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Libya Intervention a Watershed for Obama's Foreign Policy
Time ^ | 3/21/11 | Romesh Ratnesar

Posted on 03/21/2011 12:46:55 PM PDT by takbodan

Does Barack Obama know what he's doing?

The question isn't purely rhetorical because Obama's response to the cascade of global crises over the past several weeks has often seemed mystifying. He supported pro-democracy forces in Egypt and nudged out a regime the U.S. had backed for decades, but has been unwilling to do the same in Bahrain or Yemen. In Libya, his Administration was against armed intervention to stop Muammar Gaddafi before Obama was for it. American warplanes carried out the initial wave of strikes on Tripoli, but Obama's aides insist that Washington is merely following the Europeans' lead. U.S. officials were reticent for days as the nuclear crisis in Japan worsened, then declared the situation to be even direr than the Japanese government had let on.

As the crises accumulate, Obama has remained the picture of detached serenity, which only agitates his critics more. Kori Schake, a centrist former Bush Administration official, charges that Obama "just isn't willing to bear much freight for other peoples' freedom." The Economist's Lexington column asks, "Has he, at any point in his presidency so far, demonstrated real political courage?" and is unable to find an example. David J. Rothkopf, a national-security expert who worked in the Clinton Administration, says Obama's leadership style resembles nothing so much as "the planet's master of ceremonies - nudging, exhorting and charming, but less comfortable flexing U.S. muscles than many of his predecessors." (See the coalition troops' battle in Libya.)

(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: cautious; deliberate; prudent
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It must be why he is toasting socialists in Brazil.
1 posted on 03/21/2011 12:47:01 PM PDT by takbodan
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To: takbodan

“Detached serenity?” Is that the same as “ignorance is bliss?”


2 posted on 03/21/2011 12:51:17 PM PDT by henkster (Every member of Congress must put the fate of the nation over their next re-election campaign)
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To: takbodan

I think Obama thinks he is moving to the center in time for a re-election with his foreign policy, trying so much to sound like George Bush. Does he think he’s triangulating?


3 posted on 03/21/2011 12:51:32 PM PDT by sappy (let taxpayers bargain collectively)
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To: takbodan

It took the author all those words just to say,

OBAMA IS RETARDED!


4 posted on 03/21/2011 12:53:11 PM PDT by 240B (he is doing everything he said he wouldn't and not doing what he said he would)
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To: takbodan

5 posted on 03/21/2011 12:53:56 PM PDT by Bean Counter (Stout Hearts!I)
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To: henkster

No... scamming the American voters is bliss.


6 posted on 03/21/2011 12:55:42 PM PDT by SMARTY (Conforming to non-conformity is conforming just the same.)
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To: sappy

We hate him... now THEY hate him... all that he has done is to make everyone hate him... and he is hated in rio too!

LLS


7 posted on 03/21/2011 1:04:10 PM PDT by LibLieSlayer (WOLVERINES!!!)
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To: takbodan

It is wrong to hate... revise my post to DESPISE. .. thank you.

LLS


8 posted on 03/21/2011 1:06:14 PM PDT by LibLieSlayer (WOLVERINES!!!)
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To: LibLieSlayer

Restoring America’s image abroad, one protest at a time....


9 posted on 03/21/2011 1:07:59 PM PDT by sappy (let taxpayers bargain collectively)
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To: takbodan
Does Barack Obama know what he's doing?

Well, actually, yes. He's helping to destroy America and advance the Muslim caliphate. And what better opportunity than this?

10 posted on 03/21/2011 1:22:00 PM PDT by Cicero (Marcus Tullius)
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To: takbodan; Kenny Bunk; Shermy

Absolutely a watershed.

The first time America has come to support rebel groups about whom we know next to nothing.

Or worse, we do, and still listened to the harpie shrews of the Administration - Powers and Rice, exercising their penile envy.


11 posted on 03/21/2011 1:25:43 PM PDT by swarthyguy (KIDS! Deficit, Debt,Taxes! Pfft Lookit the bright side of our legacy -America is almost SmokFrei!)
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To: takbodan; Kenny Bunk; Shermy

Absolutely a watershed.

The first time America has come to support rebel groups about whom we know next to nothing.

Or worse, we do, and still listened to the harpie shrews of the Administration - Powers and Rice, exercising their penile envy.


12 posted on 03/21/2011 1:27:51 PM PDT by swarthyguy (KIDS! Deficit, Debt,Taxes! Pfft Lookit the bright side of our legacy -America is almost SmokFrei!)
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To: swarthyguy

“The first time America has come to support rebel groups about whom we know next to nothing.”

And when the Muslim Brotherhood is ruling Libya, the Libyans will still hate us.


13 posted on 03/21/2011 1:38:21 PM PDT by SVTCobra03 (You can never have enough friends, horsepower or ammunition.)
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To: Cicero

I have a question... why are they not rebelling in Syria against the government?


14 posted on 03/21/2011 1:45:22 PM PDT by Former
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To: Cicero

I have a question... why are they not rebelling in Syria against the government?


15 posted on 03/21/2011 1:45:22 PM PDT by Former
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To: takbodan
Libya Intervention a Watershed Waterloo for Obama's Foreign Policy
16 posted on 03/21/2011 1:49:10 PM PDT by MrEdd (Heck? Geewhiz Cripes, thats the place where people who don't believe in Gosh think they aint going.)
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To: swarthyguy; Shermy
Really Swarthy! Using words like "penile" on a family site! WTF were you thinking?

Whenever the word "penile" is used, it must be followed by "Kagan," or "Sotomayor." Decorum, please.

Now as to the Frog/WOG matchup. Our Leader, the intrepid Young Man from Mombasa, had to wait until all the good rebels were killed before taking action. Exactly 100 years ago, it took our intrepid Italian NATO allies about a month to conquer the coastal strip of Libya, and about another 25 years to subdue the Worthy Oriental Gentlemen of the largely uninhabitable interior and not find the oil which was underfoot about 2 feet down.

Big winners here are probably the Gyppos, who have long had their beady eyes on the oil fields of Eastern Libya. My fearless prediction, Ghadaffi gets Tripoli and his Swiss Accounts. Eastern Libya (O let's call it "Cyrenaica") gets semi-autonomy under Egypt, keeps selling the oil to Italy, et al, and everybody is happy. This will happen when Ghadaffi runs out of mercenaries and places to hide. 2 months.

Vive la France. Hurrah for NATO! Hey, Brazil, how much to keep The Mombasa Moonbeam? Can you use him? He has experience selling ice cream on the beach. Seriously, we'll pay you while you train him.

17 posted on 03/21/2011 1:55:01 PM PDT by Kenny Bunk (America might survive Obama. But it cannot survive with the kind of people who would vote for him.)
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To: SVTCobra03

I hate to say it, but Obama (although it’s probably not him, but his military advisors) may be right on this and we may have waited to get involved until we knew more about the rebel groups, or, more particularly, the probable future leadership once Gadhafi is “gone”.

This is a good summary:

http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20110307-libyas-opposition-leadership-comes-focus


18 posted on 03/21/2011 1:58:43 PM PDT by jda ("Righteousness exalts a nation . . .")
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To: Kenny Bunk

Last week, when intervention seemed a distant possibility, I posted here asking anyone to name any vital or strategic national interests of the USA at stake or at threat in Libya.

Personally I think Rice and Powers and perhaps even Hillary take umbrage at Daffy’s Female Praetorian Guard and his voluptuos and buxom nurses.

Bomb that Sexist MoFo! shriek the Harpies.

This sexism will not be allowed to stand!


19 posted on 03/21/2011 2:30:11 PM PDT by swarthyguy (KIDS! Deficit, Debt,Taxes! Pfft Lookit the bright side of our legacy -America is almost SmokFrei!)
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To: takbodan

I say let’s let him go!

His incompetence is aiding the building of a slam dunk impeachment case against “The One” and his band of communists!


20 posted on 03/21/2011 2:36:34 PM PDT by alice_in_bubbaland (DeMint/Ryan 2012!!!!!)
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