I took a bit of heat last year for speaking out against American involvement in the Libyan Civil War, as anyone can see from the comments on this post. It is with sadness I read this article, a late-breaking headline from The Washington Post.
"What if's" are fun, but miss the point. That the Libyans enjoy a measure of freedom today is directly related to the American military preventing the military of the old regime completely destroying the rebels. We were fortunate not to lose pilots and aircraft during that air campaign. Now, we've lost three American diplomats, the leader of which seems, from the article, to have been deeply committed to seeing post-Qaddafi Libya succeed. The Libyan people lost a good and able friend yesterday, killed by their own.
You're welcome, Libya. And, I'm so glad all those who supported Pres. Obama's ill-considered decision to "do something" have felt vindicated all these months, because everyone needs time to celebrate being right.
So, let's do this again! In Syria! Iran! Heck, why not go in whole hog and declare war on Pakistan, since we're already killing people there left and right? Oh, and who can forget Yemen.
Liberal hawks are no brighter than their conservative counterparts. They just have less excuse because, usually, they demonstrated sense and thoughtfulness when conservatives decided to start shooting Muslims.
U.S. Ambassador to Libya John Christopher Stevens and at least two other embassy staffers were reported killed Tuesday in an assault on the American consulate in the eastern city of Benghazi.
--snip--
The violence in Benghazi followed protests in neighboring Egypt, where a group of protesters scaled the wall of the U.S. Embassy in Cairo on Tuesday evening and entered its outer grounds, pulled down an American flag, then tried to burn it outside the embassy walls, according to witnesses. On Wednesday morning, a sit-in of several dozen protesters continued outside the Cairo embassy.I suppose people will say that these protests, spawned from anger at an anti-Islamic film made by an American, are "unrelated" to the events of the Arab Spring of 2011. Sure. Because anyone paying attention will know that, were Hosni Mubarak and Moamar Qaddafi still in power, these protests and deaths never would have happened; or, is those gentlemen were still in power (or alive), the protests would have been worse; or, the attack on the American consulate in Benghazi would have included elements of the Qaddafi regime.
"What if's" are fun, but miss the point. That the Libyans enjoy a measure of freedom today is directly related to the American military preventing the military of the old regime completely destroying the rebels. We were fortunate not to lose pilots and aircraft during that air campaign. Now, we've lost three American diplomats, the leader of which seems, from the article, to have been deeply committed to seeing post-Qaddafi Libya succeed. The Libyan people lost a good and able friend yesterday, killed by their own.
You're welcome, Libya. And, I'm so glad all those who supported Pres. Obama's ill-considered decision to "do something" have felt vindicated all these months, because everyone needs time to celebrate being right.
So, let's do this again! In Syria! Iran! Heck, why not go in whole hog and declare war on Pakistan, since we're already killing people there left and right? Oh, and who can forget Yemen.
Liberal hawks are no brighter than their conservative counterparts. They just have less excuse because, usually, they demonstrated sense and thoughtfulness when conservatives decided to start shooting Muslims.
