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Libya and the President's Speech
Mar. 29th, 2011 10:12 amI caught the President's speech on Libya last night. Basically, he decided that he had an opportunity to put his thumb on the scale, so he did so. He should have gone to Congress first, but since I see no indication that they'd actually vote no, it's a moot point.
I'm still not convinced that we needed to go in, although in part that's because of what didn't happen. We were not treated to the sight of a massacre in Benghazi, for example. At any rate, a few observations on the speech and reactions:
1) The big reason Obama is (publicly, at least) not targeting Qaddafi is to tell the rebels that we are not their Fairy Godmother. They will have to do some of the heavy lifting, and may have to hold their noses and sign a deal for "Uncle Curly" (Qaddafi’s local nickname) to take a few suitcases of cash and leave town.
2) I caught a bit of Fox News this morning, and saw John McCain (very appropriately) say that we'd have to deal with each country in the Arab Spring differently, on a case-by-case basis. In other words, no no-fly zone for Syria right now.
3) Via![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
bdunbar, I find a new blog - Revolutionology. It's written by an American sociologist who speaks Arabic, and is a ground-level view of what's going on in Libya. It's well worth the read. It's also where I found out about the "Uncle Curly" nickname.
My overall reaction to events is what I call the "car wreck syndrome." Nobody wants to get into a car wreck, but if you're going to do so, better it be a minor one.
I'm still not convinced that we needed to go in, although in part that's because of what didn't happen. We were not treated to the sight of a massacre in Benghazi, for example. At any rate, a few observations on the speech and reactions:
1) The big reason Obama is (publicly, at least) not targeting Qaddafi is to tell the rebels that we are not their Fairy Godmother. They will have to do some of the heavy lifting, and may have to hold their noses and sign a deal for "Uncle Curly" (Qaddafi’s local nickname) to take a few suitcases of cash and leave town.
2) I caught a bit of Fox News this morning, and saw John McCain (very appropriately) say that we'd have to deal with each country in the Arab Spring differently, on a case-by-case basis. In other words, no no-fly zone for Syria right now.
3) Via
bdunbar, I find a new blog - Revolutionology. It's written by an American sociologist who speaks Arabic, and is a ground-level view of what's going on in Libya. It's well worth the read. It's also where I found out about the "Uncle Curly" nickname.My overall reaction to events is what I call the "car wreck syndrome." Nobody wants to get into a car wreck, but if you're going to do so, better it be a minor one.
