Posted on 03/28/2011 5:19:42 AM PDT by SJackson
Andrew Sullivan takes exception to my observations that we are on a fool’s errand in Libya and a dangerous one. The other day I took issue with neo-conservatives who had learned nothing from failed attempts to create Western-style democracies in Muslim cultures. I had pointed to recent experiences in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Gaza (let alone Turkey) and warned that our military invasion of Libya could lead to the creation of an al-Qaeda aligned totalitarian state. Here is how the Atlantic’s Andrew Sullivan characterized these thoughts:
“It looks as if David Horowitz has left the neocons and become an anti-Islam nationalist; …. he looks at the eruption in the Middle East and wants the dictators back.”
Nice spin Andrew.
First, I am not against people whose religion is Islam. I’m just a pragmatic realist who notes that in fifteen hundred years Islamic cultures have a very poor track record in creating democracies and that the emerging Islamic movements in the Arab Middle East are without exception totalitarian, jihadist and also Jew-hating, women-hating and gay-hating. These realities are apparently not enough to deter Andrew from supporting the exceptionally deceptive aggression, which is being led (sort of) by the dithering amateur in the White House in an audaciously deceptive campaign to put the Libyan rebels in power. As it happens at least one rebel commander already has been identified as a Guantanamo alumni (thank you liberals) and a jihadist veteran of the war in Afghanistan against us. How many more such rebel commanders might there be? Andrew doesn’t know (and neither does his leader) but that does not deter his hair trigger slander of a critic of this misguided war.
Obama’s war has been “authorized” as an effort to establish a “no-fly” zone in Libya to prevent Libyan airstrikes against civilians. But everyone knows this is a lie. The Libyan air force has already been destroyed but the strikes go on because the real agenda is to help the (al-Qaeda?) rebels to win. Despite Obama’s assurance that there would be no American ground troops, there are reports that ground troops are already being sent in. To “protect civilians” does Obama propose to occupy the country and ensure that the rebels do not establish a regime more bloodthirsty than the present one? Is he interested in ensuring that a new regime would not be a terrorist state as in Gaza and Lebanon, or would not ally with al-Qaeda, whom Gaddafi at least opposed? Andrew will of course twist this into a claim that I am pro-Gaddafi. For the record I wish that some brave Libyan or secret agent would kill him. What I do not want to see is the American military invading Libya with no idea of what they are doing or why, which is the position into which the present commander-in-chief – “a classic pragmatic realist conservative” in Andrew’s wonderland – has put them.
The doctrine under which Hillary Clinton persuaded Obama to invade a sovereign country and thereby to disregard his Secretary of Defense (an actual pragmatist on Obama’s ship of state) is called “Responsibility to Protect.” It is the invention of NSC adviser Samantha Power and her patron George Soros. Soros describes the doctrine like this:
“If governments abuse the authority entrusted to them and citizens have no opportunity to correct such abuses, outside interference is justified. By specifying that sovereignty is based on the people, the international community can penetrate nation-states’ borders to protect the rights of citizens.”
The right to “penetrate nation-states’ borders.” Now where have we heard this excuse for a big power stomp on a little nation before? Czechoslovakia 1938 perhaps? Wasn’t Hitler, by his own lights, protecting the rights of German-speaking citizens at the time? If Obama really means to protect the rights of Libyans he would have to occupy the country for a decade, rewrite its constitution, re-educate its population and institute a democratic educational system. Is that what Sullivan really wants – or has he just not thought this through?
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Article printed from FrontPage Magazine: http://frontpagemag.com
URL to article: http://frontpagemag.com/2011/03/26/ominous-signals-on-libya-a-response-to-andrew-sullivan-2/
You are on to something. Khadaffi gave huge amounts of money (illegally of course) to Obama’s election campaign.
That may be why he waited until it was too late to take out Khadaffi. to take action.
“jihadist and also Jew-hating, women-hating and gay-hating.”
Touché, Andrew
Well, given that it’s Andrew Sullivan we’re talking about, it could be both.
Has Andy found the real mother yet?
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