The Chosen One Spoketh, Then A Black Hole Consumed All That Was

It really is my own fault. I joined in the chorus of people that were calling for President Obama to explain himself in his actions regarding Libya.

Today he did.

Basically his speech said that the United States had to intervene in Libya because "it was in the national interest", "to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe" and because not acting would "have been a betrayal of who we are." Awesome. That explanation is so high minded and convoluted that if you were to take it literally, the United States would be morally obligated to throw up a no-fly zone over about 60% of the globe.

Rather than just admire in it's childlike nature, it's best to tackle it head on. Libya is is no way the United States national interest. Sure they have oil but so do lots of people. George Bush scared them into abandoning their nuke program and they are not at the top of the terrorist sponsor countries. Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan are all more important to the national interest than Libya. And that's just the Middle East. China, Russia, N. Korea, Mexico and Japan are all much higher priority than Libya. So who does care about Libya? Europeans. For reasons I haven't fully researched, Europe seems to have a lot of money and resources tied up in Libya. By that I mean oil. Maybe they thought Qaddafi was easier to deal with than some of the other nutjob dictators. Who knows. But they are in deep and that's why anyone cares. Obama got himself roped into this because he couldn't withstand the pressure from the French.

Prevent the humanitarian catastrophe. Please. Sure, the government was killing people but to be fair there was a fully armed opposition that was trying to instigate a revolution. Nobody likes dictators but you have to expect them to defend themselves. How can Obama even mention the "humanitarian catastrophe" while Darfur and North Korea still get to operate as they please? How many Africans and Bosnians, etc. have been allowed to massacre each other without NATO, the UN or people like Obama batting an eye? You could stage an invasion of North Korea any day of the week and be completely justified. Why don't we? Well, we gave them nukes so that's a problem. Besides, they don't have oil and Europe doesn't care about starving Koreans. Obama is just trying to find cover to appease his Kucinichesque cadre of bleeding heart pacifists that can't understand why gitmo is still open and Obama is killing more Muslims.

How would Obama even know who Americans are? He has spent most of life community organizing which has as it's primary goal the destruction of the traditional American free market capitalist system of economics. Like it or not, the United States was founded because of money and the desire for people to get their hands on it. The idea being that if you could get your hands on it, you could keep it. Obama's whole ideology believes that if you have money, it should be forcibly taken away from you and given to those who didn't earn it. It's awful presumptuous for Obama to try and project American values overseas when all he tries to do is undermine them at home. That's what all that hope and change was about. The values Obama is truly projecting overseas are European ones. He shares far more common ground with their way of thinking than traditional American political thought. Even for liberals he's out there.

Maybe it's better when Obama just doesn't talk about stuff. Maybe his advisers knew that too and that's why he's been so quiet lately. Deafening silence is better than what we got today. That speech today was so patently a contrived speech intended to mollify critics that it was embarrassing. He knows it wasn't true. We know, everyone knows. To actually say that crap makes him either a liar or a fool. Better to just keep quite after all.

That Was Fast

So . . . . . . are we done with Libya already?

It seems like only days ago that the French were kicking ass and taking names. The Brits were on board, the Germans were finally on the good side of a conflict and we all got to see footage of Tomahawk missiles being shot off of naval ships. Awesome, awesome, awesome.

Now what? Nobody in NATO will even admit we're in a conflict, the Germans took their ball and went home, the French disappeared (did they surrender to Libya?) and Obama's just gonna try and get past the whole thing.

I have a sneaking suspicion that the reason we seemed to have bailed on this hastily organized cluster f is that we realized at some point that we were helping Al-Qaeda overthrow Mommar. What other reason could there be? Surly the good Colonel is a ruthless enough dictator that killing him would surly be a blessing for the world. The only way you wouldn't want that was if bin Laden was hiding in a hummus barrel somewhere in Tripoli just waiting for the chance to strike.

One thing's for sure though, we need to stop all these world leaders from declaring that we're not at war with Libya. Unless Obama has some serious Clintonian mojo, I'm betting all those Tomahawks did more than blow up thousands and thousands of aspirin factories. I can assume the only reason we haven't seen video of the all the corpses is that all the "freedom fighters" are too busy sexually assaulting journalists to do any actual muckraking. If only these people knew that that the key to any good revolution was the effective implementation of Twitter and Facebook on the battlefield. Not that I'm judging any culture. We're all exactly the same, all great, all equal, no judging. Some are just a little more rapey than others.

I don't even know what to make of this situation anymore. I guess Japan is fine too? Seems like two days ago the entire country was going to melt and today I read that Japan has had a 9% jump in exports because China's been buying more stuff. Really? Growing that trade business while dealing with an earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown? Yet when I look at the classified there's just a big hand giving me the finger. Awesome. Maybe if we start and ill-conceived bombing campaign against another middle eastern country I can get a job welding fins to missiles or something.

Oh Bother

I wonder if there has been a time in modern history where the President of the United States mattered less than he does right now. For whatever reason, Barack Obama has decided to take a pass on all issues, foreign and domestic. The thing in Egypt? Meh. Libya? Nada. Japan? Time to golf! Crushing debt at home? Crickets.

Don't get me wrong, I think the only thing worse than a disengaged Obama is an engaged one but it's truly an odd situation in the world now. I certainly hope we all realize that the Germans have dug in as pacifists and that the French President is agitating for military action in Libya. Hell, Sarkozy seems to have even talked the Brits into action.

Sadly, his efforts seem to have fallen on deaf ears, proving once again that intergovernmental organizations are complete frauds. France can't get any traction on a no-fly zone because the European Union wants no part of it. NATO has pretended that it has no idea what's going on and given how things are going in Afghanistan, maybe that's for the best. The United Nations has continued it's unblemished record of allowing dictators to slaughter their own people so long as they keep it in-house.

I've started to hear rumblings as to why this is the situation. Why nobody wants to help the Libyan rebels oust a monstrous dictator. These people fundamentally misunderstand the mission of these groups. Most people think that these groups were created and designed to prevent the kinds of genocide and atrocities seen in WWI & WWII. The exact opposite is true. These groups were created so that all nations could give each other a collective pass for not doing anything.

We know this is true because every time something awful starts happening, all of these groups get bogged down in terminology or bureaucracy. Either finding convenient legal reasons that tie their hands or waiting so long to do anything that it no longer matters. If they really cared, they would have rapid response teams ready to go at all times, instead they find any excuse to sit it out until somebody needs to count the bodies.

Barack Obama is the perfect President to work with these groups. Most leaders have to answer questions as to why they are ignoring the world aflame. Obama somehow just does nothing and the nobody gives him any grief over it. It's truly amazing how much of a world afterthought he has become. It'd be even funnier if that didn't mean the toughest leader in the Western World was a french guy.