The liberals and the Libertarians have converged in opposition to the president’s decision to take military action in Libya, while others are pointing out that it was the women in the Obama administration who prevailed over the men.
Over the weekend, the left-wing group known as Citizens For Legitimate Government made this observation: “112 cruise missiles launched from US and UK ships and subs, hitting 20 sites. Now, that’s change we can believe in! See, Bush bombed Iraq on 19 March 2003; Obama bombed Libya on 19 March 2011! See the change?”
Libertarians chimed in, with the party issuing a press release under this headline: “They hate us because we bomb them.”
Party Chair Mark Hinkle said Obama’s aggressive approach in the Middle East ignores recent history and gives the impression that America is at war with the Muslim world.
“Libyan President Moammar Ghadafi is no friend of liberty, but the military involvement of the United States in the rebellion against him threatens to undermine the credibility of the resistance to his rule and turn him into a hero,” Hinkle said. “As news of both actual and rumored killings of innocent civilians by American bombs spreads throughout the Arab world, the hatred which spawned the 9/11 murderers will continue to grow.”
Our resident Libertarian, former state representative Leon Drolet, posted this on Facebook: “Hooray for more … military intervention without constitutional authority! I’m sure we need to get involved with Libya to ‘fight terrorism’. Or something. Wow, President Obama sure is different than President Bush, isn’t he? Another Nobel Peace Prize is surely in order!”
Meanwhile, it’s interesting to note that the so-called liberal media, including NBC and Newsweek, have reported from a fairly hawkish point of view.
Mike Allen at Politico began his dispatch over the weekend this way: “For the first time since World War II, Americans are in hot conflicts in three different places — and this time, all three fronts are in Muslim countries. The U.S. military is showing its amazing range: roughly 48,000 troops remain in Iraq; 100,000 are in Afghanistan; and now five U.S. ships, with a total crew of about 1,000 sailors, have fired missiles at Libya.”
Over at NBC, Andrea Mitchell reported that the women in the administration ruled the day on the Libya issue.
“In the end, it became the women foreign policy advisers against the men,” she said. “Although Hillary Clinton initially resisted the idea of a no-fly zone, she was persuaded at the beginning of (last) week by the Arab League’s endorsement of military action. She … joined U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice and two other women in the National Security Council (senior directors Samantha Power and Gayle Smith), who’ve been arguing for some time for more aggressive action.”
At Newsweek, Niall Ferguson, writes approvingly of the military intervention but complains that Obama should have taken action sooner.
Under the headline “The Big Dither,” Ferguson wrote this: “Obama was right to back a no-fly zone over Libya. But he should have done it weeks ago. The president has been more Hamlet than Macbeth since the beginning of the revolutionary crisis. Obama … a novice in foreign affairs, is a president without a strategy. … Make no mistake — whatever the wording of the United Nations Security Council resolution, the United States is now at war with the Libyan government, and the aim of this war is the overthrow of Gaddafi . … Had (Secretary Clinton) been president, my guess is we’d have taken swifter action. But in this play, she’s Lady Macbeth, urging Obama to get tough.”
