Here are two George Will columns on our actions in Libya and one from David Brooks on Gaddafi. These are worth the time.
On Libya, Too Many Questions by George F. Will Washington Post, March 8, 2011
Another Exercise in Regime Change by George F. Will Washington Post, Mar. 23, 2011
The Ego Advantage by David Brooks NYT, March 24, 2011
As the coalition frays at the seams, the Secretary of State has been the only American official to address the nation since we went to war in Libya – President Obama will finally speak Monday night. She didn’t take any questions. I think the nation deserves better.
Will says, “The world would be better without Gaddafi. But is that a vital U.S. national interest? If it is, when did it become so? A month ago, no one thought it was.” His other questions in the first column deserve answers.
Will also made these observations:
· No-fly zones do not bring down regimes. Regime change happens when there are boots on the ground.
· President Obama has “made it clear” that Gaddafi must go and that there will be no American troops on the ground.
· President Kennedy reluctantly ordered the Bay of Pigs invasion which was planned by the Pentagon under President Eisenhower. In a precursor to war with restraint, Kennedy denied the invaders the intended American air and naval support. The Cubans were slaughtered.
· On Dec. 29, 1962, in Miami’s Orange Bowl, President John Kennedy addressed a rally of survivors and supporters of that exercise in regime change. Presented with the invasion brigade’s flag, Kennedy vowed, “I can assure you that this flag will be returned to this brigade in a free Havana.” We’re at 48 years and counting.
· A year later, the Kennedy administration was complicit in another violent regime change – the coup against, and murder of, South Vietnam’s President Diem. The Saigon regime was indeed changed but Saigon is now Ho Chi Minh City [and 153,303 American servicemen died].
A couple of things seem pretty clear at this point: Gaddafi isn’t leaving and the no-fly zone won’t change his mind. The apparent next step is to arm the rebels while taking out all the ground based Gaddafi heavy weapons we can see. Gaddafi forces will retreat to the cities and use citizens to shield his guns. We have entered a civil war and it won’t be over soon.
We armed the Afghans against the Soviet invaders in 1979 and after nine years, it worked. But when the Soviets left, so did we. The Taliban murdered the Mujahideen, took over the country and welcomed al Qaeda training camps.
President Obama instructed the military that he wanted the Libyan conflict to last days not weeks – he told the world that Gaddafi must go. Coalition members and NATO leaders are now one-upping each other saying the struggle will go on “for a while” and some venturing “at least three months.”
America is now at war in yet another Muslim nation. Despite all the rhetoric, we are and have been leading the effort which is very certainly going to continue for some time while most probably getting worse before it gets better.
Finally, we have David Brooks wondering how Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, “a guy who seems to be only marginally attached to reality” manages to stay in power for 42 years.
· Gaddafi has called for the elimination of Switzerland.
· He has compared himself to Jesus and the Prophet Muhammad and has written the Green Book of his teachings which he says is “the new gospel.”
· In the Green Book, he reveals that women menstruate and men do not.
· Early on he expelled the Italian community, forcing its members to exhume the bodies of Italians from Libyan graveyards to take home. He broadcast the exhumation live on state TV.
Brooks says that crazies of Gaddafi’s ilk believe they possess absolute truth. They are motivated to fulfill their World Historical Mission and have no interest in retiring peacefully to some villa. An ominous conclusion for us.
If you read the Brooks column, you’ll see that he closes with a somewhat obscure article by a great woman, Jeane Kirkpatrick. That totalitarian regimes, which control everything, are more difficult to replace than authoritarian ones, which tolerate some independent institutions, seems obvious enough. Or perhaps Brooks means that one man governments controlled by a maniac are the hardest to displace – not so obvious. There’s a link there to the excellent [long] 1979 article that became the “Kirkpatrick Doctrine.” Anyway Brooks lost me there.
Jeane Kirkpatrick is worth remembering. She was a Democrat-turned-Republican that was the first woman to be U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. She was an ardent anticommunist in Ronald Reagan's Cabinet, known for her "Kirkpatrick Doctrine," which advocated U.S. support of anticommunist governments around the world.
In 1988 she said, “Russia is playing chess, while we are playing Monopoly. The only question is whether they will checkmate us before we bankrupt them.” Go capitalism.
Personally, I’ll be tuning in to the President on Monday night.
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