Usually you invade a country that most of your people find particularly loathsome (Iraq, Afghanistan) to cover up a personal scandal (Clinton) or because it fits ideologically with your power base (Bush II). What Obama is doing satisfies neither.
First of all, launching an offensive in Libya doesn't do anything but enrage Obama's leftist base. They were already fuming over the decision not to close Gitmo and the continuation of the debacle in Afghanistan. On top of that was the decision to back down on civilian trials for all held terrorists which have been dropped in favor of the military tribunal. Bottom line is that this is going to cost him support from Democrats and not gain him anything with Republicans.
Up until yesterday, he didn't have a major scandal to cover either. While conservatives view his policy decisions as disastrous, passing ObamaCare gives him a pass with libs. Other than that, the worst people were publicly calling him was absentee for not addressing any substantive issue in the world. That's been the Obama way for years, I can't see this minor criticism bothering him into action. I would argue that entering into a military action under pressure from the French and Brits just makes Obama look like he entered into a quasi-war to pacify Europeans. Not good.
If that wasn't bad enough, now Obama has a serious scandal that just makes military action look worse. The German papers have released photos of an American Army "death squad" that has apparently been roaming Afghanistan targeting and killing civilians for fun. And like most psychopaths, they felt the need to document their project with photos. 4,000 of said photos are now in the possession of German media. Yikes.
This type of thing make Abu Gharib look like a mincing little walk in the park. At least that was a bad policy decision leveled against people dragged off the battlefield. Mostly scumbags. There is going to be riots due to the actions of the United States military in the middle east from Tehran to Cairo. How exactly is the rest of that area going to view us bombing Libya to a pile of rubble in light of this revelation? Especially when you consider that we have no real reason to be in Libya. Sure they have a serious dictator problem but who doesn't over there? Libya is old news. Reagan tried to fix that problem in the 80's and we passed. We don't even know if the guys we're helping out are terrorists or not. They sure did organize a fighting force quickly, that can't be good.
If Obama were even aware of public relations he would have announced some kind of massive withdrawal right before these kill squad monsters came to light. Now it just looks like all we do is kill Muslims for no real reason.
I'm not sure if Obama is insensitive to how this looks or if he's just in over his head but he's acting like a guy who sees a fire and thinks that it could use a little gasoline. The rudderless Obama foreign policy apparatus makes the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld nation building process look like a highly tuned scientific process. I certainly hope that Obama can break out from his funk/incompetence in time to handle this massacre thing. The world has serious problems and it would be nice if the leader of the free world could exert a little influence. Have we all taken note of how the French seem to have eagerly tried to fill the leadership void internationally? How does that usually work out for the world? I'm not sure if the executions of all the people involved in the killings will satisfy anyone around the world but it would be a good place to start just to restore a little bit our own dignity. It's one of the worst things that our military has been involved with since Vietnam and it needs to be handled head on and moved past quick. Lord knows there's more trouble on the way.
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