After a 23-year dictatorship, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali fled Tunisia on January 14 for asylum in Saudi Arabia when his country exploded in demonstrations against government theft and corruption. After 30 years in power, Egyptians decided they’d had enough Hosni Mubarak to last a lifetime, and when that country exploded, Mubarak fled Cairo on February 11 for his Red Sea resort in Sharm el Sheik.
Invigorated Arabs around the Middle East asked themselves if change could happen in Tunisia and Egypt, why not here, so unrest spread to Yemen, Jordan, Bahrain, Syria, and Libya. After 42 years in power as the leader of Libya, Muammar al-Gaddafi is still in power, although barely hanging on as the public uprising, which broke out on February 15, ebbs and flows in the fight to control the country and force regime change.
Gaddafi, untroubled by using his army to kill civilian dissidents, which the armies of Tunisia and Egypt refused to do, unleashed hell on his countrymen. As demonstrators filled the streets militia, regime-hired mercenaries, and even Libyan jets shot and strafed those who wouldn’t disperse.
The situation continued to build until the morning of February 21, when Saif al-Islam Muammar al-Gaddafi, one of Gaddafi’s litter of sons, took to the airwaves of Libyan TV to deliver a marginally coherent speech warning that “We will fight to the last minute, until the last bullet.” It would have to be assumed that “we” in this case meant the Gaddafi family rather than the Libyan people, who were fighting with no bullets and thus dying in large numbers. Saif al-Gaddafi, allegedly the sanest of the brothers, although that is a low bar when referring to this family, went on to speak of “rivers of blood” in the streets if demonstrators refused to return to the tranquility of their serfdom.
Always on the ready, the US State Department whose crack intelligence monitors had failed to predict the domino effect in the Middle East, not to mention its genesis in Tunisia, assured the international community that they were now alert to the unrest in the most dangerous part of the world. “We are analyzing the speech of Saif al-Islam Qaddafi to see what possibilities it contains for meaningful reform,” a senior State Department official said on February 21.
Undoubtedly that came as great comfort to the 600 Americans working and living in Libya – along with several hundred citizens of the UK, Germany, and other countries – who were trapped in the warzone Libya had become.
On February 21, in a carefully worded non-statement directed to nobody, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton denounced “this unacceptable bloodshed …” as if some level of bloodshed was acceptable, and went on to lament, “… Our thoughts and prayers are with those whose lives have been lost and with their loved ones.” I hesitate to judge whether State Department officials actually pray about things like this or just reflexively throw the word into government-speak about tragic events, but conspicuously absent from their prayer list were the 600 Americans stuck in Libya.
On February 22, Defense Secretary Robert Gates allowed himself to be interviewed in his office by four reporters. Asked if NATO and the US would make a show of force off the coast of Libya, Gates said they weren’t able to do that because “things were happening so fast.” Apparently our military is only able to react when things don’t happen so fast.
“What’s in the bag? What do you have, what do we have that could speed there?” one of the reporters asked.
“We don’t have – I don’t think we have a carrier in the [Mediterranean Sea] right now. The Enterprise is down off of Somalia. We’ve had the [USS] Kearsarge in the Red Sea, but mainly if some kind of an evacuation were needed from Egypt. But nothing that we would be able to do right away.”
That’s the problem with these 4 ½ acre flattops – they’re so easy to misplace.
Reminiscent of his glacial handling of the Gulf oil crisis, Obama had little to say and nothing in motion to extract the stranded Americans or to give comfort and support to the heroic Libyans fighting to topple one of the Middle East’s chief exporters of terror. The President had stiffed the Iranian protestors when it would have counted and acted like a deer caught in headlights when the Tunisian and Egyptian protests cried out for the US to take a stand. It’s increasingly evident that the community organizer from Illinois should have stayed in training wheels longer before applying for the job that must contend with these kinds of problems.
Unafflicted with the weak-kneed lethargy that consumed Obama, the British air force launched a secret mission to rescue its citizens. Three Royal Air Force planes, disregarded diplomatic red tape and Libyan territorial and airspace integrity, swooped into the eastern desert with commandos and grabbed 150 of their people – primarily oil refinery workers. They were safely delivered to Malta last Saturday, the British Defense Ministry reported.
Likewise, Germany announced that its air force had carried out a secret mission to rescue 132 of its citizens from the Libyan desert Saturday.
Team Obama’s response? Hire a commercial ferry boat from Malta to schlep over to Tripoli, pick up 600 passengers, and bring them back to Malta. Of course, that would require navigating 220 miles of open sea – twice – with 600 passengers aboard for the return trip – something the craft wasn’t designed to do. When the ferry arrived in Tripoli harbor, it had to remain there, tied up for three days, fully loaded with passengers, because the sea was too choppy for a ferry boat to sail on it. A blue water naval vessel would have had no difficulty, but all of ours were apparently tied up, and our allies wouldn’t lend us any of theirs. Meanwhile, with the ferry tied up in Tripoli harbor, Libyan jets were flying above the city busily killing citizens and subjecting the “rescued” Americans to an accidental, if not intentional, attack. If it wasn’t so pathetic, Obama’s response, especially compared to that of the British and Germans, was laughable.
The voyage ended safely for the Americans and they landed in Malta on Saturday, thanks more to good luck than the Obama Administration’s ability to handle a crisis. Team Obama excused its fecklessness as concern over the safety of the stranded Americans. Apparently Germany and Britain didn’t have the same concern.
The ludicrous image of that ferry boat bobbing helplessly in the hostile waters off Tripoli reflects the impotence of the Obama presidency. Like his undistinguished career as a state senator and brief tenure as a US Senator, during which he voted “present” rather than take a stand which compelled an up or down vote, Obama more and more looks like the second coming of Jimmy Carter – weak, inept, confused by the moral and ethical demands of the situations that confront him.
In his acceptance lecture for the undeserved 2009 Nobel Peace Prize, Obama asserted that “Inaction tears at our conscience and can lead to more costly intervention later. That's why all responsible nations must embrace the role that militaries with a clear mandate can play to keep the peace.” Yet, those aren’t Obama’s convictions; they are simply fine-sounding words. No modern president has been as diffident as he in using the might of the American military to keep the peace.
“Walk softly and carry an armored tank division, I always say,” Jack Nicholson’s character, Colonel Jessep, boasted in the movie A Few Good Men. It is a stance not held by Obama. He acts as if the impact of the US in the world is equivalent to that of Albania. He carefully parses the words of a lunatic’s speech for hidden meanings as if “rivers of blood” and “fight to the last bullet” were not patently obvious. He waits, he talks, he sends envoys – he does everything but act.
When missile bases were discovered in Cuba, Obama’s hero, John Kennedy, threw a cordon of warships around the island and dared Soviet warships to cross it. Obama’s high-minded Nobel rhetoric that inaction leads to “more costly intervention later” is more oratory than a philosophy he practices. His ambivalence to saber rattle is making the world a more dangerous place.
Early in his presidency, Obama apologized to Iran for this country’s past meddling in its affairs and promised it would happen no more. The mullahs promptly stole the next election and killed and imprisoned those who protested it. True to his word, Obama did nothing and said nothing.
When the Tunisia uprising broke out, Obama could not find his voice. When the Egyptian uprising broke out Obama couldn’t find his footing. First he said Mubarak was not a dictator. Then he was a dictator. To avoid a power vacuum, Mubarak should stay. Then he should leave. He should leave in the fall. Then he should leave now. Soon. Sometime.
Now comes Libya and once again the Obama team is confused, unable to decide on a policy position and communicate it coherently to the world in general, and Gaddafi in particular. Obama seems unaware that of all the Middle Eastern despots, this guy is the most dangerous. He has killed hundreds of Americans and Westerners. He is connected with the Lockerbie bombing which killed 270, the 1986 Berlin discotheque bombing, the 1989 explosion aboard a French airliner causing it to crash and kill 156, and other acts of violence around the world.
Ronald Reagan rightly called Gaddafi the “mad dog of the Middle East.” Unlike Tunisia’s Ben Ali, Egypt’s Mubarak, and the other tyrants in the region, who are ruthless but probably in possession of their faculties, Gaddafi is at least a nut case, if not a drug abuser and possibly insane. Who but Gaddafi could convincingly say with a straight face that “women are female and men are male … according to gynecologists women, unlike men, menstruate each month.”
Gaddafi characterized HIV as "a peaceful virus, not an aggressive virus. If you are straight,” he declared, “you have nothing to fear from AIDS". He believes the wage system in a modern economy should be abolished, because wages enslave earners to those who hire them. Perhaps that belief explains why Libya is among the poorest nations in the world.
“Obeying your parents is more important than doing what your parents say”
“If it were not for electricity, we would have to watch television in the dark.”
“A woman has a right to run for election whether she is male or female.”
A man with a mind like this and an army at his beckoning could easily provoke a moral and humanitarian catastrophe that would make Rwanda pale in comparison. Because then-President Clinton chose not to intervene in that conflict, 800,000 people were slaughtered. Gaddafi is obviously capable of violence on this scale. He has already killed hundreds of his citizens – far more than the citizens killed in all of the recent protests throughout the Middle East.
What will Obama do? Will he use the US military to prevent a slaughter as he said in his Nobel lecture? Apparently not. He has instead called for a “coordinated” diplomatic initiative with our allies. He has carefully detailed the obstacles to military intervention or assistance. His Defense Department has cautioned that the US military might not be equal to the challenge of the Libyan air force!
In his 2009 Cairo speech, Obama promised his personal outreach to the Muslim masses. As those masses yearned to be free in Cairo and Tunisia, Obama said nothing. As those masses are being slaughtered in Libya, Obama does nothing. Throughout the explosion of the Middle East, he has missed the opportunity to expand American influence and advance the case for democracy there.
Most past presidents have entered the office predictably clueless of its demands. Yet in varying degrees they grow into the Presidency as the demands of that office take their toll on their judgment and temperament. Obama is the first president, at least in modern times, who has failed to grow in the office. He is too risk averse, too political to benefit from the experiences that have confronted him. He is still the senator voting “present” who can only see the liabilities to his presidency, his legacy, and his reelection chances, but he is blind to the challenges to American power and prestige in the world, which under his watch are eroding.
Obama was not ready for prime time in 2008, and he will not be ready for prime time in 2012. Like the Trace Adkins song, he is all hat and no cattle.
All hat and no cattle, that boy just ain't real
All boots and no saddle, don't know how to make a cowgirl feel
Think I'm gonna tell him to pack up his act
And go back where he came from'
Cause all hat and no cattle ain't gonna get it done
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