As Best Defense (the best blog on earth!) creator and Pulitzer Prizer protagonist sagely saged - the recent hit on the highest levels of aQ Command sho am be vital meds for Great Satan and her hot posse of hyper puissant fans!
Kinda like the "What Would The Ancient Greeks Do" Carnage and Culture cat so sweetly sirens -
"...1) The world must now realize that the domestic antiwar movement is dead, kaput; it cares not a whit whether we assassinate bin Laden or a son of Qaddafi or go into Libya. Everything is on the table now and there are no self-restraints, no snickers on The Daily Show, no quirky insider winks on Letterman, no Barbara Streisand crazy faxes. A Nobel peace laureate is now the Left’s totem and he can send quite deadly Americans on quite deadly missions as he sees fit — and without worry about a New York Times op-ed barrage or an ACLU lawsuit.
"...That gives the U.S. newfound advantages, a veritable blank check, from keeping Guantanamo open indefinitely to using a Cheney “assassination” team and valuable water-boarded intelligence wherever it wishes to. A Harold Koh is not going to be filing any more lawsuits against his government — he is the government.
"...2) For all the talk of “leading from behind” and the quagmire in Libya, the truth is that the U.S. military remains preeminent and transcends the administration in power at any given time. It won the Iraq war, and could easily, if unleashed, take out Qaddafi. The odds are still that it can stabilize Afghanistan. It is hard to imagine another country pulling off an operation of the sort that killed bin Laden.
"...A “post-America” is simply a choice not to utilize its resources and power in a way it most certainly could with dispatch and success — as we see, in contrast, from the agonizing efforts of the British and French in Libya, or Russian anti-terrorism incompetence.
"...3) There is much talk of a payback to come. But the triumphalism of unapologetically celebrating the death of bin Laden also conveys a newfound confidence, or perhaps even fatalism, a sort of Bring it on, let’s get it over with once and for all. We will see that ‘whatever’ attitude with Pakistan, whose yelps about violation of its airspace will soon give way to the reality that American public opinion considers it not an ally, not even a neutral, but a veritable enemy that has done more harm to this country than Cuba, North Korea, or Venezuela ever dreamed of.
"...Should Obama wish to deal toughly with the Pakistanis, he has public support, and of course the option of much closer relations with India, in and outside of Afghanistan. The public wants the Pakistan two-step to end.
"...4) Radical Islam has been incrementally and steadily weakened over the last decade. It has not repeated a 9/11-like operation. There are Bush-era antiterrorism protocols in place, embraced or expanded by Obama, that make terrorism far harder. We have killed thousands of Islamists in Anbar Province and in Afghanistan. The Arab world is fragmented, in open revolt, and the Arab Street is incapable of voicing, as it once did, solidarity with bin Laden. Obama knows this better than anyone, so talks of ‘reset’ even as he keeps the Bush antiterrorism protocols unchanged.
"...Whether the trigger for this wave of Middle Eastern unrest and rebellion was the removal of Saddam and the establishment of a democracy in Iraq, or a Soviet-like implosion of failed autocratic government throughout the Middle East, it matters little.
"...At least for now, Middle East dictatorships in extremis are claiming as their one saving grace their antiterrorism and anti-al-Qaeda credentials, and, likewise, those in the streets seeking to destroy these Middle East authoritarians are claiming just about the same. Both groups are probably lying, but their rhetoric at least is predicated on the fact that bin Laden & Co. are now losers in a way they were praised as winners between 2001 and 2003.
The retreatists also know a Great Satan unbound will totally queer the mix on their pet peeves and binding proposals - as if running away from Iraq and AFPAK will instantly blossom a new cool age of coolness, love and hap hap happiness or that sucking up to OBL fans in HAMAS will be perceived as a strong horse.
As best understood - Americans are crazy and unpredictable in war time. The OBL raid is a powerful reminder - and those of us who faced idiotic and almost frightened academs this week tut tutting our wild assetted LOLZ celebrations (often with a new drink called the OBL - two shots and 'a splash of water') - totally get it. America will go anywhere and do anything, anytime she wants. She will not be 'tamed' or 'bound'
And Great Satan's enemies get it too.
Pic "Above average psycho super goddess"
Fuck yeah!
ReplyDeleteBut then again we probably /won't/ assassinate Qaddafi, heck we'll probably sell arms to Syria after a few years too, the way things tend to go.
The US "won" the Iraq War? Not even close.
ReplyDeleteAs a matter of fact, The Iraqi government admitted Osama got quite a revenge today there, Sunni jihadists killing 21 Iraqi cops, wounding many more in yet another successful hit which will have failed retreads like Boehner pleading to stay and waste more taxpayer dollars.
The US can probably still stabilize Afghanistan? lmao.
ReplyDeleteA thoroughly corrupt government and a stronger Taliban than in 2001.
Scheuer on Rehm yesterday said that Paki gave the US more bang for the buck than Israel, which gave us only enemies.
Egyptian trends with Gaza border, Israel and rapprochement with Iran are complicating matters as well.
But most Empires go down kicking and screaming so the hawks will probably get their economically debilitating way struggling on multi fronts until collapse, making SS and Medicare folks pay for the hubris.
Our objective is to create an Afghanistan that can stand on its own, that ultimately is going to be able to secure its own territory, not provide a safe haven for terrorists and not drag down the security of the entire region.
ReplyDeleteNone of which is impossible
"The world must now realize that the domestic antiwar movement is dead, kaput; it cares not a whit whether we assassinate bin Laden or a son of Qaddafi or go into Libya. Everything is on the table now and there are no self-restraints, no snickers on The Daily Show, no quirky insider winks on Letterman, no Barbara Streisand crazy faxes. A Nobel peace laureate is now the Left’s totem and he can send quite deadly Americans on quite deadly missions as he sees fit — and without worry about a New York Times op-ed barrage or an ACLU lawsuit."
ReplyDeleteNeoconservatives still don't get it: "the antiwar movement" is only a small part of the larger left. For a time, there was an alliance, owing to the incompetence and moral corruption of the Bush adminstration, but now there's been a split.
If you ever bothered to leave your bubble and read a liberal blog, you'd discover that the anti-war movement is still there, and they're furious at this president. What's different is that the much-larger body of liberals and Democrats no longer agrees with them.
PS - if the US won the Iraq War, why are we skeedaddling without any bases?
Hi Joe!
ReplyDeleteYessir - it's been split alright! Mainly cause events au courrant have proven certain world views in IR, the military and spy guy environs are totally correct on nearly every issue of un and import. Furious? Really? All ways tho't the ultra Left was kinda cold and calculating.
Yet they are really quite emotional.
Aren't they?
Wow. Just stumbled onto this blog and well......all i can say again is wow. Very intelligent yet so damn ignorant at the same time.
ReplyDelete1. We won nothing in Iraq (especially those of us who lost loved ones).
2. Afghanistan is called the Graveyard of Empires for a reason.
3. The idea that the US will always have the upper hand is quite arrogant.