Libya is in our National Disinterest

Many were waiting with bated breath for President Obama's speech last night. Dying to hear what the carefully considered, nuanced, multinational logic would be for sending American forces to Libya.

And it came down to this...

Qaddafi declared that he would show "no mercy" to his own people. He compared them to rats, and threatened to go door to door to inflict punishment. In the past, we had seen him hang civilians in the streets, and kill over a thousand people in a single day. Now, we saw regime forces on the outskirts of the city. We knew that if we waited one more day, Benghazi — a city nearly the size of Charlotte — could suffer a massacre - it was not in our national interest to let that happen. I refused to let that happen.

Does our law professor president understand that his rationale is flawed? Where is the school girl cheerleader clique ridicule that was so often tossed at George W Bush for his pronunciation of the word "nuclear"? When George Bush misspoke it was considered a direct reflection of his lack of intelligence.

But I don't think this is the case here. Our law professor super genius president surely knows that just because something is not in your national interest necessarily means that it is in your national interest. These are not positions or states that are mutually exclusive. No, this was what he and his elitist administration considered a clever trick of wordsmith meant to convince their logic lacking lackeys that what the president was doing in Libya is in America's best interest. So this is not a reflection on the presidents intellect, but it is a reflection of what he thinks about the "we're so smart and superior that we make fun of the way people pronounce the word 'nuclear'" left. The "I get my news from John Stewart" crowd does not like to do their own logic math, and they sure don't know what mutually exclusive means, so you have nothing to worry about Mr. President. In fact you probably accomplished your goal of appeasing the violently anti-war wing of your party by convincing them that we had to go to Libya.

But for the rest of us the President did not come anywhere close to making a convincing argument that didn't leave more questions than it answered. Will the U.S. come to the aid of any country where a dictator might "kill over a thousand people in a single day"? or does it only matter if they produce a rare type of crude used by the continentals?

Our most effective alliance, NATO, has taken command of the enforcement of the arms embargo and No Fly Zone...

So what? We run NATO! The supreme commander of NATO is always an American! It's still 90% U.S. blood and treasure that will be doing the heavy lifting. Here is another example of the president pulling the wool over the eyes of his easy amused admirers. This is the "I am not" Bush pose. I do not act in the unilateral way that George W. Bush did. Sorry Charlie. Fact: more countries were involved in the invasion of Iraq than are involved with the Libya operation. But it's easier for the left to sleep at night by believing what they want to believe.

Finally! A Real Blood for Oil War - Libya

And no one cares.

In 2003 thousands of war protesters turned out to decry a war they proclaimed was a war for oil, even though it was not.

Cities jammed in worldwide protest of war in Iraq

Demonstrators converged near the United Nations to protest the possible war in just one of the more than 600 anti-war rallies around the globe. Organizers estimated the crowd at more than 375,000, but Police Commissioner Ray Kelly estimated turnout at 100,000. 

Besides protests in large cities such as Chicago, Illinois; and Los Angeles, California; rallies were held across the United States in smaller towns such as Gainesville, Georgia; Macomb, Illinois; and Juneau, Alaska, according to the anti-war group United for Peace and Justice.

 Where are these people now? And if you go to the United for Peace website, not a mention of Libya. They do however have call to actions for Egypt though.

In New York on Saturday, a giant puppet depicting President Bush holding buckets of blood and oil towered over the cheering crowd that was pressed against police barricades near U.N. headquarters.

Even though oil had nothing to do with the U.S. going into Iraq, you just can't let the truth get in the way of a good slogan. The U.S. didn't get any more oil by going to Iraq, and we are not getting it for cheaper. That's for sure!

This time, it is all about the oil. France, UK, and Italy are addicted to the special 'light sweet' crude brand of oil that Libya produces, and it is rather rare.

West Shuns Libyan Crude

Part of the problem for markets is that Libyan oil is light and sweet—low in density and levels of sulfur—and is hard to replace. Light, sweet crude is more desirable as it yields more gasoline and easy to process.

Italy, France, China, Germany and Spain are the largest buyers of Libyan oil, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. Some refineries in those nations will have to search for new sources of supply to make up for the lost Libyan crude, which could send oil prices higher in other markets.

Even if the bulk of the lost Libyan oil is made up by production in Saudi Arabia, some refineries can only process light sweet crude and have to turn to a handful of other countries for supplies, including Nigeria and Algeria, which are themselves the subject of some popular unrest.

Libya is also closely located near it's customers and so transportation cost are lower than getting it from anywhere else. So, now you know why France is leading the charge. They are not dithering around. While Anti-war Obama says we're just protecting the civilians and we are not there for regime change, France is saying it is prepared to take that Bastard Qaddafi out and end this mess now! This is Europe's war for oil and Obama is their stooge. So I ask you. where the hell is the Obama effigy with buckets of blood and oil?

What she said...

...what she meant

"are you kidding?  Syria doesn't have any oil! Dumb shit!"

Olberman Pushes Lefty Loons Over the Edge. Greed is Good But Schadenfreude is Better

scha·den·freu·de

/ˈʃɑdnˌfrɔɪdə/ Show Spelled[shahd-n-froi-duh] Show IPA

–noun

satisfaction or pleasure felt at someone else's misfortune.

---

A la Walter Cronkite "When you've lost Olberman, you have lost the loony left"

Special Comment: Libya, Obama, and the Five-Second Rule

and the comments and reactions are precious. Here are just a few.

# Pat Tibbs 2011-03-24 11:06

Watching sausage being made is not a healthy activity. I suspect that the administration didn't sync its messages sufficiently and now we're left to wonder whether the administration wants Qhadafi to do, or not.

Given the tightness of message out of POTUS presidential campaign it's surprising how inept the administration has been since taking office.

Really? We are suprised that no experience but for some Acorn community organizing does not properly prepare you to lead the greatest nation on earth? E gads!

# Loup-Bouc 2011-03-24 12:01

PART 1

Congress ought force Obama to stop invading Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan.

Obama’s Libya invasion goes beyond the UN authorization; so it is illegal. Congress did not authorize it; so it is illegal.

The other invasions are clear violations of international law and, so, illegal.

The House of Representatives ought impeach Obama. The Senate ought convict him. He is an arch criminal, like Bush & Cheney, and for the same reasons, and more.

The D of J ought prosecute Obama, Bush, and Cheney. The federal judiciary ought imprison all three for life without chance of parole.

Not only are Obama, Bush, and Cheney arch criminals, but their military crimes have cost the federal budget a deficit of more than $6.6 Trillion, while social services, clean & safe energy, and infrastructure have suffered huge funding-lacks.

Do not vote for Republicans or Democrats, except the very rare Democrat true progressives. Vote for independent progressives and progressive third party candidates. Join the Wisconsin labor revolution.

Progressive third party candidates? What is that? I have never seen one.

# Susan W 2011-03-24 12:58

Obama learned his lessons well from Dubya and company. Since the Constitution says only Congress can declare war, just go invade some faraway country for "humanitarian reasons" and even though it looks like a war, sounds like a war and seeems to be a war it isn't a war if you don't call it one. Really, does Operation New Dawn, or whatever it is named, sound like a war?

Up is down, black is white and war is peace.

And That's Why They Call It Reason(.com)

Brilliant! Compelling.

An air tight case that reads like a Bam! Bam! Bam! indictment.

The entire article is a great read, here is the link and some highlights.


Obama's Fatal Attraction to War

It's a good thing we didn't elect John McCain in 2008. A McCain victory would have meant an escalation in Afghanistan, a third war in the Middle East, and a president sending U.S. forces into harm's way heedless of public opinion or congressional power.

Instead, we elected Barack Obama, who firmly rejected military action for purely humanitarian reasons. In his 2002 speech opposing the Iraq war, Obama insisted that though Saddam Hussein "butchers his own people to secure his own power," the war was unjustified.

Hussein, he pointed out, "poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors" and "can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history."

 *****

Obama's defenders insist that what he did in starting the Libya war is not as bad as what President George W. Bush did in starting the Iraq war. True: In some ways, what Obama did is worse.

Bush made the case for removing Hussein over months. Bush got approval from Congress. Bush acted against a dictator who aspired to acquire nuclear weapons. He invaded a country of large strategic value. He stated plainly the purpose of the invasion.

Obama did none of those things. He rushed into a war, ignoring Congress, to punish a ruler who had abandoned his nuclear ambitions, in a country of peripheral importance.

While it is a country of peripheral value to the U.S. Libya is very important to France and Britain. Here you have an actual "Blood for Oil" war and no one will call it that. It is all about keeping access open to the close by (read cheaper) brand of oil that they have become addicted to. Hell! Britain gave back the Lockerbee bomber back to have access to that oil. All that for naught? Not if they can get the U.S. to help stop it!

Maureen Dowd Spins Her Way to Hawkdom

In stark contrast to yesterday's post where I queried;

Where Have All the Peaceniks Gone?
 
Today I stumbled onto Maureen Dowd's column where she is singing the praises of the ladies who pushed for war in Libya. Wow, what a difference a new administration makes. You might recall what a prolific "dubbya" basher she was back in the day. She was one of the leftist operatives who exploited Cindy Sheehan for partisan gain. She clings to a shred of integrity with a very hushed and nuanced hint of disapproval for the military action in Libya at the very end of her piece. But, for the most part it's a 'you go girl' cheer with pom-poms and all.

Fight of the Valkyries

There is something positively mythological about a group of strong women swooping down to shake the president out of his delicate sensibilities and show him the way to war. And there is something positively predictable about guys in the White House pushing back against that story line for fear it makes the president look henpecked.

A classic case of 'careful what you wish for'. What? This wasn't the kind of change you were hoping for?

How odd to see Rush and Samantha Power on the same side.

It's even more odd to see Maureen Dowd acquiesce to the politics of armed conflict.

It wasn't that long ago that Maureen was a firebrand for the anti-war left.

Why No Tea and Sympathy? 

There's an angry mother of a dead soldier camping outside his Crawford ranch, demanding to see a president who prefers his sympathy to be carefully choreographed.

Cindy Sheehan, a 48-year-old Californian with a knack for P.R., says she will camp out in the dusty heat near the ranch until she gets to tell Mr. Bush face to face that he must pull all U.S. troops out of Iraq. Her son, Casey, a 24-year-old Army specialist, was killed in a Sadr City ambush last year.

It's amazing that the White House does not have the elementary shrewdness to have Mr. Bush simply walk down the driveway and hear the woman out, or invite her in for a cup of tea. But W., who has spent nearly 20 percent of his presidency at his ranch, is burrowed into his five-week vacation and two-hour daily workouts. He may be in great shape, but Iraq sure isn't.

 Here are some column ideas for you Maureen. Cindy is still protesting, and despite her 'knack for P.R.', she doesn't seem to be able to get the time of day from the main stream media who propelled her to fame. I would have hazard to say that 'she can't get arrested' these days, but in fact she was arrested at the white house for protesting not too long ago.

An Open Letter to War Loving (Democratic/Republican) Frauds by Cindy Sheehan

In March of 2010, I set up a Peace Camp called Camp Out Now on the lawn of the Washington Monument for two weeks protesting Obama and his wars. Near the end of that Camp, I was arrested in front of the White House and jailed for 52 hours, then given a four month "stay away" order from the White House

I think she means you Maureen. And jeez Maureen, I don't remember you covering that one? No sympathy? That would be kind of awkward now wouldn't it?

Where Have All the Peaceniks Gone?

Where is Cindy Sheehan? Where is code pink?

One would think that having a blood thirsty, oil hungry president starting yet another military adventure in the Mideast would draw out the throngs of people that regularly protest war. Oh, that was just for Bush. It was so vogue to hate Bush, and what could be a better vehicle for that hate than taking the phony pose of a humanitarian against the idea of war.

Yeah right!

You really can't blame Cindy though. While she may have hit the sauce a little bit on St Patty's day, got drunk, and confessed her partisan ways, she has recovered and climbed right back on top of that horse!

So why is it that instead of angry, loud protests all you can hear is the sound of chirping crickets?

Remember back when?

MediaMatters

SUMMARY: Bill O'Reilly claimed he was not "vilifying" anti-war protester Cindy Sheehan, just stating the "fact" that Sheehan was being "run by far-left elements who are using her, and she's dumb enough to allow it to happen."

Guess what Cindy. He was right.

I sort of admire Cindy because she hasn't abandoned her cause just because a democrat was elected. I wonder if she was shocked or stunned when she came to the stark realization that her supporters were nothing more than partisan operatives doing whatever they could to put Republicans in a bad light, rather than being dedicated to the ideal of a world with no wars. I also wonder if it is as fun doing anti-war protests when the media no longer cares to cover it.

Fingernails on a Chalkboard - Still Funny

Horrible!

But horribly funny too, I think.

It will make you cry.....
......on some level......
.....I promise.



Apologies to Cee Lo Green. Respects!

Kiss My Hamas Part IX

In yet another comic display of 'very foreign policy' the Obama administration and the U.N. have been handling the situation in Libya like Keystone Cops. Weeks ago Obama came out and said

NYT

"we send a very clear message to the Libyan people that we will stand with them"

Encouraging the Libyan people, and emboldening them to take up arms against their oppressor of forty years. And then Obama did nothing. Abdicating the traditional leadership role the U.S. has had in global affairs, Obama made the same mistake that George H.W. Bush made when he incited Iraqi Shiites to rebel and then stood by and watched them be slaughtered in a crack down by Saddam Hussein.

Mr Obama does not understand the prime directive of leadership. "It is better to be respected than to be loved". Being a true believer of the lefts idea that America must be wrong because of their perception that the world does not like us, Mr Obama has overtly demonstrated that America has decided to be a follower on the global stage. Note to President Obama, following is not leading.

Because of all this inaction it was not until yesterday that the U.N. finally decided that a 'No-fly Zone' wast the right thing to do.

The Battle of Turtle Bay

Perhaps in some future Bob Woodward tome we'll learn why President Obama flipped late Wednesday—in a matter of hours—from skeptic of intervention in Libya to proponent of military strikes against Moammar Gadhafi's surging forces

Included in the resolution was a call for a cease fire, which was immediately rebuffed by the Libyan government.

Gadhafi and sons have understandably assumed the opposition would get no foreign help. "In 48 hours everything will be over," his son Saif al-Islam said yesterday, mocking the U.N. as his forces advanced on Benghazi. "Whatever decision is taken, it will be too late."

And then, when the Gaddafi regime learned that the response would be lead by the fighting French rather than the U.S. they backed down.

Libya Calls Ceasefire After Britain and France Vow Action ‘Soon’

Libya performed what seemed a remarkable about-face after weeks of defiance, saying it would call an “immediate ceasefire and the stoppage of all military operations” against rebels seeking the ouster of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi.

And sure, why not. The rebels have already been crushed. They control only the city of Benghazi. The rest of the country is back in the control of the regime. What will the world do now that Gaddafi has claimed to have put down his guns? What will they do about the siege on Benghazi? How will France handle the reality that they are still cut off from the special brand of Libyan crude that they have become addicted to?

What a mess. Thank you Mr. President.

It Ain't Over Until The Union Fat Cats Sing

Scott Walker

Not willing to accept the reults of the 2010 elections, and not willing to accept the will of the people as represented by the newly elected officials in Wisconsin, the unions dig in and man the barricades.

Wisconsin union fight not over

Volunteers worked the phones in an office a block from the Capitol, where a day before, about 100,000 people protested a law signed by Walker to curtail collective-bargaining rights for 175,000 public employees statewide.
Republicans say the move is necessary to rein in government spending; foes say it is an effort to break organized labor's back and dilute its impact on elections.

Dilute the impact of organized labor's impact on elections. Bingo! Union labor is a substantial minority compared to the rest of us working in the real world. Why should they get a bigger voice than the majority? While they are out campaigning for the rest of us to be stuck with Obamacare, they get exemptions and get to keep their gold plated plans. They don't even have a dog in the Obamacare fight but they are out actively pushing Obama's Health care agenda on the rest of us.

•Wisconsin. The state doesn't permit ballot issues. Constitutional amendments require approval from two successive legislatures before going to voters.
The state allows recall efforts to start a year after a person is elected. Eight Democrats and eight Republicans are currently eligible to be recalled. The process is tough. Recall petitions need signatures equal to 25% of the votes cast in the last governor's election in the district — a high hurdle but achievable for such an emotional issue.

They will need more than 540,000 signatures. Good luck with that. If they get more than 175,000 real signatures I'll be shocked. They will have to fake the rest. It will be a healthy exercise for the unions to see how out of touch they are with true middle America. Not that it will matter.

Cowboy Poetry Festival

Do they hold that near "Brokeback Mountain"?

This is just beautiful.......

$14T in Debt, Reid Defends Funding for Cowboy Poetry Festival

---

The National Endowment of the Humanities is the reason we have in northern Nevada every January a cowboy poetry festival. Had that program not been around, the tens of thousands of people who come there every year would not exist

---

What? Tens of thousands of people would not exist if were not for the festival? I don't think I am even sure what he means to say here. I am trying to give him the benefit of the doubt but there is no correction that comes to mind that would make a plausible defense for continuing deficit spending that is any where near current levels. I don't care if cowboys need love too!

More Harry Classics

Making (up) History......

 

Trumka's Tragic Travesty

Thug-in-Chief and Union Fat Cat Dick Trumka had the temerity to publish an op/ed piece in today's Wall Street Journal. In his ridiculous diatribe he clearly illustrates that he just doesn't get it. This of course explains why his puppet, president Obama, also appears obtuse and feckless. Trumka rants about corporate profits and the destruction of the middle class while completely ignoring the ire of the middle class tax payer and the Tea Party.

Scott Walker's False Choice

The business climate couldn't be stronger. Corporate profits reached an annualized level of $1.7 trillion in the third quarter of 2010, the highest figure since the government began keeping statistics 60 years ago.

Are you out of your mind? The business climate could not be stronger? That shows how much lunkhead Trumka knows about business. Just because profits were up does not mean that everything is hunky dory. In fact it suggests that big business is sitting on their cash because of uncertainty caused by the anti business administration, and Dick Trumka wants to shake that money from the corporate trees.

He goes on to rant that Republican Governors are:

demanding steep cuts in wages and pensions for public workers, they also want to take away workplace rights, so that workers can no longer bargain for better compensation and benefits.

Their claim is that public workers have become parasites, busting state budgets with bloated wages and benefits at a terrible cost to taxpayers.

Dead on Dick! We have the second highest corporate tax in the world and even record corporate profits could not fill the deficit void for every state save one. So clearly, yes, it is left to the middle class to be soaked by taxes to try and even get close to even, and we are taxed enough, and we have had it, and we want cuts, and the gold plated benefit packages, and the lifetime employment attitude of the public service sector is a good place to start. Why should we be taxed to death to create an upper middle class of government employees who live better of than we do and contribute less to society and the overall economy than we do?

So here's working America's message to governors like Scott Walker and New Jersey's Chris Christie: We believe in shared sacrifice. But we don't believe in your version of shared sacrifice, where the wealthy and Wall Street reap all the benefits of economic growth, and working people do all the sacrificing.

Again. Enough of the Wall Street bashing. What do you want? you already get 35% of their profits which were record high and we still can't afford the government we have? Exactly what is your solution, other than "don't take my gold go take some from someone else". We'll that someone else is us. The taxpayers you referenced earlier.

it's crucial that we sit down at the table together and find a way to grow without taking more away from the middle class

Exactly! Except sitting down at the table doesn't mean "what else can the tax payers give us". Start making some real suggestions and give the people a reason to come to the table. Otherwise, we have ideas of our own.

(h/t Jersey Nut)

Democrats Demonstrate Disdain for Democracy

I know we now live in 'Upside Down World', but it's still hard to fathom in what way the people protesting in Wisconsin think they are fighting for freedom and democracy?

As President Obama once quipped "elections have consequences". Didn't the public union employees get the memo? Democrats got shellacked in November, and now Republicans are trying to do what voters sent them to do, so the democrats are subverting democracy by leaving the state and avoiding the vote.

And freedom? In what way, slant or angle can you associate unions with freedom? You don't usually get a choice about joining the union if you get a job with a company that has on. Your compensation isn't based on merit or how good you are. The only thing the union values is how long you have been there. And make sure not to work too hard and make everyone else look bad. Once upon a time at a brand new job, I got in trouble for plugging the electrical cord to my new computer into the outlet on the wall; a union guy was supposed to do that. Does that sound like freedom to you?

Unions vs. the Right to Work

How ironic that Wisconsin has become ground zero for the battle between taxpayers and public- employee labor unions. Wisconsin was the first state to allow collective bargaining for government workers (in 1959)

Pretty much explains why they'll be the first to enact such a comprehensive rollback. It's not working.
 And riddle me this. If collective bargaining was only introduced by law in 1959, how did it became a basic civil right? Laws are enacted and laws get repealed.

Labor unions like to portray collective bargaining as a basic civil liberty, akin to the freedoms of speech, press, assembly and religion. For a teachers union, collective bargaining means that suppliers of teacher services to all public school systems in a state—or even across states—can collude with regard to acceptable wages, benefits and working conditions. An analogy for business would be for all providers of airline transportation to assemble to fix ticket prices, capacity and so on. From this perspective, collective bargaining on a broad scale is more similar to an antitrust violation than to a civil liberty.

And if they had not been so greedy and pushed the corrupt system that leaves know one at the bargaining table representing the tax payers, and enriched themselves well beyon what the average taxpayer get for pay and benefits, they might not be in this position.

The current pushback against labor-union power stems from the collision between overly generous benefits for public employees— notably for pensions and health care—and the fiscal crises of state and local governments. Teachers and other public-employee unions went too far in convincing weak or complicit state and local governments to agree to obligations, particularly defined-benefit pension plans, that created excessive burdens on taxpayers.

The system is corrupt, and it must be abolished.


A Union Education

We've previously mentioned FDR and Fiorello La Guardia. But George Meany, the legendary AFL-CIO president during the Cold War, also opposed the right to bargain collectively with the government.

Why? Because unlike in the private economy, a public union has a natural monopoly over government services. An industrial union will fight for a greater share of corporate profits, but it also knows that a business must make profits or it will move or shut down. The union chief for teachers, transit workers or firemen knows that the city is not going to close the schools, buses or firehouses.

This monopoly power, in turn, gives public unions inordinate sway over elected officials. The money they collect from member dues helps to elect politicians who are then supposed to represent the taxpayers during the next round of collective bargaining. In effect union representatives sit on both sides of the bargaining table, with no one sitting in for taxpayers. In 2006 in New Jersey, this led to the preposterous episode in which Governor Jon Corzine addressed a Trenton rally of thousands of public workers and shouted, "We will fight for a fair contract." He was promising to fight himself.

And leading the way is AFL-CIO thug Rich Trumka.

Current AFL-CIO chief Rich Trumka has tried to portray Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's reforms as an attack on all unions, but they clearly are not. If anything, by reining in public union power, Mr. Walker is trying to protect private workers of all stripes from the tax increases that will eventually have to finance larger government. Regarding public finances, the interests of public union workers and those of private union taxpayers are in direct conflict. Mr. Walker is the better friend of the union manufacturing worker in Oshkosh than is Mr. Trumka.

Tax payers cannot afford to lose the battle of Wisconsin!