WaPo house editorial. They seem confused. The contradictions at the heart of U.S. policy in Libya are becoming more acute. On Friday President Obama joined the leaders of Britain and France in declaring that the NATO air campaign, which was launched in the name of protecting civilians, will continue for as long as dictator Moammar Gaddafi remains in power. Now he speaks for NATO, too?
Yet in an interview he gave to the Associated Press the same day, Mr. Obama acknowledged that the war between rebels and Mr. Gaddafi's forces is stalemated, 10 days after U.S. ground attack aircraft were pulled from the operation on his orders. Does the WaPo really believe Moo-mar can be defeated from the air?
Let's see if we can sum this up: Mr. Obama is insisting that NATO's air operation, already four weeks old, cannot end until Mr. Gaddafi is forced from office -- but he refuses to use American forces to break the military stalemate. I think they got it.
If his real aim were to plunge NATO into a political crisis, or to exhaust the air forces and military budgets of Britain and France -- which are doing most of the bombing -- this would be a brilliant strategy. As it is, it is impossible to understand. No, you were right the previous sentence: it's a brilliant strategy.
How else to explain his decision to deny NATO the two most effective ground attack airplanes in the world -- the AC-130 and A-10 Warthog -- which exist only in the U.S. Air Force and which were attacking Mr. Gaddafi's tanks and artillery until April 4?
Mr. Obama appears less intent on ousting Mr. Gaddafi or ensuring NATO's success than in proving an ideological point -- that the United States need not take the lead in a military operation that does not involve vital U.S. interests. Hanging our allies out to dry is a feature, not a bug.
The French and British have been stranded by Mr. Obama's posture; they are facing the usual difficulties in persuading NATO's other members to join in bombing operations. Only half of the alliance's nations are active in Libya, and a number are quietly opposing a mission they see as ill-conceived. Both the British and French foreign ministers have appealed for American help, but France's Alain Juppe appeared to get a brush-off from Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in a closed-door meeting Thursday. "I got the sense they will stick to their same line," he said.
We believed that Mr. Obama was right to support NATO's intervention in Libya not only because of the risk that Mr. Gaddafi would carry out massacres but because defeating the dictator is crucial to the larger cause of democratic change in the Middle East. It's not at all clear that Moo-mar is as vicious as Saddam was. Maybe there would've only been mini-massacres.
Yet having reluctantly joined the fight -- and accepted the goal of Mr. Gaddafi's ouster -- Mr. Obama seems determined to limit the American role even if it makes success impossible. If the president is very lucky, Mr. Gaddafi will be betrayed and overthrown by his followers or somehow induced to step down voluntarily. We can only hope that the NATO alliance does not collapse between now and then. Yes, the WaPo is clearly confused.
Posted by: Bobby ||
04/17/2011 13:39 ||
Comments ||
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#3
Maybe NATO has outlived its usefulness. They should either revert to their old mission (oh right, no more USSR) or define a new mission that everyone buys into that would allow this type of "kinetic role playing" whenever or wherever some bureaucrat wants.
#4
Funny, I was looking at it as an indictment on the UN; though it is interesting to see the European Socialists System unglue in a light rain. I maintain that EU needs to take some initiative to prevent a clandestine invasion, but come'on quit playing footsie and start playing rugby.
...but of course a stalemate with no solution is the warning Eisenhower presented as the military industrial complex so what the hell, supply north africa and all nutcase special ops with modern weapons, pat yourself on the back for a transaction poorly planned, and die before the handful of years pass before the modernized armed mobs, is that the equalizing goal to disarm 1st world and arm 3rd world and only the UN can be the organizers of local alliances, with the US and EU paying the taxes towards the UN because nobody else will? Really, auto pollution, why doesn't the UN go after KSA et al for producing the stuff instead of the consumers or do we not want to address that question.
Kinetic role playing, now thats funny. If I had to picture it, what we got is a singing telegram serving a warrent on a drug house.
#5
Clearly Barack Obama is a great military strategist in addition to his superb golf skills. Perhaps like Kim Jung Un he should be declared a four star general.
#6
I know what I'd like to declare him, Black Bart, but I'd get sink-trapped.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
04/17/2011 20:06 Comments ||
Top||
#7
I didn't think it would be possible to create a scenario in which Gaddafi looks like the most competent person in the vicinity, but they may have done it.
Posted by: Matt ||
04/17/2011 20:56 Comments ||
Top||
#8
I wouldn't jump to the conclusion that Obama really wants to win this one. I suspect he wants to lose or draw, given a) his former political associates ties to Daffy, and b) that to him it's just an opportunity to waste resources and burn more of the US's seed corn so that we won't be able to reverse the economic catastrophe that's currently happening in slow motion.
#10
I am confused. If we go into a conflict in that part of the world, we expect NATO to join in.
But on the otherhand, if NATO decides to enter into a conflict, we don't have to participate?
I thought, as near as I can remember, there are some buzz word in the NATO treaty that bind the US to action if NATO as an organization chooses to enter a conflict in defense of something or other.
If Obumble, the incompetent One, is trying to deplete the two other Western first line fighting forces, for what reason? A global Islamic overthrow?
He is becoming increasingly dangerous and irrational. I think the Charles Krauthammer diagnosis of Obumble being a toxic Narcissist is being confirmed in front of our eyes.
Posted by: Bill Clinton ||
04/18/2011 0:00 Comments ||
Top||
The Wests political and financial elite is still a very long way from grasping the extent to which the global centre of economic gravity is now shifting and the implications in terms of relative and absolute living standards.
The wave of robberies the city of Malmö has witnessed during this past year is part of a war against the Swedes. This is the explanation given by young robbers from immigrant backgrounds when questioned about why they only rob native Swedes, in interviews with Petra Akesson for her thesis in sociology.
I read a report about young robbers in Stockholm and Malmö and wanted to know why they rob other youths. It usually does not involve a lot of money, she says. She interviewed boys between 15 and 17 years old, both individually and in groups.
Almost 90% of all robberies reported to the police were committed by gangs, not individuals.
When we are in the city and robbing we are waging a war, waging a war against the Swedes. This argument was repeated several times.
Power for me means that the Swedes shall look at me, lie down on the ground and kiss my feet.
The boys explain, laughingly, that there is a thrilling sensation in your body when youre robbing, you feel satisfied and happy, it feels as if youve succeeded, it simply feels good.
Its so easy to rob Swedes, so easy. We rob every single day, as often as we want to, whenever we want to.
The immigrant youth regard the Swedes as stupid and cowardly: The Swedes dont do anything, they just give us the stuff. Theyre so wimpy. The young robbers do not plan their crimes: No, we just see some Swedes that look rich or have nice mobile phones and then we rob them.
h/t instapundit
...It was a chilly, wet and blustery afternoon in Madison, Wisconsin one more appropriate for a late-season Packers game than a springtime political rally. The stirring NFL Films theme, The Classic Battle, wouldve been a more apt musical choice than Van Halens Right Now to accompany Palin as she entered the stage outside the state capital building to address thousands of Tea Party members, along with a good number of extremely hostile, expletive-hurling government union rowdies.
So MSM, keep obsessing over the shiny new Trump toy if you must. But better keep an eye on a certain sharpshooting, grizzly mama.
#1
She may not have a Medal of Honor, but her politics makes me think of parallels to Teddy Roosevelt. Scares the heck out of elitist Republicans and has a good solid link to the common citizen. Of course this observation only goes so far. It's not 1889.
#2
#1 Ditto that "good solid link to the common citizen". What is good and right is wrong today.
The same people will vote for Obama in the next election. No change has occurred for them to vote for another. The seniors want their money, poor want their safety nets, students want their loans,those who work for the government want their jobs and so on. The Israeli are on their own. Those of the Jewish faith here
are nearly 100% for Obama. We shall all have sardines and Matzah at the Seder so to speak.
We shall all be poor.
#4
Thoseof the Jewish faith here are nearly 100% for Obama.
A vile canard. Only 78% of the Jewish vote went to Obama in 2008, and likely many of those will not vote for him or donate to his campaign in the next election, though they also won't vote for or donate to the Republican candidate.
At the community level alternate, non-Progressive Jewish organizations have been self-organizing over the past two years, Tea Party style. In Indiana entire congregations have left the progressive Jewish organization and formed their own group. They started working with one of the Republican state legislators, and when the Republicans swept both houses in Indiana last year, he got a resolution passed supporting Israel.
#6
Glad to hear people of the Jewish faith are moving away from Progressivism. Hope the trend continues. Obama has done little to nothing to support people of the Jewish faith. One could think of him as anti-semitic. He has put Israel in a dangerous position.
Pakistan joins the discussion started by Dr. Fadl and his fellow jihadi prisoners in Egypt.
DURING the mass movement against then president Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, concern was raised that radical and violent actors could try to exploit the situation in pursuit of their objectives. However, a smooth transition in Egypt has proven wrong apprehensions of violence by jihadist groups.
There has been violence, some quite nasty, but mostly it's not been reported.
After the transition, it was claimed that Mubarak had crushed the jihadists in the 1990s and those that had remained were unable to mount a serious challenge. Some commentators have argued that mass movements are not the domain of jihadists. Many others have denied the presence of jihadist networks in Egypt. Further explanations have been given in this regard but a major element that has not really been factored in is the in-depth debate that challenged the militant narrative in Egypt.
Egypt passed through a violent phase in the 1990s when the government made all-out efforts to dismantle jihadist groups in the country. The Mubarak regime had filled up the prisons with thousands of suspects. Although rejection of violence by the Muslim Brotherhood had shrunk the space for violent actors in Egyptian society, the discourse facilitated among captive members of the Islamic Group (Gamaa Islamiyah) and Al Jihad, the two main jihadist groups in Egypt, on the issue of the legitimacy of pursuing a violent path, contributed much towards countering violent ideological tendencies.
The debate was initiated among thousands of imprisoned members of the Islamic Group and questioned the justification of violence for achieving their stated goals. After the discourse, reading and furtive conversations, the detainees came to feel that they had been manipulated into pursuing a violent path. Although it was difficult to start the debate as initially it had faced strong opposition both inside and outside the prisons, at some point the imprisoned members of Al Jihad, the most violent group in Egypt and led by Ayman Al-Zawahiri, also began to express an interest in joining the non-violent initiative. But Dr Fadl, the architect of Al Qaedas ideological paradigm, was the man who turned the initiative into a great debate.
Fadl, an Egyptian physician and scholar, was one of the first members of Al Qaedas top council and proponent of the literature that Al Qaeda used for indoctrination. His book Compendium gave Al Qaeda the licence to murder all those who stood in its way. Al-Zawahiri had declared the book a victory from God. Later, Fadl accused Al-Zawahiri of adding new chapters to his book and rephrasing it in parts, which caused a rift between the two.
Al-Zawahiris amendments to Fadls work provoked a debate among the imprisoned leaders of the Islamic Group in the late 1990s. They started to examine the evidence and felt that they had been manipulated into pursuing a violent path. In 2001, Fadl was arrested in Yemen and handed over to Egypt. Fadl joined his former colleagues in prison and started revising his previous work and came up with a title Rationalising Jihad in Egypt and the World. This new book attempted to reconcile Fadls well-known views with sweeping modifications from Compendium.
Apart from covering many critical issues including the conditions for jihad in foreign lands and the killing of innocent civilians, Fadl critically examined the question of takfir and observed that there were various kinds of takfir, and that the matter was so complex that it must be left to competent Islamic jurists, and that members of the public were not qualified to enforce the law. He cautioned that it was not permissible for a Muslim to condemn another Muslim.
The debate provided an opportunity to Islamic Group and Al Jihad members to review their strategies and give up violence. At the same time, on a societal level, it helped to strengthen non-violent narratives. One has not even heard echoes of such a discourse in Pakistan, although the dire need for that cannot be emphasised enough.
Religious scholars in Pakistan have issued more than a dozen conditional religious decrees against suicide attacks, stating that there is no justification for such attacks on Pakistani soil. However, in the decrees they have not failed to mention that terrorist attacks are a reaction to the governments policies. There has been intentional evasion of talking about extremism mainly on the ideological front. This attitude of putting the entire burden on the state and shirking ones own responsibility has almost become the norm in Pakistan.
Fear for personal security, as much as any other factor, has hindered the initiation of a debate on such sensitive issues. A number of religious scholars from all schools of thoughts hold contrary views on the militant discourse but these views either do not have support within their sectarian domains or the scholars do not want to expound their thoughts vociferously for fear of risking their lives.
Very few scholars have been willing to speak out in the face of personal threats. Allama Javed Ghamdi is one such scholar who has been the voice of reason in the ideological proliferation in Pakistan. But the clergy in Pakistan does not accept his narrative because of his modern credentials. There is an urgent need to find the voice of reason among the clergy, which has an influence in the militant circles and can courageously initiate debate on critical issues.
In this context, one example is a young Deobandi scholar, Muhammad Ammar Khan Nasir, son of Maulana Zahidul Rashidi, who wields influence in the Deobandi school of thought and is well respected even among militant groups in Pakistan.
Nasir, in his newsletter, Al Sharia, has declared that it is not permissible on religious grounds for non-Afghan Muslims to fight against international forces in Afghanistan. He has argued that Pakistan is in agreement with the international community in Afghanistan and if the government supported the Taliban it would be going against the principles of Islam.
An interesting point...
He has also spoken about the militants limited understanding of world politics and stated that they required intellectual guidance. He has urged the clergy to abandon its state of denial and recognise, rather than justify, the Talibans weaknesses.
The debate initiated by Ammar Nasir has formed the basis for an intellectual discussion among Deobandi scholars. This is a ray of hope that the intellectual discourse is still intact in the religious community in Pakistan. But the crucial question is: can these discussions be transformed into something close to the great debate in Egypt?
The writer, Muhammad Amir Rana, is editor of the quarterly research journal Conflict and Peace Studies.
Pakistan joins the discussion started by Dr. Fadl and his fellow jihadi prisoners in Egypt.
DURING the mass movement against then president Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, concern was raised that radical and violent actors could try to exploit the situation in pursuit of their objectives. However, a smooth transition in Egypt has proven wrong apprehensions of violence by jihadist groups.
There has been violence, some quite nasty, but mostly it's not been reported.
After the transition, it was claimed that Mubarak had crushed the jihadists in the 1990s and those that had remained were unable to mount a serious challenge. Some commentators have argued that mass movements are not the domain of jihadists. Many others have denied the presence of jihadist networks in Egypt. Further explanations have been given in this regard but a major element that has not really been factored in is the in-depth debate that challenged the militant narrative in Egypt.
Egypt passed through a violent phase in the 1990s when the government made all-out efforts to dismantle jihadist groups in the country. The Mubarak regime had filled up the prisons with thousands of suspects. Although rejection of violence by the Muslim Brotherhood had shrunk the space for violent actors in Egyptian society, the discourse facilitated among captive members of the Islamic Group (Gamaa Islamiyah) and Al Jihad, the two main jihadist groups in Egypt, on the issue of the legitimacy of pursuing a violent path, contributed much towards countering violent ideological tendencies.
The debate was initiated among thousands of imprisoned members of the Islamic Group and questioned the justification of violence for achieving their stated goals. After the discourse, reading and furtive conversations, the detainees came to feel that they had been manipulated into pursuing a violent path. Although it was difficult to start the debate as initially it had faced strong opposition both inside and outside the prisons, at some point the imprisoned members of Al Jihad, the most violent group in Egypt and led by Ayman Al-Zawahiri, also began to express an interest in joining the non-violent initiative. But Dr Fadl, the architect of Al Qaeda's ideological paradigm, was the man who turned the initiative into a great debate.
Fadl, an Egyptian physician and scholar, was one of the first members of Al Qaeda's top council and proponent of the literature that Al Qaeda used for indoctrination. His book Compendium gave Al Qaeda the licence to murder all those who stood in its way. Al-Zawahiri had declared the book a victory from God. Later, Fadl accused Al-Zawahiri of adding new chapters to his book and rephrasing it in parts, which caused a rift between the two.
Al-Zawahiri's amendments to Fadl's work provoked a debate among the imprisoned leaders of the Islamic Group in the late 1990s. They started to examine the evidence and felt that they had been manipulated into pursuing a violent path. In 2001, Fadl was arrested in Yemen and handed over to Egypt. Fadl joined his former colleagues in prison and started revising his previous work and came up with a title Rationalising Jihad in Egypt and the World. This new book attempted to reconcile Fadl's well-known views with sweeping modifications from Compendium.
Apart from covering many critical issues including the conditions for jihad in foreign lands and the killing of innocent civilians, Fadl critically examined the question of takfir and observed that there were various kinds of takfir, and that the matter was so complex that it must be left to competent Islamic jurists, and that members of the public were not qualified to enforce the law. He cautioned that it was not permissible for a Muslim to condemn another Muslim.
The debate provided an opportunity to Islamic Group and Al Jihad members to review their strategies and give up violence. At the same time, on a societal level, it helped to strengthen non-violent narratives. One has not even heard echoes of such a discourse in Pakistan, although the dire need for that cannot be emphasised enough.
Religious scholars in Pakistan have issued more than a dozen conditional religious decrees against suicide attacks, stating that there is no justification for such attacks on Pakistani soil. However, in the decrees they have not failed to mention that terrorist attacks are a reaction to the government's policies. There has been intentional evasion of talking about extremism mainly on the ideological front. This attitude of putting the entire burden on the state and shirking one's own responsibility has almost become the norm in Pakistan.
Fear for personal security, as much as any other factor, has hindered the initiation of a debate on such sensitive issues. A number of religious scholars from all schools of thoughts hold contrary views on the militant discourse but these views either do not have support within their sectarian domains or the scholars do not want to expound their thoughts vociferously for fear of risking their lives.
Very few scholars have been willing to speak out in the face of personal threats. Allama Javed Ghamdi is one such scholar who has been the voice of reason in the ideological proliferation in Pakistan. But the clergy in Pakistan does not accept his narrative because of his modern credentials. There is an urgent need to find the voice of reason among the clergy, which has an influence in the militant circles and can courageously initiate debate on critical issues.
In this context, one example is a young Deobandi scholar, Muhammad Ammar Khan Nasir, son of Maulana Zahidul Rashidi, who wields influence in the Deobandi school of thought and is well respected even among militant groups in Pakistan.
Nasir, in his newsletter, Al Sharia, has declared that it is not permissible on religious grounds for non-Afghan Muslims to fight against international forces in Afghanistan. He has argued that Pakistan is in agreement with the international community in Afghanistan and if the government supported the Taliban it would be going against the principles of Islam.
An interesting point...
He has also spoken about the militants' limited understanding of world politics and stated that they required intellectual guidance. He has urged the clergy to abandon its state of denial and recognise, rather than justify, the Taliban's weaknesses.
The debate initiated by Ammar Nasir has formed the basis for an intellectual discussion among Deobandi scholars. This is a ray of hope that the intellectual discourse is still intact in the religious community in Pakistan. But the crucial question is: can these discussions be transformed into something close to the great debate in Egypt?
The writer, Muhammad Amir Rana, is editor of the quarterly research journal Conflict and Peace Studies. Continued on Page 49
#3
You'll note that the question is quite specific: is violent jihad against Islam? This does not preclude non-violent jihad, the soft jihad of law and culture engaged in so actively in the U.S. and Europe. The question goes back to the shocking lesson of 9/11 -- violence against those damned American kufrs results in overwhelming, humiliating and deadly force against the perpetrators, but more importantly against their supporters and hosts... and most importantly of all, to the mystics, Allah has not intervened on their side as expected. And all while they sat in the safety of their Egyptian cells.
And so, when the goal clearly will not be achieved one way, another must be adopted, as has been described in the Koran and all that. The problem is, such subtleties are no doubt not a matter of focus at the madrassahs where the cannon fodder study.
Can President Obama, Vice President Biden, or Secretary of State Clinton walk and chew gum at the same time? Evidently not. Perhaps Obama can take the 3:00 a.m. phone call, but alas he and his team are ill-prepared to take that, and the 3:10 a.m. and the 3:15 a.m. phone calls together.
What is going on in the Middle East is truly incredible. A Tunisian fruit vendors self-immolation leads to the fall of the Tunisian dictatortruly a noxious character albeit a secular onefollowed in short order by Hosni Mubarak, an ally in name only. Now, Yemeni dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh is hanging by a thread, NATO forces are half-heartedly trying to undermine Qaddafis hold on Libya, and trouble has started in Syria. In all these cases, the Obama administration has been behind the curve. Obamas foreign policy style is akin to a gambler at a blackjack table who wants to sit at the table, but place his bets only after the dealer has laid out the cards.
In all these crises, President Obama has only reacted after violence has occurred. What message does this send to dissidents and those peacefully seeking reform?
It seems, alas, that only the squeaky wheels get the grease. Demonstrators must use bombs and bullets if they want to be heard. That is not a message Washington should send.
In Iraqi Kurdistan, protesters have been out in the street for more than 50 days protesting peacefully against corruption, nepotism, and the lack of democracy. Even though the demonstrations have been peacefulsome rock-throwing asideMasud Barzani and Jalal Talabanis militias have opened fire on crowds, killing at least eight. Journalists have been leading the charge, and a number have been arrested, beaten, or shot. And yet, through it all, the Obama administration has been largely silent.
Silence is not neutrality; it benefits dictatorships. Last week, during his swing through Iraq, Defense Secretary Robert Gates visited Barzani. Gatess mission was straightforward. He was seeking resolution on Iraqs unresolved government formation, and was also discussing flashpoints such as Kirkuk. What he was not doing, according to members of his team, was showing any shade of green light to Barzanis actions to crackdown on the democracy protestors. But the U.S. silence has given Barzani an opening to do what Barzani does best: spread falsehoods in the interest of his own political power. Iraqi Kurdish officials have hinted darkly to the protesters that the Obama administration has blessed a crackdown. The only certainty amid the Kurdish crisis is that the most pro-American people in the Middle East will now blame the United States the next time Barzani decides to kidnap a journalist or shoot a 14-year-oid
This is truly scathing criticism and very on point.
The last paragraph is very damning.
Even Robert Gates who is probably the most astute person on the cabinet,has trouble keeping the heard pointed in one direction. Where is the White House to refute the false spin on Gates' visit?
Answer: either on the back nine at the Army Navy Golf Course or hiding under his desk in the oval office....
Disgusting.
Posted by: Bill Clinton ||
04/17/2011 23:52 Comments ||
Top||
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
The contradictions at the heart of U.S. policy in Libya are becoming more acute. On Friday President Obama joined the leaders of Britain and France in declaring that the NATO air campaign, which was launched in the name of protecting civilians, will continue for as long as dictator Moammar Gaddafi remains in power. 
