Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

You can’t love your country only when you win.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

Tick tock motherfuckers!

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

“More of this”, i said to the dog.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

This fight is for everything.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

“But what about the lurkers?”

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

I did not have telepathic declassification on my 2022 bingo card.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

This really is a full service blog.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Presidential address open thread

Reader Interactions

209Comments

  3. 3.

    Lolis

    I read it since I am at work. It was actually very good. I am still not in love with the intervention but I can live with it, if it is short.

  6. 6.

    Jim Pharo

    Made the case. Made me proud. This seemed like the guy I voted for.

    Grateful that we weren’t hearing from President McCain, Palin or Romney.

  8. 8.

    Strandedvandal

    I think it was well delivered, well thought out, made sense and laid out the who, what, why, where and when in a simple and easy to follow format that a child could understand. And people like Beese are going to hate him no matter what.

  10. 10.

    joe from Lowell

    I get the sense that Obama “gets” that the uprisings across the Middle East represent an important historic change, a “revolutionary moment,” that we can’t afford to be on the wrong side of, or allow to catch us flat-footed.

    In the way that Truman-Ike-Kennedy-Johnson-Nixon-Ford-Reagan didn’t understand the popular uprisings against the plantation oligarchs in Central America.

  12. 12.

    licensed to kill time

    Oh gawd, Wolfie is getting reaction from John McCain.

    sooner! shoulda been sooner!

  14. 14.

    Violet

    I thought it was great. I listened to most of it and then went over to the TV and watched the last five minutes or so. He seemed to be looking at the camera more than in most of his speeches, which made him come across more as talking-directly-to-the-American-people.

    I also liked the appeal to our values and thought that worked well as justification for what he chose to do and how he did it.

  15. 15.

    licensed to kill time

    @mr. whipple:

    McCain seems to be trying very hard not to look bat shit crazy.

    His little fakey laugh makes me want to punch him in the neck.

  16. 16.

    max

    Well, reading the speech, it looks solid. I am disagree with the ‘not getting rid of Ghaddafi’ part, but otherwise, it’s just fine.

    max
    [‘And he got out in front on what happens when this thing spreads all over the Muslim world.’]

  18. 18.

    Linda Featheringill

    I thought it was a good speech. Naturally.

    But to the content:

    It seems to me that the Powers That Be were dreading Ghaddifi entering Benghazi as much as I was. I was really afraid of some really bad stuff going down. So The West [mainly US in this instance} stopped that. Good.

    I really like the idea of NATO taking over the project. They can do it. They can get the credit for it. I will stand to the side and applaud.

    Also, this whole situation of us vs. Libya just might turn out okay.

  19. 19.

    justawriter

    Sayeth the Rude Pundit “thinks the takeaway from Obama’s speech tonight is “It’s easier to defeat Gaddhafi than it is to defeat congressional Republicans.””

  20. 20.

    eemom

    I think Barack Obama is about a zillion times smarter than any of the idiots on this blog who attack him.

    I’m in a kumbaya kind of mood tonight.

  21. 21.

    Catzmaw

    Another solid outing for the good professor. He does have a knack for explaining things in a straightforward, easy to comprehend kind of way. I was more wobbly about the action before, but believe now that he made the best decision under the circumstances and for very substantial reasons.

  22. 22.

    Jeanette Harper

    I liked the speech – I was not thrilled with our intervention but I think Obama made his case very well tonight

  23. 23.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @licensed to kill time:

    Leslie is one of the most worthless sacks of shit representing the major networks today. The Faux Nooze guys at least beat the drum for fucked up reactionary ideology. Leslie is just clueless.

  24. 24.

    The Dangerman

    Obot here, so, of course, I thought it was fine. Not his best, not his worst.

    I would have liked to hear him address some of the really silly shit like “why did you go to Chile?” (well, because he has things like telephones). Otherwise, seemed like he dotted the i’s and crossed the t’s on all the complaints.

  25. 25.

    rob!

    For all his (many) failings, I still wake up every morning glad this man is President. He* is the only thing keeping the completely insane from taking over.

    *(and a handful of actual progressive/liberal Dems, and Bernie Sanders)

  26. 26.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @The Dangerman:

    It’s funny that Obama gets dinged by the usual suspects for “going to Chile” while this is happening, but they had no problem with the deserting coward phoning in an entire war of aggression from his Potemkin ranch in Texas.

  28. 28.

    Tom Q

    Thought it was just right — put it in a values context that had an inspirational aspect, without so indulging in rhetoric as to make it a candidate for ridicule from the “just words” crowd (though of course Beese chimed in anyway, being the predictabot he is).

    This is the guy I voted for, no question.

  29. 29.

    Nellcote

    @Linda Featheringill:

    I also like the way he has pushed the Arab League to step up and take some responsibilty in this parthership instead of just standing on the sidelines bitching. That has long term posibilities.

  31. 31.

    arguingwithsignposts

    As I told The Somebody while reading the text: “Shorter Obama: “Ghadafi is a stone idiot who should have just stepped aside before we had to go all medieval on his ass.” “

  32. 32.

    licensed to kill time

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    I wasn’t sure who you were talking about until I remembered Wolfie’s middle name. I watch CNN Int’l and unfortunately when American centered news happens, Wolfie and crew break in. He’s just a worthless puffer.

    I tend to be skeptical of all Presidents and politicians but I have to say I am glad Obama is on this. I just tend to trust him to not go all medieval like a McCain, say, might do and to truly try the multilateral approach.

    I guess that makes me an Obot, but it’s how I feel.

    eta: ha! didn’t see aws’s comment, fine minds etc.

  34. 34.

    Elia

    I thought it was a pretty impressive effort and about as well-executed as was possible. He was making a difficult argument and was trying to have it both ways vis-a-vis our practical and ideological interests. I would’ve really loved for this to have happened BEFORE the operation began, but that’s not a tradition he started so I’m not going to give him too much blame for it.

    One thing’s for sure, though: nothing’s made me feel quite as inclined to support the President lately as I felt when reading the utter bullshit spewing from Joe Scarborough’s fingertips across the twitter intertubes.

  35. 35.

    The Dangerman

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    It’s funny that Obama gets dinged by the usual suspects for “going to Chile” while this is happening…

    If I were Obama, I would have brought up Chile, stopped the speech, break out the double bubble and walk across the stage (thus proving he could walk and chew gum at the same time) and told his Chile critics to grow the fuck up, but, well, that wouldn’t have been Presidential, I suppose.

  36. 36.

    Maude

    @The Dangerman:
    I think he wanted to stick with the subject of Libya.
    If he brought up the Latin America trip, the press would pick that up and run with it and Libya would be lost.

    McCain’s laugh sounds like GW’s and it is so creepy.

  40. 40.

    Joe Beese

    A man so fiscally responsible as to cut winter heating oil subidies to the poor might have said something about how he was going to pay for this expression of our values.

    I guess he’ll just have to cut a bit more from Socisl Security.

  42. 42.

    Wisdom

    Must have been a short speech, or his teleprompter was broken. He only said “I” 33 times.

  43. 43.

    MikeJ

    It’s a pity there aren’t a few tomahawks to spare for the studio of Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me.

  44. 44.

    licensed to kill time

    @soonergrunt: It’s his constant blinking and phony laugh that give him away. Well, that and his words and actions, but who pays attention to those? ‘cept us sane folk.

  45. 45.

    stuckinred

    @Wisdom: Well dickhead, the speech was about why he decided what he did. What the fuck should he have said, YOU?

  46. 46.

    Linnaeus

    I usually don’t watch presidential speeches and prefer to read the text instead, so that’s what I just did (I was still at work when the speech began).

    I thought it was a well-presented and well-supported argument. I’ll admit to being a skeptic with respect to this intervention, but I wasn’t outright opposed to it because there was a threat of a massive crime against humanity and this clearly wasn’t a case of the US acting in a unilateral, damn-what-anyone-else-thinks sort of way.

    I didn’t care much for the exceptionalist elements of the speech, but you’ll see those in any presidential speech about foreign policy, so Obama is following a long-established pattern. I also have a lot of remaining questions about the endgame in Libya, particularly with respect to regime change. It’s hard for me to see how this situation doesn’t end with some kind of regime change with NATO & US backing, given that Qaddafi himself is the source of the humanitarian threat. If I turn out to be wrong about that, well, it won’t be the first time and I’ll call it good.

    So I still have some qualms, but I do understand things better than I did before.

  47. 47.

    Pavlov's Dog

    Speech was tight, well delivered, and went out of his way to address the various criticisms from the left and right. Expect the right tomorrow to get behind the talking point that Obama does not believe in American exceptionalism and is handing over our place in the world order to UN votes on when to intervene.

  53. 53.

    J.W. Hamner

    I tend not to think speeches make much of a difference, but this seems like one he really needed to give. Only read the text, but I thought the point about hypothetical Libyan refugees fleeing death destabilizing neighboring democratic (we hope) revolutions was especially good.

  54. 54.

    Hermione Granger-Weasley

    @arguingwithsignposts: Not really. If A-stan was WAI there would be fewer Taliban than when we started.
    Our exit strategy from A-stan is probably going to look like Operation Frequent Wind II at this rate.

  55. 55.

    mr. whipple

    Expect the right tomorrow to get behind the talking point that Obama does not believe in American exceptionalism and is handing over our place in the world order to UN votes on when to intervene.

    That won’t fly. This baby was covered in flags and bunting and merkin values. Reagan couldn’t have done better.

  57. 57.

    John Cole

    @Wisdom:

    Must have been a short speech, or his teleprompter was broken. He only said “I” 33 times.

    Who helped you count after you ran out of fingers and toes at 20?

  58. 58.

    Linnaeus

    @Pavlov’s Dog:

    Expect the right tomorrow to get behind the talking point that Obama does not believe in American exceptionalism and is handing over our place in the world order to UN votes on when to intervene.

    It’ll be interesting to see how the right tries to spin that. It’s clear to me from the speech that Obama was expressing a form of American exceptionalism.

  59. 59.

    Hermione Granger-Weasley

    @J.W. Hamner:

    neighboring democratic (we hope) revolutions

    Oh, they are democratic, never doubt.
    IPOF, 25% of All The Arabs There Are just democratically voted for shariah law in Egypt.

    Article 2 asserts that “Islam is the religion of the state” and that Islamic law represents “the principal source of legislation.”

  60. 60.

    Evolved Deep Southerner

    @Joe Beese: I was wondering when the cocksucker brigade would come storming in here. Look who’s got the baton leading that parade …

  61. 61.

    sidhra

    What amazes me is that 40 years of cheap talk and the occasional pot shot at Qaddafi is now framed by guys like Barbecue John McCain as If Obama can’t flush his papa Mummar out in two weeks, he’s weak weak weak and the nation is doooomed. And Cokie Roberts is all over that take.

  62. 62.

    stuckinred

    Lawrence is KILLING Newt! “I’m 67, Cialis won’t help me anymore so NOW you can trust me!”

  66. 66.

    jazzgurl

    Knocked it out of the goddamned park. Yep. that’s my Prez. And I am a cheerleader. So? Great stuff!

  67. 67.

    Roger Moore

    @John Cole:
    I’m sure he got it from a list of right wing talking points. He doesn’t need to count, just repeat what somebody else has told him. I would be surprised if his count is correct; it’s probably copied from the talking points for some previous speech.

  68. 68.

    Joe Beese

    went out of his way to address the various criticisms from the left

    “I know some have found it suspicious that once again American miltary force is being used to effect regime change in an uncooperative oil-exporting country. That once again a poorly defined mission with no visible exit strategy will be enriching the arms manufacturers who lobby Washington so extensively. But I want to assure those people that those resemblances are misleading. This is totally different. Honest!”

  71. 71.

    eemom

    ….AND, I also think he is about a zillionty zillion times smarter than Julian Assange, Dennis Kucinich, Ralph Nader, Glenn Greenwald, Jane Hamsher, Marcy Wheeler, Andrew Sullivan, Markos Moulitsas, Frank Rich, Matt Taibbi, and John Cole.

  74. 74.

    JPL

    I really, really wanted him to say freedom isn’t free.
    IMO, the speech was good but I thought that he tried to sound cowboyish in the beginning. It seemed to me that his staff said to sound tough.
    2 I’s and a me…

  76. 76.

    Linnaeus

    @stuckinred:

    You can say COCKSUCKER but not V(%%*746gra? Jesus who set up that filter???

    Maybe John’s worried about pharmaceutical spam bots like the ones that email you about great deals on Viagra.

    At least that happens to me. What?

  79. 79.

    soonergrunt

    I think the speech was typical Barack Obama–concise, clear, eloquent, and inspiring.
    I still don’t think we should be wasting US tax dollars in support of European prerogatives to protect people who will strap suicide vests on their children, but I am comfortable that the President made the call he made for the right reasons.

  80. 80.

    Joe Beese

    If you want to stay sober, the drinking game words you should pick are:

    Civil War
    Exit Strategy
    Cost to the taxpayers

  83. 83.

    Hermione Granger-Weasley

    @arguingwithsignposts: sho’ foo’.
    In 2009

    A recent U.S. intelligence assessment has raised the estimated number of full-time Taliban-led insurgents fighting in Afghanistan to at least 25,000, underscoring how the crisis has worsened even as the U.S. and its allies have beefed up their military forces, a U.S. official said Thursday.
    The U.S. official, who requested anonymity because the assessment is classified, said the estimate represented an increase of at least 5,000 fighters, or 25 percent, over what an estimate found last year.

    In 2010, according to Wikileaks there are 30,000. Plot the curve, 5,000 full-time fighters per year.
    We are spending one billion dollars a month to make more Taliban.
    Can you say Fall of Saigon Kabul?
    Get to the choppah!

  84. 84.

    Joe Beese

    I think the speech was typical Barack Obama—concise, clear, eloquent, and inspiring

    Did you see a starburst?

  85. 85.

    Bob Loblaw

    @arguingwithsignposts:

    That would probably be a tough rhetorical pivot from Mr. “Nowhere else in the world is my story possible” from the campaign. I actually think people fail to realize how deeply Obama believes in American exceptionalism of ideals and progress and that sort of shit, but just not the more militant or cynical strains.

  88. 88.

    Hermione Granger-Weasley

    @soonergrunt:

    I still don’t think we should be wasting US tax dollars in support of European prerogatives to protect people who will strap suicide vests on their children

    no, instead we should be slaughtering muslim dads with drones so we can build girls schools for their orphaned daughters….. like in A-stan.

  89. 89.

    stuckinred

    @Evolved Deep Southerner: Swell, once the Illini got beat I was able to enjoy my favorite time of year besides football season. The murder her was pretty nuts since they caught the dude about a mile away and there was a good deal of tension while he was on the loose. What’s up “up in South Carolina” as Buffet says?

  90. 90.

    Evolved Deep Southerner

    @stuckinred: I feel kind of bad now that I’m the only one not ignoring the paid troll here. Is there some kind of broad pact I missed out on? If so, I may be late to the party, but I’m down.

  91. 91.

    arguingwithsignposts

    @Hermione Granger-Weasley:

    Taliban-led insurgents

    and you wrote:

    If A-stan was WAI there would be fewer Taliban than when we started.

    Now, are they taliban, or taliban-led?
    And where are they getting these estimates? Are these the same ppl who once told us about WMD’s in iraq? or AQ connections with Saddam?

    You may be right, but I’m not taking estimates out of Af/Pak at face value from anyone.

  92. 92.

    Evolved Deep Southerner

    @stuckinred: Nothing but Darling Nikki all the time. I’ll tell you, Nimrata is going to be four years of king-hell fun.

  95. 95.

    stuckinred

    Rachel
    “Whether you are for or against the current intervention he is consistent with what he has said he believes an intervention should be”. (paraphrase)

  97. 97.

    Hermione Granger-Weasley

    @arguingwithsignposts: I told you. Wikileaks, and fulltime Taliban-led insurgents are Taliban. Unless they are Jaamat-e-Ismali coming cross border from Pak.
    We are also making more islamists in Pak, didja know? All the Pakistani islamist parties have grown in the last four years, since we started drone slaughtering their civilians too.

  98. 98.

    Evolved Deep Southerner

    @stuckinred: I’ve heard tell of opportunities to make something like 8.5 cents a post to go and post on/fuck up political blogs. How does a man get in on that action? And does goading fuckers like me into responding get you an extra penny or two, or what?

  100. 100.

    Hermione Granger-Weasley

    @J.W. Hamner: Oh, its not over yet. The Muslim Brotherhood is embedded as IAF in Jordan, al-Islah in Yemen, and as the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood in Syria.
    Egypt is just the harbinger.
    Islamic democracy is going to be the shape of MENA governments in future.

  101. 101.

    Evolved Deep Southerner

    @stuckinred: Hell, I am too. And as long as fuckers like Nimrod Haley are at the top of the state food chain (and you’ve got the same people at the top of your food chain, I know), you’ve got to make your own COLA, you know? Eight and a half cents a post may not be much, but it’s something. And, fuck, how hard could it be? I mean, look at the cut-and-pasting shitbirds we get here.

  105. 105.

    Anne Laurie

    @stuckinred:

    You can say COCKSUCKER but not V(%%*746gra? Jesus who set up that filter???

    If somebody is trying to sell the first one, they’re violating the TOS agreement. Spambots prefer name-brand pharmaceuticals to avoid that loophole.

    @soonergrunt: Seconded.

  106. 106.

    Hermione Granger-Weasley

    : Here is how US taxpayer dollars are used to make more Jaamat-e-Ismali in Pakistan.

    At least 40 people have died in a US drone strike in the Pakistani region of North Waziristan, local officials say.
    Most of the victims were believed to be civilians attending a tribal meeting near the regional capital, Miranshah.

  107. 107.

    Benjamin Cisco

    Liked the speech, the NeoConfederate response to it (including the take from Sir John of Orange) is both completely expected and summarily dismissed.

  109. 109.

    Hermione Granger-Weasley

    @Anne Laurie: seconded…..on this?

    I still don’t think we should be wasting US tax dollars in support of European prerogatives to protect people who will strap suicide vests on their children,

    honestly, im just axin’. I dont want to be Hall Monitor this term.
    It seems my moral compass is broken.
    :(

  110. 110.

    soonergrunt

    @joe from Lowell: You’re right. It isn’t cool. It’s sad, actually, which is why I don’t think we should be wasting our money. Let them stand or fall on their own. Anything we do including nothing will lead to us being blamed for the bad shit, with a concomitant terrorist attack or two, so we might as well do nothing and save the money at least.

  112. 112.

    Tax Analyst

    @stuckinred:

    You can say COCKSUCKER but not V(%%*746gra? Jesus who set up that filter???

    Well, one could result in pregnancy, but the other does not. Not that any of this should matter enough to get filtered out, but filters are by their nature totally oblivious to context or nuance.

    Hmmm…sort of like most Repulicans in that respect, aren’t they?

  113. 113.

    Corner Stone

    What do you think?

    I think I am very happy my son and I were riding bikes in the lakeside park, instead of watching fantastic drivel.

  117. 117.

    Hermione Granger-Weasley

    @soonergrunt: blamed for the “bad shit”….hmm.
    Do you mean Gharani massacre, Abu Ghraib, the Afghan Kill Squad, the Iraqi Rape Squad, Camp No, Fallujah massacre, Baghram Theater Detention Facility, US drone on afghan wedding party action, NATO chopper on children gathering firewood action?
    Because we are to blame, you know.

  122. 122.

    Hermione Granger-Weasley

    @soonergrunt: wouldn’t it be better to pull the plug in Afghanistan? It is a billion a month to make more Taliban.
    BTW, what is the exit strategy for A-stan?
    Operation Frequent Wind II?

  123. 123.

    Hermione Granger-Weasley

    @stuckinred: But I’m not taking the cheese, stuckin.
    I’m PROTESTING.
    Do you know the exit strategy for A-stan?
    Because it looks like Operation Frequent Wind II from here.
    ;)

  124. 124.

    Evolved Deep Southerner

    @Omnes Omnibus: Give me a week to work it and I’ll tell you. The thing is, the rightie blogs aren’t like this one. They brook no open dissent, and even the gentlest concern trolls get banished. I don’t know if I’m sub-tull enough.

    ETA: Or is that suttle?

  125. 125.

    Suffern ACE

    @arguingwithsignposts: There are 25,000 Taliban. It doesn’t matter how long it goes on, the reports always say 25,000. Sometimes, they say “Down to 25,000”, but I believe there have been “only 25,000” since 2002. 25,000 is to Taliban as 3 is to the rank in AQ of the person we just shot.

  127. 127.

    Vibrant Pantload, fka Studly Pantload

    @Wisdom:

    “Must have been a short speech, or his teleprompter was broken. He only said “I” 33 times.”

    And if Bo, the Obama family dog, was the one to give the final green light to the U.S.’s involvement in the Libyan situation, I’d fully expect Obama’s speech to reference Bo around that number of times. The funny thing being, it wasn’t Bo who had the last word.

    Oh, and have fun watching the ‘012 Republican candidate-wannabes eschew teleprompters for reading straight from Scripture, only substituting “Reagan” for references to G_d.

  128. 128.

    Vibrant Pantload, fka Studly Pantload

    @Hermione Granger-Weasley:

    “Most of the victims were believed to be civilians attending a tribal meeting…”

    Or so, Some People say. Very important person, the Some People. I hear the cable newzers quoting him all the time.

  129. 129.

    soonergrunt

    @stuckinred: I understand that. It doesn’t mean that I have to like it. Conversely, it also doesn’t compel me to make an ass of myself over how “ZOMG! Obama LIED! He’s just like Bush!”
    I’m disappointed. Not offended.

    @Omnes Omnibus: It takes a lawyer for that.

  130. 130.

    Bob Loblaw

    It’s amazing how quickly Hermione_chan can blow up a thread’s post count.

    Even more amazing she can still get people to give a shit about fact checking her mania.

  133. 133.

    Hermione Granger-Weasley

    @Suffern ACE: @Bob Loblaw: oh please. when do I EVAH bluff.
    Source: Financial Times
    CNAS Author: Lieutenant General David W. Barno, USA (Ret.)
    Original Post: The Afghan Tests Facing Petraeus
    Type: Op-Ed
    Date: June 7 2010

    Today 30,000 Taliban are fighting 140,000 Nato troops and an uneven mix of 200,000-plus Afghan military and police,

    haha 15 to one and the US is still LOOOOOSING.

    Can we go home NAOW?

    DougJ ax what I think. I think we need an exit strategy from Afghanistan hella worse than from Libya.
    That is what I think.
    ;)

  135. 135.

    CaliCat

    @jazzgurl: I second that. It was a great address. Compelling and clear. He made some of of his critics seem small and ridiculous…which many of them are.

    We are witnessing one of greatest presidents this country has ever known…certainly the best one I’ll see in my life time.

  138. 138.

    Jay C

    Pretty good speech, IMO; though that’s about the (high) standard I’ve come to expect from Barack Obama: only time will tell how the Libyan f*ckup will play out, but at least he’s put the US on something like the right side; and with (real, not purchased) allies. I’m no big fan of military interventionism as a tool of international relations: but allowing a stain like Gaddafi to crush a popular uprising under his tank treads was, I think, too much of a downside.

    As for the inevitable criticism, from both Left and Right? I think the Right has a lot more to lose from a successful outcome in Libya: the usual neocon suspects have been ragging on President Obama since he took office for not being the “American Exceptionalist” kick-ass they imagined GW Bush to have been: and our lamebrained “MSM” has given them way too much airtime/ink/pixels to spout their G*d-only-knows-should-have-been-utterly-discredited-by-now claptrap. A “win” for Obama in MENA relations (i.e. getting us on the good side of popular revolutions) will, I think, boot the John Bolton/Frank Gaffney wing of the FP Establishment way out to the fringes of wingnut-welfare-thinktank-land where they will spend the rest of their careers gibbering away about how Barack Obama has “ruined” American policy abroad. Probably as counterpoint to Barry getting his second and third Nobel Peace Prizes….

  139. 139.

    joe from Lowell

    @soonergrunt: No, I meant, referring to Libyans in general, of Muslims in general, or Middle Easterners in general, or whatever you had going through your mind, as “people who will strap suicide vests on their children.”

    That’s not cool.

  141. 141.

    joe from Lowell

    The word that keeps running through my head, when I think about the explanation he gave for why we’re in Libya, and not other places, is “perfect storm.”

    If what he laid out tonight really is the doctrine, we’re not going to be seeing so many necessary preconditions come together very often.

  142. 142.

    Bill Arnold

    @Hermione Granger-Weasley:

    Can you say Fall of Kabul?

    I can say Pashtunistan. No way are the Taliban taking over the north of Afghanistan again, not without a serious fight. (Kabul is dicey.)

    You (or an Aspect) were making an interesting argument (supporting Islamic democracies) for intervention in Libya (over at KDrum’s place). From the air. At night. Against AA, air and mobile ground assets. Which is pretty exactly what happened.
    And so far the Libya air assault has been extremely disciplined about limiting civilian casualties.
    It is a mystery to me why BObama is tolerating the civilian casualties in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

  143. 143.

    dogwood

    Reading all the to and fro over Libya serves to remind us just how much George W messed up this country. If we view everything through the lens of Iraq and Afghanistan we fail to understand what is happening right now in the Middle East. As someone mentioned earlier, we must be careful about not being on the wrong side of history. We spent the Cold War doing just that. Latin America and Viet Nam were perfect examples of our reckless disregard for the aspirations of people who had been vicitimized by colonialism for centuries. What happens in Libya will be up to the Libyans. All we can do is help make the fight a bit more fair. But it’s their fight. However, I’m not sorry we’re trying to level the playing field a bit.

  144. 144.

    Joe Beese

    If what he laid out tonight really is the doctrine

    And if the check arrives in the mail and if he doesn’t cum in your mouth.

  145. 145.

    Corner Stone

    I’m not sure what the point is of dogging on HGW’s quirks.
    Afghanistan is a fuck up and we should’ve exited stage left a long fucking time ago.
    Who are we killing, and why? Are we keeping Pakistan neutral somehow by having 100,000+ troops plus mercs on their border?
    There are some things that can’t be papered over.

  146. 146.

    Cacti

    Just being my cynical self, but it truly warms the cockles of my heart that we can still dig deep and borrow just a little bit more for some cruise-missile “humanitarianism”.

    Now, when will be addressing the humanitarian crisis of 22% of US children living below the poverty line?

  147. 147.

    Hermione Granger-Weasley

    @Bill Arnold: yes.
    quellcrist cavalli-sforza is …..an aspect of mine.
    Make no mistake, I totally support the Presidents definition of Our MULTILATERAL Role in Libya.
    And it went down like quell said. We brought the rain. We are purely awesome at bringing the rain, even in the dark.
    But we sukk at occupation and reconstruction.

    It is a mystery to me why BObama is tolerating the civilian casualties in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

    mee too.
    All I can think the “mini-surge” has gone horribly wrong and needs to be fixed somehow.
    Its headed for Vietnam II.
    I have a very bad feeling about this. There is a pakistani guy that keeps a record of all the weekly drone attacks in Pak and A-stan. They are actually increasing, ramping up.
    As for Pashtunistan…. in the Arab Spring tous les islamists sont gris dans la nuit.
    Jaamat-e-Ismali and Taliban will fight side by side against the proselytizers.

  148. 148.

    Felonious Wench

    nd if he doesn’t cum in your mouth.

    Really, Joe? We’ve gotten that classy in our rebuttals?

  149. 149.

    Hermione Granger-Weasley

    @Cacti: its 25% of preschoolers.
    That billion a month that we are currently using to commit atrocities and make more Talibs would buy a lot of preschools and nutrition a la Heckmans study.
    jus’ sayin’

  152. 152.

    Bob Loblaw

    @Jay C:

    Probably as counterpoint to Barry getting his second and third Nobel Peace Prizes….

    Well hell, why stop there? Why not a fourth or fifth while we’re at it? He’s still young!

    Shoot, they should probably just do the decent thing and name the prize after the guy as well to be sure. Barack Obama: the twenty first century prince of peace.

  153. 153.

    Hermione Granger-Weasley

    @Corner Stone: well….I fail to understand why people are pearlclutching over POSSIBLE future involvement in a well-defined limited multilateral engagement in Libya, when we have a bona fide decade long horrorshow in Afghanistan without a murmur of protest….
    incroyable

  154. 154.

    someguy

    Our guy’s in power now and says prettier things than the inarticulate moron he replaced, so optional wars with ostensible humanitarian aims are suddenly a good thing and anybody who opposes them is objectively in favor of tyranny.

    So hey, what happens if Khadaffi manages to stay in power? Think that’ll have any implications? What about all the terrorists that US intervention is going to create? Are we not doing this for the oil, just like every other war in the region?

    Bah! Same old script. Just that everybody switched sides.

  155. 155.

    Cacti

    And I’m also inclined to ask, when will our support for the democratic aspirations of middle easterners extend to…

    The Kings of Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, the Sultan of Oman, the Emir of Kuwait or the “President” of Yemen.

  159. 159.

    someguy

    @Jay C:

    Probably as counterpoint to Barry getting his second and third Nobel Peace Prizes….

    Yeah, killing your way to Nobel Peace Prizes. Tremendous. Hey, why not attack 11 more countries and make it an even dozen peace prizes? Apparently, Ghandi’s back… and he’s pissed, and he’s got Tomahawks.

  160. 160.

    Corner Stone

    @someguy:

    with ostensible humanitarian aims

    Sold!
    Can I get granite counter tops with that? Oh wait, I’ve been watching “My First Place” on HGTV too much recently.

  161. 161.

    Corner Stone

    @Hermione Granger-Weasley:

    I fail to understand why people are pearlclutching over POSSIBLE future involvement in a well-defined limited multilateral engagement in Libya

    No. I’m sorry, but once we enter into a battlespace we own that territory.
    There isn’t anything that will limit our involvement, no matter what amazing speeches are given.
    Our armed men and women show up and we find reasons to keep expanding our mission.

    ETA, this was in re: Libya

  163. 163.

    Cacti

    And of course, I’m sure it’s a coincidence that we’ve decided for yet another “humanitarian intervention” involving lots of bombs, in a country that just happens to sit on large oil reserves.

    I’m sorry, I’m being a bad Democrat. Obama’s unfunded military incursion into a nation half a world away, that never attacked us is double plus good.

  164. 164.

    Corner Stone

    @Omnes Omnibus: Of course he is. Stop playing silly buggers.
    I hate our engagements in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Libya.
    But Obama is still my President.

  167. 167.

    Hermione Granger-Weasley

    @Corner Stone: meh. circumstance limits our engagement. Qaddafi has a limited supply of mercs, mecha, and liquidity.
    Two weeks. Let the French figure out an exit strat.
    They already recognized the NTC.

    But in Afghanistan America IS Qaddafi. Our resources are limited. Every hostile we whack makes two more, just like Jason and the dragon’s teeth.
    The population loathes us. Our soldiers are being driven to madness and atrocity by an unjust, immoral, and unwinnable war that might just turn them into halal hamburger in an eyeblink.
    The mini-surge is not working.
    And all the surrounding countries are falling to islamic democracy, like Cambodia fell to the communists.
    Like dominos.

  168. 168.

    Corner Stone

    @Omnes Omnibus: True.
    But OO, I’ll tell you. I fucking hate our foreign policy. Does that mean I have to fulfill some righteous Stuckian vow and nominate a D replacement for 2012? No.
    But what we’re doing, how we’re doing it, and how it’s getting a free fucking pass all matter.

  169. 169.

    Corner Stone

    @Hermione Granger-Weasley:

    They already recognized the NTC.

    Yeah. That and $4.50 will get you a cuppa.
    Libya is going no where, and Gaddafi will be handing out Golden Globe awards next year.
    He’s not going anywhere unless we put boots on his ass.

  170. 170.

    Hermione Granger-Weasley

    @Corner Stone: wanna bet?
    The oil is in the east. The rebels can bottle him in Tripoli and shell his port facilities.
    Wall him up in his compound and let him rot.

  171. 171.

    Hermione Granger-Weasley

    I thought this was interesting.
    From a commenter at my islam blog.

    I was thinking this morning that the Arab awakening makes this a geopolitical Year Zero. Those 300 million people may be divided among 20 different countries, but they all speak the same language, have the same religion, they communicate through the same electronic media, they can see each other on TV. Egypt was the tipping point; just by itself it’s a quarter of the Arab population. From now on, every Friday in every Arab country is potentially a “day of rage”, until justice is seen to be done. External forces might try to hold back the process, co-opt, divert or divide it, and they’ll surely have some temporary successes, but I just don’t see this stopping until the Arab world has achieved political sovereignty and unity – not as a single national polity, but as a league or union which is a sovereign geopolitical actor. It’s as if a whole new continent is surfacing, and the existing powers will have to rearrange themselves to accommodate its existence.

    The United States of Islam!

  172. 172.

    Corner Stone

    @Corner Stone:

    KABUL, Afghanistan — When a brother and nephew of an Afghan vice president wanted to build up their fuel transport business, they took out a $19 million loan from Kabul Bank. When a brother of the president wanted to start a cement factory, he took out a $2.9 million loan; he also took out $7.9 million for a luxury townhouse in Dubai. When the bank’s chief executive officer wanted to invest in newly built apartments in Kabul, he took almost $18 million.
    At War
    __
    The terms were hard to beat: no collateral, little or no interest. And repayment optional, at least in practice.

    HT Atrios

  174. 174.

    Corner Stone

    @Corner Stone: I have a couple people backing me, we have a 3 year committed lease for a mixed commercial/apartment space next to a university, and we can’t get financing. For $850,000! Three year contract for 40 units before we ever break ground and banks are shunning us.

  176. 176.

    FlipYrWhig

    Hey, here’s something no one has ever brought up about Libya! What about every other country that has a problem, huh, what’re you gonna do about that?

  179. 179.

    Mnemosyne

    @Cacti:

    And of course, I’m sure it’s a coincidence that we’ve decided for yet another “humanitarian intervention” involving lots of bombs, in a country that just happens to sit on large oil reserves.

    Is it also a coincidence that Libya just happens to be smack-dab in between two countries that just had successful and peaceful revolutions, and a third one that’s going through the same thing?

  182. 182.

    Corner Stone

    “You don’t know him! You don’t know him! You don’t know him!”
    ~ dbag from Indiana Jones, Kingdom of The Crystal Skull

  183. 183.

    pattonbt

    @Hermione Granger-Weasley: You seem to have a very simplistic view of how military engagements unfold. I hope you are right with your estimates, but history suggests it won’t be the cakewalk you believe it will be. I can’t imagine why you think things will just roll along to a nice tidy conclusion. It doesn’t go that way with dictators/civil wars. What happens when the rebels are stretched and on Kadaffi’s ground? What happens when they get in Tripoli? Who resupplies the rebels with ammo? Who runs their logistics? You make way too many assumptions based on nothing to support them except pie in the sky wishes.

    The NATO air support is not war air support, it’s not (as currently defined) to help coordinate with the rebels to achieve military objectives. It’s designed to stop Kadaffi from using his air power and creating a slaughter. Now if NATO and the rebels start acting together for military objectives, thats a new step and one which will drag us in much deeper. Thats what many of us are saying. If NATO stays neutral in the air, the ground war gets ugly. But if NATO chooses a side, then its more than we bargained for and we start to own it.

    But once this civil war hits the ground and in contested territory, it’s going to get nasty fast. Unless of course both sides just decide to partition the country and keep a cold war stalemate. But I can’t see Kadaffi being cool with losing his money stream.

    Human nature and history predicts things will get worse in Libya (a lot worse) before they get better).

    Again, I’ll happily be prove wrong.

  184. 184.

    bob h

    Note that Intrade has Qadaffi out of office by the end of the year at 75%. I’m guessing it is just a matter of how fast his tanks and armor can be plonked from the air, and then he melts away.

  185. 185.

    Hermione Granger-Weasley

    @pattonbt: well…you were wrong before. ;)
    Dude, like I SAID, we can bring the rain. We did it in Gulf I and Gulf II, we did it in Kosovo. We sukk at occupation and implanting/imposing/installing/standingup westernstyle democracy.
    Obama said pretty emphatically that WE ARE NOT GOING TO GO THERE.
    Qaddafi ALREADY lost his money stream.
    80% of the libyan oil reserves are already held by the NTC. The Swiss froze his accounts.
    I don’t think mercs take American Express.
    The rebels have already taken back all Qaddafis gains over the last two weeks in ONE WEEKEND.

    Again, I totally dont get your pearlclutching. Right now we are ARE engaged in a 10 year ground war, with absolutely no hope of winning, that is costing one billion per month to make more Taliban. Atrocity incidence is ramping up, the mini-surge has failed, and other ME states are falling to islamic democracy. It is looking like Vietnam II to me.

    THAT is where we need an exit strategy.

  186. 186.

    Hermione Granger-Weasley

    @Corner Stone: lol of course we can.
    Let the rebels wall him up in his compound until he gets the message.
    He gave to aid to Chad, he can go there.
    But there is always the problem of his war crimes…and the little matter of al-Qaradawis fatwah. Some muslim brother is going to be tempted by all that hasanat.

  190. 190.

    joe from Lowell

    @someguy:

    Our guy’s in power now and says prettier things than the inarticulate moron he replaced, so optional wars with ostensible humanitarian aims are suddenly a good thing

    George Bush never engaged in a humanitarian military intervention. Both of his wars were based on national interest and self defense aims. You should pay less attention to the rhetoric used to sell wars (everybody talks about the wonderful humanitarian benefits that will accrue, regardless of their actual aims) and more looking at the actual underlying causes.

    and anybody who opposes them is objectively in favor of tyranny.

    Making things up now so you can pretend you’re being persecuted, I see.

    So hey, what happens if Khadaffi manages to stay in power?

    He gets to be the Mayor of Tripoli, behind a defensive perimeter, while the rest of the country is governed by the people-power movement out of Benghazi. Am I supposed to consider this outcome worse than a five-or six-digit massacre?

    What about all the terrorists that US intervention is going to create?

    Military interventions don’t create terrorism; tolerating and working with oppressive governments creates terrorists. Where are all of the Iraqi terrorists? The Afghan terrorists? When did we stage a military intervention in Saudi Arabia, or Egypt, or Yemen prior to the Cole bombing?

    Are we not doing this for the oil, just like every other war in the region?

    After decades of an oil embargo that we imposed on Libya, we finally agreed to drop the embargo, and Khadaffi was a happy, reliable exporter and partner for our oil companies – a highly-profitable setup that we decided to interrupt to back the protesters.

    The doctrine of humanitarian intervention is a difficult one, but it’s one that everyone on the left needs to grapple with, not make up bullshit stories so you can pretend it doesn’t exist.

  191. 191.

    joe from Lowell

    @Cacti:

    And I’m also inclined to ask, when will our support for the democratic aspirations of middle easterners extend to…

    The Kings of Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, the Sultan of Oman, the Emir of Kuwait or the “President” of Yemen.

    When the protest movements reach the point that they did when we helped to push out our long-term allies in Egypt and Tunisia. Had you forgotten about those episodes already?

    (BTW, the same skid-greasing diplomacy that Obama used in those two cases is already being brought to bear in Yemen.)

  193. 193.

    Hermione Granger-Weasley

    @joe from Lowell:

    He gets to be the Mayor of Tripoli, behind a defensive perimeter, while the rest of the country is governed by the people-power movement out of Benghazi.

    For a while. Qaddafi is surrounded by the Muslim Brotherhood.
    And dem nah liek him.

  194. 194.

    joe from Lowell

    @Corner Stone:

    Have we cruise missiled those other two?

    Did they launch military operations against the protesters?

    Why, no – as it turned out, the dictators were overthrown without the need for outside military intervention. Thus proving that using military means against military forces, and not otherwise, is hypocritical. Or something.

  195. 195.

    Hermione Granger-Weasley

    @joe from Lowell: This is the origination of the Obama Doctrine.
    The answer to the question, where else will we intervene? is…..it depends.
    Iraq and Afghanistan are the unfortunate and disastrous end products of the Bush Doctrine.

  196. 196.

    Hermione Granger-Weasley

    @joe from Lowell:

    Military interventions don’t create terrorism; tolerating and working with oppressive governments creates terrorists. Where are all of the Iraqi terrorists? The Afghan terrorists?

    lol.
    Afghan “terrorists” = the Taliban.
    Iraqi “terrorists” = the Sadrists.
    The Bush Doctrine and COIN create terrorists. Hopefully the Obama doctrine won’t.

  197. 197.

    joe from Lowell

    @Hermione Granger-Weasley:

    The answer to the question, where else will we intervene? is…..it depends.

    Depends on, among other things, the meaning of the term “intervene.” We “intervened” diplomatically and politically in the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia, because they were political movements, without a military dimension.

    It’s always been amusing to me to watch people on the internet – usually right-wingers, but not exclusively – who ask a question in the mistaken belief it’s an unanswerable debate-winner, only to lapse back into a vague, identify-affirming slogans when someone answers their Big Conversation Ender without too much difficulty.

  198. 198.

    joe from Lowell

    Afghan “terrorists” = the Taliban.
    Iraqi “terrorists” = the Sadrists.

    Funny how neither of them have ever launched a terrorist attack against the U.S., then.

    As opposed to Saudis, Egyptians, Yemenis, Nigerians, Jamaicans, American Muslims.

    Taking up arms against a foreign army in your country is quite a bit different from launching terror attacks against a country’s civilians.

    ETA – if you go back to the origin of the term “blowback,” you’ll see that it backs me up. The theory is that it’s our support for oppressive governments that motivates terrorism against us.

  199. 199.

    Hermione Granger-Weasley

    @joe from Lowell: but in Afghanistan America is the oppressive government.

    ask a question in the mistaken belief it’s an unanswerable debate-winner

    oh, I got AllahP pretty good on the Who Owns the Kill Squad thread.
    I will just have to be satisfied with that.
    ;)

  200. 200.

    Hermione Granger-Weasley

    @joe from Lowell: And anyways, here is my unanswerable debate winner.

    25% of all the arabs there are just DEMOCRATICALLY voted for shariah law in Egypt.

    ;)

  202. 202.

    joe from Lowell

    @Hermione Granger-Weasley:

    but in Afghanistan America is the oppressive government.

    No, we’re the invading occupiers. Different deal. I point to the fact that no terrorist attack on the U.S. has ever been carried out by an Afghan.

    Again, where is the 9/11 from Iraqis? We first invaded that country twenty years ago, and we’ve got zilch.

    From Afghans? Heck, there were more terrorist attacks against us by Yemenis before Bush launched the first Hellfire into a car there than there have been since.

    The terrorist grows out of the protester, not the soldier. Blowback comes from backing local dictators.

  203. 203.

    Hermione Granger-Weasley

    @joe from Lowell: ok. I think we just have different definitions of terrorism then.
    Do you differentiate between terrorists and jihadists?

    And the Times-square car-bomber? He doesn’t count?

  204. 204.

    Hermione Granger-Weasley

    @joe from Lowell: and…what about Dr. Major Hassan and Adam Gadhan and John Walker Lindh?
    I’m confused.

    Is this also terrorism?

    Yet as a January 2011 terrorism statistics report — compiled using publicly available data from the FBI and other crime agencies — from the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) shows, terrorism by Muslim Americans has only accounted for a minority of terror plots since 9/11. Since the attacks on the Twin Towers and Pentagon, Muslims have been involved in 45 domestic terrorist plots. Meanwhile, non-Muslims have been involved in 80 terrorist plots.
    __
    In fact, right-wing extremist and white supremacist attacks plots alone outnumber plots by Muslims, with both groups being involved in 63 terror plots, 18 more plots than Muslim Americans have been involved in.

  205. 205.

    joe from Lowell

    @Hermione Granger-Weasley:

    Do you differentiate between terrorists and jihadists?

    Jihadism is an ideology. It can be promoted through terrorist tactics, or through other tactics.

    And the Times-square car-bomber? He doesn’t count?

    He comes from a country, Pakistan, that is a major American ally, a major recipient of American aid, and which was ruled for years by American-allied military dictators.

    and…what about Dr. Major Hassan and Adam Gadhan and John Walker Lindh

    All Americans. None of them come from a country with which America is at war.

    Nor do the right-wing American terrorists you point to. You’re proving my point: those people aren’t soldiers resisting an American invasion of their homeland. They’re political activists, anti-government activists, who took their protest to the level of violence.

  206. 206.

    Hermione Granger-Weasley

    @joe from Lowell:

    All Americans. None of them come from a country with which America is at war.
    Nor do the right-wing American terrorists you point to.

    But they are all called terrorists. They are oppressed by….America?

    And we never declared war on A-stan. So America IS oppressing the Taliban too!
    ;)

  207. 207.

    pattonbt

    @Hermione Granger-Weasley: How was I wrong before. Nothing has changed from where I first was. We are still involved and highly engaged. As a matter of fact our Secretary of State is in London with the rest of the NATO world today trying to figure out how to divy up Libya. I think it’s a bit early to be making any claims of success.

  208. 208.

    pattonbt

    @Hermione Granger-Weasley: My pearl clutching is not as you think. You always seem to get sidetracked by Afghanistan. That is another topic. This topic is about Libya, so my responses are about Libya, not Afghanistan. You would find my views similar to yours (and have been from the beginning of the effort). You always change the subject from your fantasy expectations of Libya to your worries about Afghanistan. People can worry about both you know.

  209. 209.

    Hermione Granger-Weasley

    @pattonbt: No, this thread is about O’s speech, where he articulated the Obama Doctrine as applied to Libya.
    The Obama Doctrine explicitly prevents Libya from morphing into Iraq.
    And I am simply pointing out that Iraq and Afghanistan are the direct results of the profoundly stupid Bush Doctrine/COIN, and that the Obama Doctrine is DESIGNED to prevent that particular type of horrorshow from ever happening again.
    Also, when people fuss about COST, I simply cannot refrain from pointing out that America has expensed 400 billion dollars to try to wipe out/deligitimize the Taliban…so far. And incidentally America is currently expensing one billion dollars per month to commit atrocities and make more Taliban, even though there is 100% probability the Tabliban will be part of the eventual Afghan government.
    I have no fantasy expectations.
    I simply expect the Obama Doctrine to perform as promised IN LIBYA.
    ;)

Comments are closed.