We can expect, throughout the day, half-hearted applause from Republicans over the death of Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi. No sense giving any special attention to a victory for the Obama administration. I would also suspect that a few of the GOP partisans – on Capitol Hill and within the field of presidential contenders – who initially called the U.S. no-fly zone over Libya a terrible mistake will pull a full-scale flip-flop by heartily praising the success of the military operation.
Some Republicans are just waking up to the idea that Barack Obama, of all people, has emerged as a hardcore hawk in the war against terrorism. Perhaps these GOP stalwarts have seen the new poll that shows a 61 percent approval rating for the president’s handling of foreign policy.
Victor Davis Hanson, a fixture at the staunchly conservative National Review, wrote this on his blog this morning:
“The Middle East is a very different place than it was on 9/11: Saddam dead, Osama bin Laden dead, Qaddafi dead, Mubarak near dead, and Assad reeling. Much of this transition is due to the decision after 9/11 to push for radical change in the Middle East, started by George Bush and more or less continued uninterrupted by Barack Obama. After the capture of Saddam, Qaddafi saw a glimpse of his own fate; one wonders how many Middle East despots are doing the same as they view the ghoulish pictures of a seemingly dead Qaddafi that are now all over the Internet.”
It’s been a long road since the 2008 campaign when Republicans, led by Sarah Palin, claimed that Obama had a history of “paling around with terrorists.” Now that we see the reality of a commander-in-chief Obama, it’s clear that he’s pretty ruthless at killing terrorists and other anti-American agitators.
Devoted GOP Obama critics may wince at Hanson’s approval of the president’s role in reshaping the Middle East. Yet, Hanson stated in detail Obama’s effectiveness on these matters just days ago.
His re-evaluation was explained in a column with this title, “Predator-in-Chief: Once the war on terror’s fiercest critic, Obama has become its deadliest practitioner.” I’m not sure how anyone could label the Barack Obama of the past as the top critic of the war on terror, given all the leftist bomb-throwers who did their best to damage George W. Bush from 2002-08.
But Hanson states the obvious, outlining how Obama, shortly after taking office, dramatically stepped up the Predator Drone attacks on al-Qaida and jihadi sites throughout the Middle East. It should also be noted that Obama’s Libya strategy included hundreds of Pedator strikes to assist the now-victorious rebels.
Here, in part, is what Hanson wrote one week ago:
“… America is once again getting the upper hand in this long war against Middle Eastern terrorists, with the use of Predator Drone targeted assassinations to which the terrorists have not yet developed an answer. In systematically deadly fashion, Predators are picking off the top echelon of al-Qaida and its affiliates from the Hindu Kush to Yemen to the Horn of Africa.
“New models of drones seem almost unstoppable. They are uncannily accurate in delivering missiles in a way even precision aircraft-bombing cannot. Compared to the cost of a new jet or infantry division, Predators are incredibly cheap. And they do not endanger American lives — at least as long as terrorists cannot get at hidden runaways abroad or video-control consoles at home.
“The pilotless aircraft are nearly invisible and, without warning, can deliver instant death from thousands of feet away in the airspace above. Foreign governments often give us permission to cross borders with Predators in a way they would not with loud, manned aircraft.
“Moreover, drones are constantly evolving. They now stay in the air far longer and are far more accurate and far more deadly than when they first appeared in force shortly after 9/11. Suddenly it is a lot harder for a terrorist to bomb a train station in the West than it is for a Predator to target that same would-be terrorist’s home in South Waziristan.
“All those advantages explain why President Obama has exponentially expanded the program. After five years of use under George W. Bush, such drones had killed around 400 suspected terrorists in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Under President Obama, in less than three years, Predators have taken out more than 2,200.
“The program is uniquely suited to Obama’s ‘leading from behind’ approach to warfare: killing far out of sight, and therefore out of mind — and out of the news.
“… For Obama, the Predator Drone avoids former candidate Obama’s past legal objections by simply blowing apart suspected terrorists without having to capture them — and then to ponder how and where they should be tried. With a dead, rather than a detained, terrorist, civil libertarians cannot demand that Obama honor his campaign pledge to treat suspects like American criminals, while conservatives cannot pounce on any perceived softness in extending Miranda rights to captured al-Qaida killers.
“Anti-war protestors demonstrate in response to American soldiers getting killed, but rarely about robotic aircraft quietly obliterating distant terrorists. American fatalities can make war unpopular; a crashed drone is a ‘who cares?’ statistic.
“Still, there are lots of questions that arise from this latest American advantage. Waterboarding, which once sparked a liberal furor, is now a dead issue. How can anyone object to harshly interrogating a few known terrorists when routinely blowing apart more than 2,000 suspected ones — and anyone in their vicinity?
“Predators both depersonalize and personalize war in a fashion quite unknown in the past. In one sense, killing a terrorist is akin to playing an amoral video game thousands of miles away. But in another, we often know the name and even recognize the face of each victim, in a way unknown in the anonymous carnage of, for example, the Battles of Verdun and Hue. Does that make war more or less humane?
“Once the most prominent critic of the war on terror, Obama has now become its greatest adherent — and in the process is turning the tide against al-Qaeda. And so far, the American people of all political stripes — for vastly different reasons — seem more relieved than worried over Obama’s most unexpected incarnation as Predator-in-Chief.”
Chad, where is your mission accomplished banner? Perhaps you don't remember but we won the battles in Iraq and Afghanistan and took over those countries pretty quickly too, that is the easy part, the hard part is who or what is going to run these countries and getting all the different factions of government to work together. We will most likely end up in Libya with an Islamic extreme government like we will have in Egypt that is unfriendly to the US and in the end the mideast will be more unstable. It is funny for you to criticize Republicans as hypocrites, though, I don't remember all the columns your wrote supporting the Iraq War but now that it is a Democrat President you and the rest of the media are all for the US getting involved in a country that poses no risk to us. I can't speak for all republicans but many of us learned from Iraq and Afghanistan and realize that it was a mistake. Foriegn Policy is similiar to domestic policy, plans are made with the best of intentions but the results and the unforeseen circumstances or blowback that will happen will make things worse than doing nothing.