JUST WHAT ARE THE Americans up too? What on earth does the Obama administration think it is doing to its credibility throughout the Western world, which relies upon its power to help keep the world and Western values safe.
David Cameron has been calling for a no fly zone over Libya from the very beginning. There have been reports that prime minister and president were at loggerheads over the issue: of course both will deny this was ever the case. But American unwillingness to intervene militarily to help the Libyan rebels keep Gadaffi at bay has not exactly remained hidden from the public.
Fear of another Iraq is said to have held Obama back from allowing his navy to patrol the skies over western Libya. Another excuse was that before such an action was put in place it needed UN authorisation, and, as we know, China and Russia were set against it. So it was argued that forming any resolution to be voted upon was pointless.
Now, only today a different, more cynical view is emerging. Could it be that the White House would be happy to see Gadaffi returned to power; as this would be better than a extremist Islamist regime (i.e. Iran) that may replace him? Better the megalomaniac you know than the megalomaniac that may come after him.
It is now being reported that Gadaffi’s forces are on the outskirts of Benghazi, the last stronghold of those that dared oppose him. It took a great deal of courage on behalf of those Libyans who dared stand up against this tyrant. They acted with greater courage and principle than did the international community.
Such courage should have been rewarded with far more than the platitudes and verbal bellicosity issuing from the lips of western politicians. Having dared oppose the monster, those Libyans who did so knew they had to win or suffer the wrath and vengeance that would surely follow their defeat.
Now they stand on the brink of such a defeat. Remember those members of Gadaffi’s army who sided with the people against their master? What fate now awaits them?
IT IS MY VIEW that President Obama has done no more than any modern Democrat would have done… stand back and twiddle his fingers in the hope that events resolve themselves to the benefit of his administration. Was it not a fact that Bill Clinton, for instance, had to be cajoled into standing up to Milosevic by Tony Blair? At the time the Democrat administration was worried about another Vietnam and its place in history of course.
Today the Democrat administration is worried about Iraq and the country’s first black president’s place in history were Libya to become another Iraq. So indecisiveness has been the policy of the Obama administration since the whole Libyan business blew up in his face.
Now, when it is in all probability, too late, President Obama has sent his UN Ambassador, Susan Rice, off to demand much more than a no fly zone to be enforced by the international community.
David Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy must be cursing their ally and no doubt bemoaning his somewhat late conversion to their point of view. Could it be that Ambassador Rice’s overture to the UN for more effective action than a no fly zone was deliberately made in the full knowledge that the events in Libya will overtake the need for such action; and this is why the demand for such action was made in the first place by her president?
Thank God for the cynic in me! For I do truly believe that after days of silence on the issue of Libya by President Obama (and no, not because of Japan) he now appears from his shell at the very time that the Colonel is on the brink of victory, and sends his poor functionary to recapture the moral high ground from Cameron and Sarkozy at the UN
Even when Republicans act and get it wrong – they at least act. This cannot be said of the Democrats in the modern era when it comes to an unpalatable course of action that requires the use of the military. They are haunted by the ghosts of history (of Kennedy and LBJ) and the cowardice of conscience
At least George Bush acted in what he thought to be the best interests of the United States, and took whatever the liberals threw at him on the chin. At least he acted in accordance with what he thought was in the American interest. If President Obama had, if necessary, imposed a no fly zone over Libya and, if need be, had done so without the support of the UN, he would have acted like a president. Instead he has not been heard from on Libya until he pushed Susan Rice into the lime-light.
WE LIVE IN TROUBLED TIMES when we need the services of our military more than ever to back up the words of our diplomats and politicians. David Cameron, from what I have read, has tried to impress upon President Obama the need for action on Libya; action that only America has at its disposal.
But Cameron cannot get away with this. He may have lead the charge against Gadaffi, but he did so with a broken lance taped together. For he has set about reducing our armed forces to a point where all he has left to back up his idle threats is indeed a broken and ill repaired lance.
While President Obama cannot escape his role in what may turn out to be human butchery on a grand scale, David Cameron must not be allowed to take the moral high ground in all of this. For it was his decision to put international development aid before the protection of our armed forces.
If I were Obama, I would have indeed sent Cameron away with a fly in his hear if he had suggested a course of action that needed the use of American military might when that of the British had been so diminished by the British prime minister in his list of priorities for ring-fencing.
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