He Can Do No Right

Look, I know that if you're a Republican, to agree with anything that President Obama has to offer is a political risk. I know that everyone in the GOP has pretty much taken the Mitch McConnell tact of making President Obama a one-term president as its main and major goal, even at the risk of US economic collapse. I know that the Republican Party likes to tout itself as the party of national security. But these latest comments from Republican Senator John McCain and his personal Renfield, Senator Lindsey Graham are absolutely laughable.

"Americans can be proud of the role our country has played in helping to defeat Qaddafi," their statement reads, "but we regret that this success was so long in coming due to the failure of the United States to employ the full weight of our airpower."

This statement comes from the same two Senators that were part of a delegation that considered selling nonlethal defense equipment to Gaddafi's Libya (with a little McCain bow to boot in his meeting with Gaddafi).

McCain wanted the US's "full weight" of the military airpower, and yet his own members of Congress were losing their shit just a few weeks ago, stomping their feet with a House vote to admonish the President for continuing America's role in the NATO operation and claiming a violation of the War Powers Act, and threatened to cut off funding for the operation. Does that mean that McCain and Graham would have been fine with a unilateral US strike against Libya with the "full weight" of our airpower had it only taken 89 days?

The bottom line is that the Republican Party has lost their "strong on defense" moniker and they don't like it.

The Obama administration was successful in taking out the Somali pirates that captured Captain Richard Phillips and held him hostage, but immediately afterward came the email smear campaign that the President was hesitant in authorizing lethal force.

President Obama made capturing or killing Osama Bin Laden a top priority as soon as he was sworn into  office and said so during the campaign. This was something George W. "Wanted Dead Or Alive" Bush couldn't bother with just six months after 9/11. Yet again, right wingers went to the Internet and created another smear email to claim something about which they knew nothing.

And now, with a war in Afghanistan and in the process of a methodical withdrawal from Iraq, and the President deciding to honor the US's obligation to NATO and the UN in the Libya conflict, and here are the Republicans making sure to criticize the widest range possible just to confirm they cover everything, from acting without Congressional authority, or berating Obama for letting France and England take the lead in the action, to now McCain and Graham whining about not acting quickly enough and that it took six months to ouster a dictator who held power for 42 years. Even the Wall Street Journal editorial page is praising the efforts while criticizing the the naysaying GOP.

The fighting continues in Tripoli, and Moammar Gadhafi still hasn't been captured, but the triumph of the U.S.-backed Libyan rebels seems to be only a matter of time. Though you wouldn't know it from the reaction at the Council on Foreign Relations or among some GOP Presidential candidates, this is a victory for freedom and U.S. national interests.

A dictator with American blood on his hands is about to be overthrown by a popular revolt invoking democratic principles. Not a single American has died in the effort, and the victory would not have been possible without U.S. air power, intelligence and targeting as part of NATO. A long-oppressed people now has a chance to chart a freer future, a fact that is clear from the rejoicing in Benghazi.

What would we prefer: That Gadhafi stay in power?

...Yet some of the same people who said we shouldn't help the rebels now want the U.N. to send "boots on the ground," including U.S. troops. It's not clear that the Libyans want or even need such help, especially from Americans, which could complicate their own nascent attempts at self-government.

...President Obama was right yesterday to urge the rebels to pursue "reconciliation." But America's foreign policy elites have also so far misjudged the rebels, who have shown impressive persistence and coordination in maintaining a six-month military campaign.

...One disappointment is the reluctance among Republicans to praise the rebel success, perhaps for fear it will somehow help Mr. Obama.

...U.S. intervention has succeeded in preventing a bloodbath in Benghazi and soon in deposing a long-time U.S. enemy who could have re-emerged as a terrorist sponsor.

Michele Bachmann, who played the al Qaeda tune, now looks partisan to a fault.

...The U.S. military is stretched at the current moment and we can't take sides in every civil war. But the Libyan intervention shows that when the cause is just and the means are available, the U.S. can make a moral and strategic difference.

U.S. support for the rebels won't be lost on a Middle East still undergoing its own upheavals, not least on the people and governments of Syria and Iran. NATO showed it will finish a military task it started, and soon Gadhafi will take his place with Saddam in the ranks of Arab despots who will terrorize their people no more.

I believe everyone has forgotten (including Michael Steele and the Morning Joe pundits this morning) that the initial intervention is Libya was a humanitarian one, with NATO acting on the information that Gaddafi was about to unleash hell on his own people in Benghazi.

And yet, President Obama can do no right. He doesn't even read the right books on vacation. I suppose he would have gotten a reprieve on the reading list criticism if he'd included Ayn Rand's ATLAS SHRUGGED and Rick Perry's FED UP!, both also works of fiction, by the way.

Social Justice (UPDATED)

posted by Armadillo Joe*

Per fraulein's suggestion, I am creating a post for the comment thread from Broadway Carl's response (A Response To "Arrgh, Me Mateys") to my initial Somali pirates post (Arrgh, Me Mateys), wherein I argued that the Somali pirates are not criminals in the sense that most people understand because these lawless men haven't chosen to reject the laws that ought to bind us all, those laws having never applied to them in the first place -- hence "lawless", and Carl countered that they are criminals for the simple fact that they chose to become pirates in the first place. In looking more closely at the whole issue, I see now that we are in fact arguing apples and oranges. My point is a philosophical one with a moral and ethical component, wherein Carl's point is strictly practical, with a social and political component.

Thus, inter-related and overlapping, sure. But not the same thing.

The comment exchange:

Matt Osborne said...
You're right to say there's no sympathy due the pirates NOW. But we do have to understand how they happened: a vacuum of power, anarchy on the seas, greedy European corporations, and starving native fishermen.Like most things in this world, the Somali pirates started out with the best of intentions, but you're right -- that's not important. What's important is that Obama has the opportunity to fix the situation and start fixing Africa in the process.

And we should be trumpeting the Somali pirates as an example of what happens in a land without government.

April 13, 2009 9:52:00 PM EDT


Armadillo Hussein Joe said...
Thank you, Matt, for ferreting out my underlying meaning in earlier posts.

I feel like my initial argument was mis-characterized because the idea of piracy on the seas is so frightening and repellent to most people that any attempt on my part to understand or plumb the causes of it is an expression of sympathy for the pirates' actions. It isn't. It is an expression of sympathy for the social and political conditions that drove them to it.

Sun Tzu urged us to know our enemies. The fact that we are complicit in the creation of those enemies doesn't make them any less potent or us any less guilty, but to pretend that they have just mysteriously appeared as some kind of fully-formed menace previously unknown in any way whatsoever is intellectually dishonest. We cannot truly know them if we don't acknowledge our role in their creation and growth.

A crime of inaction is still a crime and we allowed the horrifying conditions in Somalia to fester because to deal with them was politically inconvenient.

April 13, 2009 11:18:00 PM EDT

The upshot for me, more or less, is this: the Somali pirates are victims of the ugly reality of the true Golden Rule -- the one with the gold makes the rules. We have lots of stuff. They don't have stuff. They take our stuff and we brand them as thieves.

The Somali pirate situation is a tidy symbol for our income equality problems in this country, but written on a global scale. More than just another example of moonbat, bleeding-heart drivel, what I mean is that the tension between the haves and have-nots in this country can only be addressed when it is truly addressed on a global scale. American and European wealth, stability and prosperity has not happened without consequences elsewhere (Africa, South & Central America, the Middle East) anymore than skyrocketing wealth within America's borders hasn't happened without consequences in the inner cities and rural mountains and elsewhere. The long-term solution at home isn't for the wealthy to retreat into gated communities and beef-up the police departments -- even if specific criminal acts require specific police action in a given moment -- anymore than the long-term solution abroad is to close our borders and hoard our stuff with a beefed-up military presence to intimidate and punish anyone who dare threaten our material prosperity.

It's the difference between strategy and tactics.

The long-term soution domestically and internationally is to be less provincial and, frankly, greedy and search for solutions that -- here it comes -- spread the wealth. Globally. When the average Somali starves because he literally has nothing to eat while a wealthy Parisian sips wine and eats the fish plucked from what should be Somali sovereign waters, how can we smugly say that the Somali is a criminal for any action he takes, however violent or inconvenient to our comfortable lifestyle?

In the eyes of most of the rest of the planet, we Americans and Europeans are all unimaginably wealthy. Whether a lowly iPod or a high-flying corporate jet, both are equally unattainable to most people in the world and the relative difference in cost is still orders of magnitude more than most of them will ever earn in a lifetime.

The idea is not to stop the criminals but to banish the conditions that give rise to them.

* I like that fraulein always has a specific font and color for her dateline, so I'm trying out something of my own. Opinions?

UPDATE:

In comments, Annette pointed me towards this fascinating and thoroughly on-point article by a gent named Jeffrey Gettleman at Foreign Policy magazine's website, ominously entitled "The Most Dangerous Place in the World." Of course, he paints the same picture we always get of Somalia: violent, anarchic, the nearest thing to a Hobbesian State of Man in Nature anywhere on earth:

To call it even a failed state was generous. The Democratic Republic of the Congo is a failed state. So is Zimbabwe. But those places at least have national armies and national bureaucracies, however corrupt. Since 1991, Somalia has not been a state so much as a lawless, ungoverned space on the map between its neighbors and the sea.

He argues that the current scourge of piracy off the Horn of Africa is the result of this anarchy, which didn't happen overnight or happen spontaneously, but rather has resulted due to three mistakes of American policy over the last two decades. The first was the Battle of Mogadishu -- immortalized in the film Black Hawk Down -- the punctuation mark at the tail-end of our failed humanitarian effort there, resulting in the death of hundreds of Somalis and 18 American servicemen.

The second and third mistakes, unsurprisingly, were made by the hysterical chickenhawks of our recently departed Rethugli-goon administration, scared as they were after 9/11 changed everything™ of their own shadows and every dark-skinned taqiyah-wearer ever to answer the adhān.

Mistake #2 was to undermine -- out of the usual CIA bag of tricks with guns, money & free advice funneled to the already unpopular warlords -- the emerging and popular Islamist government for fear of an al Qaeda safe-haven on the Horn of Africa, a government that was cracking-down on piracy, BTW.

Mistake #3 was to back, again with guns & logistical support, an invasion by christian Ethiopia for the same purpose of toppling the Islamist government. The puppet government installed by the christian leadership of Ethiopia is predictably ineffective -- which is by design, of course -- and has resulted in anarchy, war and death spilling into every neighboring country and the adjacent blue sea.

Hence, pirates.

Add to that vicious cocktail an ocean empty of food and full of other country's toxic waste and no one should be surprised at the level of violence and lawlessness we see today in that part of the world. As Gettleman says at the end of his do-not-miss article:

Nearly an entire generation of Somalis has absolutely no idea what a government is or how it functions. I’ve seen this glassy-eyed generation all across the country, lounging on bullet-pocked street corners and spaced out in the back of pickup trucks, Kalashnikovs in their hands and nowhere to go. To them, law and order are thoroughly abstract concepts. To them, the only law in the land is the business end of a machine gun.

A Response To "Arrgh, Me Mateys"

I responded today in the comments section to my good friend and fellow contributor, Armadillo Joe regarding his post on the Somali pirate situation, but thought it best to also post my comment in a post of its own, with a couple of revisions in the interests of expounding a thought.

Armadillo Joe said: "Because they had no petroleum resources to commandeer, we simply left that country shattered, broken and flat on its back with no government to speak of, just like we did in Afghanistan after the Soviets left in the late 1980's."

You make is sound like Somalia was doing fine before we landed there in 1992 in conjunction with the UN to attempt a peacekeeping and humanitarian operation. Somalia had been in a civil war since 1978.

Wikipedia: "The resulting famine caused the United Nations Security Council in 1992 to authorise the limited peacekeeping operation United Nations Operation in Somalia I (UNOSOM I). UNOSOM's use of force was limited to self-defence and it was soon disregarded by the warring factions. In reaction to the continued violence and the humanitarian disaster, the United States organised a military coalition with the purpose of creating a secure environment in southern Somalia for the conduct of humanitarian operations. This coalition, (Unified Task Force or UNITAF) entered Somalia in December 1992 on Operation Restore Hope and was successful in restoring order and alleviating the famine. In May 1993, most of the United States troops withdrew and UNITAF was replaced by the United Nations Operation in Somalia II (UNOSOM II). However, Aidid saw UNOSOM II as a threat to his power and in June 1993 his militia attacked Pakistan Army troops, attached to UNOSOM II, (see Somalia (March 1992 to February 1996)) in Mogadishu inflicting over 80 casualties. Fighting escalated until 18 American troops and more than 1,000 Somalis were killed in a raid in Mogadishu during October 1993. The UN withdrew Operation United Shield in 3 March 1995, having suffered significant casualties, and with the rule of government still not restored. In June 1996, [Somali military leader/warlord] Mohamed Farrah Aidid was killed in Mogadishu.

********************************

Armadillo Joe said: "Those pirates aren't just greedy thugs. They are desperate men with sick and starving families hitting back at the only target they can because we have been the greedy thugs."

But with all due respect, Joe, (and I do respect your intelligence and hold your friendship in high esteem) I completely disagree with the premise that they are not necessarily criminals. While you don't claim that they're "Robin Hood," you're using that as the crux of your argument.

Broadway Carl said: Joe, I would argue that [choosing criminal activity] is what they did by becoming pirates. They "actively chose not to be subject to the laws and customs which bind us all." Had their endgame been to point out what you have in your post instead of demanding ransom (which seems to be the case in all their hijackings) then I can see your point. But I feel that justifying piracy because of their incredibly horrible lot in life ("Those pirates aren't just greedy thugs...") is over the top.

The point I'm trying to make is that as far as I have seen, there is no noble cause for these pirates. They're not doing this for political purposes, they're not trying to bring international attention to the dire circumstances in their land and how their seas have been raped and poisoned. They're doing it for profit. They've asked for nothing but money.

Booman: There's a theme running through parts of Left Blogistan that these pirates are acting out of some kind of legitimate desperation or self-defense. That's lunacy. The pirates boarded this ship 240 miles off the coast of Somalia in the Indian Ocean. They made no political demands. They wanted two million dollars in ransom and nothing else.

They're not terrorists. Terrorists have a political objective. They're thieves. The collective "we" may not be completely innocent in the Somalia situation, but neither are the Somali pirates. I think this may be a topic we have to respectfully agree to disagree.

Obama's Easter Egg Roll

I just saw President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama participate in their first White House Easter Egg Roll live on MSNBC.

Stand by for wingnut outrage in 5... 4... 3...

*How dare the Messiah waste time on such frivilous things as a 139 year old White House tradition when there are so many things to take care of! If he had kept his eye on the ball instead of playing with eggs, maybe Capt. Richard Phillips wouldn't have been kidnapped by Somali pirates in the first place. Yeah, I know he was rescued in a daring Navy SEAL operation that only took three shots, and yeah, I know that President Obama gave authorization to use deadly force if necessary and yeah, I know Captain Phillips was unharmed... but what took so long?

And now the Somali pirates have vowed to avenge the deaths of their fellow mateys. What now, Mr. Commander in Chief?! You've only aggravated the situation in that dangerous part of the high seas! Nice job.*

Here endeth the snark.

In other stupid news, it looks like Arizona State University is planning to name a scholarship in honor of President Obama after realizing that deciding not to give him an honorary degree was an incredibly asinine decision. After all, Obama hasn't reached the status of other ASU honorary degree recipients like Erma Bombeck, Steve Allen and Jerry Colangelo.

Arrgh, Me Mateys (UPDATED)

by Armadillo Joe

(h/t C&L)

At The Independent UK, a short article about the living hell that is life in Somalia. Shall we travel in the Way-Back Machine to 1993? Remember, shall we, that the U.S. military used to be in there with some serious firepower and we left with our tail between our legs, in a classic David versus Goliath tale. "Blackhawk Down" anyone?

Because they had no petroleum resources to comandeer, we simply left that country shattered, broken and flat on its back with no government to speak of, just like we did in Afghanistan after the Soviets left in the late 1980's.

In the intelligence trade, they call it "blowback."

On September 11, 2001 we paid a price for that neglect of Afghanistan. Today, we pay the price for abandoning 9 million people to starvation and anarchy in Somalia. Unlike Afghanistan, Somalia is resource-rich with her oceans and a coastline with greater access to the world's commerce via pirate attacks on the world's shipping. Current-day Somalia is a territory with no functioning government, the nearest thing to a Hobbesian Bellum omnium contra omnes we have anywhere on the planet today, and that anarchic territory overlaps a thousand plus miles of African coastline right at the Horn of Africa, the principle sea-lane for 20% of the world's oil supply.

European & Asian nations have been taking advantage of the lack of any government to defend and protect Somali waters to trawl them virtually empty of sealife -- starving the people on land -- and furthermore to dump toxic waste, including spent nuclear fuel:

In 1991, the government of Somalia collapsed. Its nine million people have been teetering on starvation ever since – and the ugliest forces in the Western world have seen this as a great opportunity to steal the country's food supply and dump our nuclear waste in their seas.

Yes: nuclear waste. As soon as the government was gone, mysterious European ships started appearing off the coast of Somalia, dumping vast barrels into the ocean. The coastal population began to sicken. At first they suffered strange rashes, nausea and malformed babies. Then, after the 2005 tsunami, hundreds of the dumped and leaking barrels washed up on shore.

[...]

...also lead, and heavy metals such as cadmium and mercury...

[...]

Much of it can be traced back to European hospitals and factories, who seem to be passing it on to the Italian mafia to "dispose" of cheaply.

Those pirates aren't just greedy thugs. They are desperate men with sick and starving families hitting back at the only target they can because we have been the greedy thugs. Using the mafia as a conduit for disposing of toxic waste? That is about as bad as it gets, if you ask me.

Let us look to ourselves and get the whole story about what is really happening in Somalia before we condemn these desperate and starving men as mere criminals.

UPDATE:
Three of the four pirates are dead and the American captain is safely in U.S. Navy custody, presumably due to a lightning SEAL-raid on the lifeboat, a'la the French method, because those frogs are such wimpy, cheese-eating surrender-monkeys, doncha-know?