his actions would not be popular if openly admitted.”
Nor would the non-nationalist basis of his actions. If this continues, don’t be surprised to find Uncle Sucker “promoted” to World’s Permanent Rent-a-Cop, setting up the next no-fly-zone over Israel to intervene for the “humanitarian” cause of Hamas in Gaza.