Off to Afghanistan: when will they ever learn?

UPDATE: (2-25-12):

Since I first posted this, it has been reported that several U.S. military personnel, including two high-ranking officers, were killed in connection with rioting and a general uprising among some of the populace in Afghanistan over the burning of Islamic holy books, Korans, reported to have been done recently by mistake by U.S. personnel. They were supposedly burning subversive material and the Korans got mixed in. I suppose since most of our personnel don’t know the native language of the area, and what is it? that could be possible, that it was a “mistake”. But whoever ordered it should be demoted, prosecuted, and sent home. If that was not incompetence, I don’t know what is.

But actually all U.S. personnel need to go home. The Afghan war is a pointless exercise. It apparently takes the United States about a decade to learn these things.

Winning the hearts and minds of people around the world should not be our job. If we minded our own business, they might seek to emulate us because of our standard of living and our freedom. We (the United States) went in there because terrorists used Afghanistan as a staging area and headquarters leading up to the 9/11 attack – ironically we finally killed the master mind of the 9/11 attack, Osama Bin Laden, not there but inside Pakistan, who pretends to be our friend at times for our financial and military support, but who aids and abets our enemies. Because our modern enemies are not uniformed soldiers operating out of specific nations they are harder to fight and beat, but helicopters swooping in with Navy SEALS is a modern tactic, and a drone up the a.. works at times too, although the latter in problematic and poses questions of ethics and whether modern warfare has got so impersonal, those who remotely fly the drones commuting to work and then home again to the suburbs, half way round the world from where the action is, that it adds a new Orwellian dimension that may already be out of hand.

STOP THE MADNESS, STOP THE WARS!

If Ron Paul was not so one-dimensional, he might be the leader who could lead us out of the madness.

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I see via the photos and story in my local newspaper that a local National Guard unit is deploying to Afghanistan.

And I thought all of this was supposed to be over for us (the U.S.).

But it’s never over.

While I fear this is all futile, it is not quite like Vietnam in that the military personnel going over there are all volunteers and interestingly the ages of the soldiers are often much older — one from my hometown or area is in his 50s. In Vietnam young men still in their teens were forced to go fight a senseless war which we had no business fighting and nothing to gain. We may have thought otherwise at the beginning, but it became apparent as time went by that it was all a terrible mistake, a blunder if you will.

I suppose those going over from my area feel that they are serving their country and somehow it all translates into the fight for freedom and against tyranny and extreme Islam. There is also a financial incentive. They signed up because it is an extra job.

I do not condemn them for it. I just don’t agree that it is worthwhile.

And the next part is kind of touchy. While I do not condemn the troops, I do the policy makers who are squandering our tax dollars.

I also think it is heart wrenching to think that some of these people will not make it back or will return terribly wounded. There are mothers and fathers going; in at least one case both the mother and father are going from one family. And as I said. The age span is much wider this time around.

Ironically, I think I once considered — albeit not too seriously — signing up for the unit in question, and for the wrong reason, more money. I served three years in the Army during the Vietnam War but did not go to Vietnam. I don’t know, maybe if I would have singed up for the reserves or guard I might have eventually found myself in Desert Storm or even in Afghanistan — I’m 62 now.

I was no soldier, even though I was in the Army. I did my service, though. I filled a slot.

I think it was former Secretary of State Madeline Albright who said, I think in reference to the Kosovo campaign (one I never understood what our interest in was), “what good is it to have an army if we can’t use it?” (a paraphrase probably, despite my quote marks).

I agree with that sentiment, but we should be awful choosy as to how we use it.

And think of World War I and think of Vietnam:

And think of what Peter Paul and Mary sung: “where have all the soldiers gone, gone to graveyards everyone, when will they ever learn?…”

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CLARIFICATION:

In case anyone was wondering or cared, I inadvertently left out a preposition in my original headline to this post. Been so busy with my real job, I did not catch it till quite a bit later.

We need to quit our nation building now, but we also need to act in self defense in preventing Iran from producing nuclear weapons…

It looks as though Iran is getting some pressure to abandon its project to create nuclear weapons (Iran denies it is for weapons, claiming it is for electricity generation only — few if any believe that).

The Israeli defense minister let it be known that time is running short, in the Israeli’s opinion, to do something. The word is, come spring if Iran has not backed off, Israel will strike.

And it seems as if the Obama administration is in on the pressure game, with Defense Secretary Leon Panetta confirming to a news reporter that the Israelis have said as much. The U.S. it is said tried unsuccessfully to get the Israelis to agree to give the economic sanctions more time — they replied there is little time left.

The U.S. will be blamed whether it is involved or directly involved or not.

You will note the Obama administration does not seem to be telling Israel no (even though we probably could not stop Israel from acting, certainly we have some fair amount of leverage over that nation).

I had begun to write a post about being against our nation-building efforts in the Middle East. But stopping Iran from getting the bomb, so to speak, has nothing to do with nation building and everything to do with self defense of the U.S. and the free world.

There had been a joint military exercise in Israel between their forces and ours planned but it was cancelled. Many speculate that is because Israel had more pressing matters to take care of and did not need the complication of American troops being in the way.

It is a difficult situation or problem, that is, telling another nation it cannot have nuclear weapons when we along with other nations have them. But we cannot let the proliferation of nuclear weapons continue. We survived the nuclear saber rattling of the Cold War, probably because our adversary the Soviet Union did not want a nuclear exchange any more than we did — an accident could have easily happened, though.

Iran is run by religious zealots and political mad men who might do anything. It must be stopped.

I have often written that I think the warnings ought to be done in secret to let Iran save face and allow it to abandon the nuclear weapons program on its own. But this public display of pressure may be needed too.

I would like to see the president of the United States make a speech and say that the U.S. will not allow the proliferation of nuclear weapons and leave it at that, no specific threat, you decide what we mean Iran.

Actions will eventually speak louder than words, and Iran needs to know action may come soon.

I changed my mind about how I would lead into this blog piece after hearing about the latest prediction on a strike on Iran, as I understand it, first reported by the Washington Post and picked up by other outlets, and used as the lead into the CBS Evening News, at least on the broadcast I heard on radio.

And now back to what I had originally intended to put forth:

Just began reading a story on the New York Times site about a Marine unit penetrating deep into the Afghan hinterlands where no NATO forces had ventured before, where the Taliban has had complete control. In the process, one Marine was seriously injured while trying to dismantle and IED and another injured as well. But bringing along some of the native government troops with them, they managed to plant the Afghan national flag.

Well, that’s all well and good, but I would call that “nation building”.

And that is one place where I am in entire agreement with Ron Paul. Under our constitution or at least under our constitution combined with the clear intentions of our founding fathers, we, the United States of America, have no business building nations other than our own. It is far too costly in blood and treasure and not our business anyway.

We feel compelled to hold on in Afghanistan, even though the Obama administration has made it known that it plans to essentially turn the brunt of the effort over to the Afghans come 2013 — but still have U.S. troops remain as backup, I guess –  because we feel we have to finish what we started, otherwise the effort, to include thousands dead and wounded, will have been in vain.

Before I go into 20/20 hindsight, I want to say it is my opinion that we should turn it all over to the Afghan government now and rid ourselves of the burden. If the Taliban take it all back, so be it. If the Taliban start threatening us somehow, we should go directly after them in what ever way feasible.

Now back to the 20/20 hindsight:

The 9/11 attack on the United States, the equivalent of Pearl Harbor, was essentially launched from Afghanistan where the late Osama Bin Laden and his Al Qaeda force received aid and comfort from the Taliban who ran Afghanistan at the time. We made the decision to invade Afghanistan after it refused to turn over Bin Laden and continued to protect Al Qaeda.

We should have gone in full bore, rounded up Bin Laden and all the Al Qaeda we could, took over for a time and supervised the setting up of a new government — yes nation building to a degree — and then at the appropriate time left. And I would not have suggested too long of a time — probably far less time than we, along with allied forces, spent supervising things in Japan and Germany. The populations and cultures of those two nations seemed to take to the forming of democratic and non-belligerent governments. This is not the case in Afghanistan. It is hostile territory with a backwards, tribal culture. Some things are not worth the bother — Afghanistan is not.

I say keep the aircraft carriers and the troops ready to respond where need be for the defense of the United States and its true interests (the free flow of goods, to include oil, being among them), but let us not get bogged down in trying to recreate another people’s culture and government.

If the presidential campaign were a one-issue event I might well vote for Ron Paul.

Neither Democratic president Obama nor any of the Republicans likely to become president are apt to change the status quo, although to his credit, Obama does seem to ever-so-slowly be winding down the costly and for the most part futile efforts in the Middle East.

Like I say, if electing a president was composed of just one issue, I might vote for Ron Paul.

But life is complex, whether the Republicans understand that or not.

Even though soldiers should follow orders and keep their mouths shut, you can’t blame the general for being resentful and a bit incredulous about the attitude of Afghanistan…

Soldiers are supposed to know how to take orders and move out smartly and otherwise keep their mouths shut and definitely not to step out of the chain of command. Of course a general is not just any other soldier, but their duty is much the same when it comes to following the civilian leadership. They can always resign if they cannot follow the program.

Nonetheless, you can hardly blame that general in Afghanistan (not the top one, but a general nonetheless) for telling it like it is and being incredulous, or more precisely, resentful of the attitude of Afghanistan’s leader Hamid Karzai for saying such things as Afghanistan would take the side of Pakistan if the U.S. went to war with that nation. And he is resentful of the whole attitude of the Afghans he is trying to train.

Gen. Peter Fuller, deputy commander for the NATO training program in Afghanistan, has been relieved of his command for his outspokenness (I link to the story at the bottom of this post).

Too many thousands of lives of U.S. servicemen and other personnel have been lost there already and the U.S. is going bankrupt in what is a quagmire of epic proportions.

If the United States was not spread so thin, it might do well to simply make Afghanistan a protectorate and quit the nonsense of nation building in a land where the inhabitants are either unable or unwilling to govern themselves in a peaceful manner. Now it is their right to live tribally like they have for so many thousands of years, except by aiding and abetting the Taliban in 9/11 they made it our business.

But Osama Bin Laden is dead, and of course he was caught hiding in plain sight, not in Afghanistan, but our fake ally Pakistan.

However, the U..S. is not in any shape to make Afghanistan our 51^st state or whatever.

Osama Bin Laden is dead.

We should leave now and give thanks to those who died or were gravely injured for the cause — it may not have come out as we wished it, but we did keep Al Qaeda tied up and we will continue to deal with them and any others under the mantra: If you attack or threaten the U.S. you can run but you cannot hide”.

We should also leave Iraq altogether. Our combat mission there has been given the boot by an ungrateful nation.

They’ll make do. They have oil. I hope they drown in it.

And to Afghanistan, I say, go back to your tribal affairs and just don’t help terrorists attack us, thank you.

A lot of innocent people, millions, in that part of the world have been killed due to our actions. But as backward as some of them are, there is plenty of communication these days and they have to realize that they can’t just hide behind their sometimes backwards culture as if it were in a vacuum. When it affects us, we feel forced to act, and yes, we may have overreacted.

Maybe East is East and West is West after all.

The story about the fired general:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/04/peter-fuller-fired_n_1077204.html

P.s.

Yes I know they had culture, and sometimes a very advanced culture, in the Middle East before there ever was a European civilization, but in some ways they failed to progress, at least by our western standards. But again, that’s okay as long as they don’t attack us.

And we really do need to find alternative sources of energy.

Gaddafi gone, good; Islam takes over, not necessarily good…

What ups and downs. First we hear Gaddafi has been killed, good. Then we begin to realize that a billion dollars of U.S. aid to NATO in the Libya military intervention and what we now appear to be getting for it is another Islamic nation that will follow sharia law, the antithesis to western democracy.

Actually I am not sure from what I have just been reading that it is a done deal and that Libya will take the Islamic or radical Islamic and/or sharia law route. Things are in a state of flux, but reportedly the head of the provisional government there said sharia law would be adopted. I understand there is opposition there to that (oops more civil war?).

There are conflicting reports as to whether Tunisia, though a largely peaceful transition, will adopt sharia law — I just read a news story that quoted the leader of the ruling party there that said it would not for fear of offending western nations for whom it depends upon for its economy — tourism, trade.

Islamists and the military seem to be taking control in Egypt after the U.S., or the Obama administration anyway, got all excited about the promise of the dawning of a new era of democracy through what has been called the “Arab Spring”.

In my lifetime the official and consistent foreign policy of the United States has been to promote democracy and self-determination of people worldwide, and I think it has been partly sincere, if there is such a thing as partly sincere.

Looking backwards to the Cold War:

If self-determination should wind up being the choice of the communist path, then we were not for it, because communism is counter to everything we stand for, particularly in the field of human rights and a fair and impartial judicial system, and of course it does not fit in with our capitalist approach to economic matters.

A further problem is that even if people supposedly chose communism, the evidence casts doubt on the validity of the notion that such was actually chosen by free will.

The communist threat was in the past.

Today the threat appears to be what some call “radical Islam“. Governments that are run under the control of this radical Islam (such as Iran) do not fit our definition of what takes place in free societies brought about by self-determination and the choice of democracy.

So, years ago, in the Cold War, a democratic-communist government would be an oxymoron.

Today it is hard to conceive of a democratic-Islamist government that uses strict sharia law (which is a religious doctrine that does not square well with western ideals or human rights — particularly for women, although it is said to be interpreted differently in different Islamic nations, some being a little more progressive or liberal).

So, for our 40 billion-dollar investment in Libya we may have helped promote another Islamist state.

The irony here is that U.S. administrations have had in their thinking the idea that the promotion of western democracy means freedom of religion, but you can hardly have freedom of religion (or even freedom from religion) if its tenets and strictures are written into or directly used as the basis of a nation’s laws and if religious leaders have any control over the government.

(Our own laws may be often based on moral codes that have their basis in religion, but they have become secular — kind of like Chirstmas.)

I think the United States is correct in promoting (not necessarily through war, though) self-determination and democracy, with freedom of religion and the separation of church and state, which goes along with freedom of religion. George W. Bush was correct in saying that we are not at war with the religion of Islam itself or those who practice it. Instead we are at war with terrorists who proclaim they are following Islam in what they do.

The religious right wing in the U.S. does not help the cause of peaceful foreign relations or for that matter, the promotion of religious freedom in the U.S., when it paints everything as a Holy War against Islam.

I will admit, though, Christianity by our history and custom has been what I would call the de facto official religion of the United States since its founding. Judaism has had a struggle but has become accepted. Most others are tolerated to some extent, with the exception of Islam, which faces extra scrutiny in light of the terrorist activities,  especially 9/11.

Short of armed intervention, there is nothing wrong with generally promoting western democracy, but all-out nation building does not seem terribly practical and is subject to the law of unintended consequences.

(Obama dispatches troops to still another hot spot) Resisting the Lord’s Resistance; Romney may have it in the bag unless Occupy Wall Street catches the imagination of the mainstream…

As awkward as the U.S. seems to be at times, I guess the fact that it is the world’s only superpower at this time means it is still, like it or not, the world’s policeman (although the Libya thing has been farmed out somewhat to the Europeans, I guess) — I say this in light of the news that broke sometime yesterday that President Barack Obama has dispatched some 100 troops (advisory but ready to protect themselves) to Uganda and other areas of Central Africa, such as the Congo.

This is to combat something called the Lord’s Resistance Army, reportedly a band of thugs that has been raping and kidnapping and murdering all over that area, with thousands or millions becoming victims — all this in the name of the Lord (there is a long history of atrocities being done in the name of the Lord).

It seems to me a strange time to be dispatching troops even if modest in number, what with our military bogged down in the Middle East. Maybe this operation should be or should have been farmed out as well. While I do not have much regard for the United Nations, maybe this is really right up that institution’s alley.

And now I will pivot and give my personal update on the U.S. presidential campaign for the 2012 election. It still seems as if it is Mitt Romney’s to lose (a strange expression, but I mean unless he really makes some major gaffes, he wins, both the GOP nomination and the presidency itself).

I cannot for the life of me see myself as voting for Romney, but I am trying to figure out  how I could justify a vote for Obama (except that he is not a Republican and is not Romney).

There is a lot of buzz about Herman Cain, and he is ahead of Romney is some of the polling, but he lacks the funds and the depth (worldly knowledge) of Romney. And the novelty of a black president has worn off by now. He might be available for VP, although I think Romney might consider him a liability.

I know there is often folly in presuming a front runner early — Remember Hillary (but she may have ended up getting the better job for herself, as Secretary of State, after all).

Romney may not have the charisma everyone always talks about as necessary to win, but he does have the money and a presidential look, and an aura of knowing all things about money and thus about what is best for the economy (actually probably more his own personal economy), and he is a chameleon, easily changing colors to suit the situation, and looking so natural doing it (and I really do think I used the right word here. I mean can’t you see Romney as a lizard?).

Maybe if the Occupy Wall Street movement catches the imagination of the mainstream (polls show big sympathy for it) Obama could still pull off a second term, even though he has seemed to pretty much do the bidding of Wall Street — I know I can’t quite explain that either (can he?).

So let the Palestinians have their own state already….

How can it be that there is not already an independent Palestinian state? The U.S. administration and Israel are all in a dither because the leader of Palestine is going to the UN General Assembly next week to demand Palestine be recognized as an independent nation.

From my knowledge of the history of this whole thing (recent history), which began about the time I was born, 62 years ago, neither side, Israel nor the Palestinians, have a lock on all that is good and right. Furthermore, Arab powers in the area, and even the Persians of Iran, have capitalized on the suffering of the Palestinians, but have not been of much help to them.

But the indisputable fact is that the Palestinians had their territory taken over in order to create the modern state of Israel. That state was created for the Jews by the Western powers, most notably the U.S. and Britain, to atone for all the suffering of the of Jews, who had long been persecuted in Europe and finally had lost millions of their own in Hitler’s Holocaust — they were shot or gassed to death and their bodies burned in giant ovens and maybe sometimes they were not killed before being thrown into the inferno.

So a new/old homeland for the Jews was created in the old biblical place where God’s “chosen people” once abided.

At the time previous to the creation of the modern state of Israel the British were in charge there, the area being  part of what was left of the old British Empire, upon which the sun never set.

There is disagreement as to how much legal claim the displaced Palestinians had over the land, they not being incorporated into a recognized state, and there are even claims by the Jews that the Palestinians were not chased off but rather left of their own accord — not wanting to share space with Jews. This is my admittedly limited understanding of the whole situation, but I think there are elements of truth from all who try to give an account of what happened, but their own prejudices and true motives get in the way of complete truth here.

But history is history. This is today. And there is no reason why what I believe are a relatively homogeneous group of people, the Palestinians, should not have complete autonomy.

While the Palestinians, as a group through the years, are guilty of grave acts of terrorism against the Jews, the Jews themselves engaged in terrorism, mainly against the British, in their original efforts at statehood. In addition, the Jews continue to build and maintain new settlements encroaching on what is considered Palestinian territory.

While the Palestinians have a responsibility to be peaceful neighbors and refrain from making war on Israel, Israel has to responsibility to quit denying freedom to so many inhabitants of the land who are not Jewish.

The United States has tried to be responsible through the years and be responsive to the needs of the Jewish people, who have historically been oppressed.

The U.S. has also responded through the years in various crises, such as Arab invasions, due not only to a sense of right but the power of the ultra-strong Jewish lobby and a strong voting block of U.S. Jews.

But it is time now for the U.S. to sit back and let the Palestinians declare their own state, making it plain that the U.S. still supports the defense of Israel.

There is no guarantee of peace and harmony is all of this, but to do otherwise after all this time is a guarantee of continued strife.

The very suggestion Iraqis would now attack our troops makes my blood boil…

In my opinion our United States military should be for defense and defense only (or for emergency rescue or aid of the public), not as a tool of international policy, geopolitical strategy and intrigue.

It instantly made my blood boil when I read a story in the online Washington Post that Maryland National Guard troops readying to deploy to Iraq have to worry that if we are there past the deadline for us to be out of there they might be attacked by Iraqis (oh, and I also don’t think the National Guard should be sent overseas except in dire emergencies).

Part of me wants to say: how dare anyone in Iraq might suggest or do such a thing. And part of me wants to say: if they think our previous occupation was bad, just wait till we really take over.

Then again, part of me wants to say: we had no business being there in the first place, what did we expect?

Let’s stop the nation building and let’s pack up and come home.

I am not at all sure that the pre-World War II isolationists were so wrong. We goaded Japan into attacking us by cutting off their oil supply. Look what we do for oil nowadays.

Germany did not attack us (at the beginning of WWII). We tried to help right things in Europe in WWI, but the folks there just could not get along. So we had to pull their chestnuts (our allies) out of the fire once again in World War II.

The Germans were working on the atomic bomb. That would have been a problem. But maybe if we had not gotten into the war there would be no reason for them to develop the bomb and we could have developed it anyway. Maybe the Germans and Russians would have taken care of (destroyed) each other — others have suggested as much.

Fortress America may not have been such a bad idea.

I for one do not believe in one-world government.

The United States has used NATO (and the UN) as a cover in the past and most recently in Libya has let it go out in front. But I ask this: what happens if one of these multi-nation organizations of which we are a member decides it does not like what we are doing in this country and decides to take military action against us?

Cooperation among nations certainly is required for world peace, but a nation is not a nation when it gives up its sovereignty.

The story that provoked this:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/md-politics/mission-for-md-soldiers-unclear-with-iraq-exit-in-limbo/2011/09/02/gIQARxO5zJ_story.html?hpid=z4

Let’s keep America strong by staying right here and defending America.

Let’s recognize a free Palestine and look homeward America…

For my part, I would be pleased if our president concentrated more on domestic issues, such as how to pay off the national debt and to eliminate deficit spending, and of course to get the work force back to work. But since he seems interested in foreign relations at the moment, I applaud his call in a speech on the Middle East today for the creation once and for all of an independent Palestinian state based on the pre-1967 borders.

I’m not as up on the history as I should be, but I am certainly well aware of the Six-Day War back in 1967. I was a senior in high school then, and it being in June, I was just about out of school. I don’t think many of my classmates were interested in this sort of thing, but I recall at least one of my social studies teachers was. He was obviously pro-Israeli (I think he was Jewish), and I think based on the comments he made and the tone of the news reports I heard, the Israelis were the good guys and those dirty nasty Arabs were the bad guys. Well, in reality there is/was probably plenty of blame to go around. My quick internet research tells me that both sides were expecting war and troops from each side, the (Israelis and the Arabs) were massing on the borders. Both sides initially claimed the other side attacked first, but in the end, Israel admitted it made a pre-emptive air attack.

The Arabs had wanted (and still do) to eliminate the modern state of Israel, created in 1949 with the support of the United States and Western European governments over guilt and/or sympathy over the Holocaust (the murder of some 6 million Jews — along with assorted Gypsies and others, by the Nazis of Germany). But in the end, instead of being eliminated, Israel took over some new territory as the result of its pre-emptive attack and subsequent victory in the Six-Day War.

Well right there, that should not have been allowed. Israel should have been pressured by the western powers, upon whom it depends ultimately for survival in a hostile land, to cede back the overtaken territories. I wish after all these years the western powers, to include the United States, most notably, would simply demand that Israel recognize a fully-independent state of Palestine, based on pre-1967 borders, and at the same time let the Arabs know that Israel will continue to be a reality, so get used to it.

On a related subject, while I think the Libya intervention (remember that?) was a mistake, now that we are in it (by our support), let’s get Gaddafi and then let the Libyans do what they will with their own country, even if they have to fight among themselves to sort it out. Bin Laden is gone, and he was not in Afghanistan (surprise, surprise), and most or all of Al Qaeda is said to be out of that nation and the Taliban there are not as hot on Al Qaeda as they once were some experts say (they don‘t want to go the way of Bin Laden). So let’s hand that nation back to the people there and let them take care of things as they have for centuries in their tribal fashion.

Let’s say good riddance to out false friend Pakistan. No more money to them. (And really, if I understand it right, most of the so-called aid that goes to them is military and is really just a boon for the armaments industry.)

And let’s ignore Iran already. We should (this is something I always assert and will not stop now) secretly send Iran a message that we will stay out of its affairs but we will not tolerate a nuclear-armed Iran. Same with Pakistan and North Korea. These nations cannot be trusted. And, in fact, the world does not need any new members of the nuclear weapons club.

I wish all the best in the so-called Arab Spring democracy movement. But that is their business and who is to say their version of democracy will be like ours? It’s not as sexy or glamorous, but the United States would do better to refurbish its relations with the nations of its own hemisphere. I’m not aware of any particular problems with Canada, but I do know that Mexico, a major commercial trading partner, is in the throes of a catastrophic drug war that threatens civil society there and here as well and that the U.S. is partly responsible in that the drugs come north because of the market here and contraband weapons from the U.S. go south .

And we would do well to strengthen relations with the nations of Central and South America.

Look homeward America!

Arabs backed West’s Libya no-fly zone action right up until the bombs started falling; The U.S. should take charge now that it has begun, war by committee not the way to go, and we probably should not have gotten involved, but we have, deal with it!

So the powers that be decided to go to war in Libya to oust Gaddafi after all, even though I had blogged (they probably don’t read my blog) essentially that to do so would likely be a fool’s errand or at least not in the best interests of the United States (technically the goal is to just get Gaddafi from shooting at his own people or something like that).

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ADD 2:

I should mention for clarity that the “powers that be” are supposedly members of the United Nations Security Council, with China and Russia abstaining from the vote in favor of the no-fly zone over Libya, instead of voting no, which could have prevented it. Germany, Brazil and India, non-permanent security council members, also abstained from voting.

To add to the confusion and to demonstrate why you can’t expect Arabs to take care of their own problems, the Arab League had endorsed the no-fly zone, right up till the time the bombs started falling and the missiles flying. The West will always be criticized in their world no matter what — so why don’t we just stay out and save the money and blood? really!

As far as their oil, we have our own we can drill for. I hope they drown in theirs.

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And I do call this a war. While Gaddafi may be forced to chicken out with all the bombs falling around him and having his air force destroyed, he may not, and besides the likely result may well be the whole country being pushed into civil war and then what do we (the U.S.) do or what does the United Nations do?

In addition I do not see how you can run a military operation by committee, with each member nation involved deciding what it will and will not do.

One nation and one representative of that nation, such as the United States in World War II and Supreme Allied commander U.S. Gen. Dwight Eisenhower, needs to be in charge.

Fighting war by the leadership of a committee does not stand much of a chance of working. Like I have said, if Gaddafi just collapses and things go well after that maybe, but then one has to ask, why wasn’t someone just sent in to knock him off (instead of spending millions of dollars for each Cruise missile and for all the jet fuel and so on) ?

Yesterday I heard the French were the first in. Good luck with that. When was the last time the French ever won anything (and didn‘t they lose next door Algeria a long time ago now?)? Didn’t we have to save them from the Germans two times in the last century, all because we felt beholding to them for the help of one French volunteer Gen. Lafayette in our own Revolutionary War (yes I realize the French nation itself supported our cause back then because at the time we had a mutual enemy, the British Crown).

I am appalled that U.S. President Barack Obama has stated more than once now that no U.S. troops will be put on the ground in Libya (just airplane and missile strikes). While I would not want to see us get bogged down in another Middle East war, war is war and the only way to fight it is to win and generally ground troops have to go in some time to consolidate things and to hold the ground.

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ADD 1:

It just gets worse and even more absurd. I just read a story in which the U.S.’s top military man Admiral Mike Mullen is quoted as now saying we are not necessarily going after Gaddafi, that the maniac could conceivably stay in power, that we are just trying to keep him from attacking his people. So this is in contradiction now of what Obama and his administration has been saying, that is Gaddafi must go. And so, do we just send in air strikes every time we don’t like certain policies or internal actions by another nation ? Hey, I knew Eisenhower, and Mike Mullen is no Gen. Eisenhower and Obama is no President Eisenhower or FDR or even Harry Truman (well I didn’t personally know Eisenhower, but I was around when he was president, although I was only a little kid).

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Probably we have no business going into Libya anyway. We would not want to have had a third party interfere with our own Civil War back in the 1860s (the South had hoped and the North had feared, I think I recall in my history, that Great Britain might take the side of the South — needing their cotton for their mills).

And we are applying the double standard, as has been already pointed out by many observers, in that we are not attacking the governments of Bahrain or Yemen or even Saudi Arabia for holding down their own dissidents. And in fact, we really have egg on our face for supporting Gaddafi up until recently because he had cleverly pretended to play nice with the West.

But of course the reason Europe and the United States are interested in Libya is because it has OIL.

But since the war is on, let’s get a military leader, and that leader has to be American because the United States is the super power of the world and whether we like it or not the world has already decided we own this military action anyway.

So far, however, Obama seems indecisive (he and those who agree with his methods might just say “cautious”).

But Obama needs to appoint a military leader for this operation and then get out of his way, but of course Obama still must be in charge as the ultimate authority, albeit in the background.

If things go well and this whole thing is over with shortly, maybe I am wrong.

What are the chances of that (not me being wrong, but things going well)?

Some voices on the right and left call for Libya intervention

When both voices from the right and left urge us to go to war, watch out! Not a scientific survey since I only heard the voices of two talk show hosts, but I did hear them in the last 24 hours or so and they both seemed to suggest ( and/ or many of their callers did) that the U.S. should intervene in Libya to stop the massacre of innocent civilians.

One of the right-wing callers fumed about how impotent the U.S. has become and said that the situation in Libya is proof — the Arab bad guys know we won’t do anything. He said we should go in there and set up our own government for the people — oh, like we did in Iraq? Like we are trying to do in Afghanistan — nation building. How’s that working out?

The left-wing callers and the host wanted action more along humanitarian grounds, while the right wing clearly was interested in the oil (but the left wing acknowledges the oil thing too — we have “interests” there).

Libya is a major, major oil producer, with billions of barrels of reserves — need I really say more?　

Thomas Friedman of the New York Times suggests that the spike in oil prices over the uncertainty in the oil lands over the budding revolutions signals more clearly than ever that we need to wean ourselves off of oil so we don’t have to be dependent on the Middle East. He calls for an energy tax on gasoline so we can build more electric cars: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/23/opinion/23friedman.html?_r=1&hp

It would make gasoline cost more, but we’ll soon be paying through the nose anyway. Don’t think I like his idea, but he may have a point.

In the interim we could convert more of our transportation to natural gas, a commodity we have in abundance, I understand, and one that can be retrofitted to our existing vehicles.

There are also calls for the UN to intervene. I for one do not much care for that. It really means for the U.S. to intervene under the cover of the UN. Even if it were just the UN, I do not think American troops should ever be under the control of commanders from other nations.

While I hate to see the carnage in Libya, I would think that if the U.S. got involved it would be similar to the police breaking up a domestic disturbance where both the husband and wife who were fighting each other go after the police. That is what happened in Iraq and it never has totally settled down. And worse yet, as I understand it, Iraq is becoming aligned or seems to be with Iran.

On the other hand, if Gaddafi, in Libya, is using foreign troops to massacre his own people, that might be a legitimate pretext for the U.S. to become involved, because that would mean the place is really out of control with no way for its people to get a hold on things. For their own good and for the stability of the region and the world — and the oil trade, we need to do something. But if we did, please let’s use all of our power instead of being namby pamby and fighting with one hand tied behind our backs.

P.s.

Wouldn’t it be easier to just off Gaddafi (Reagan bombed his tent)? Wouldn’t it have been easier just to off Saddam Hussein?