When General McChrystal asked for more Troops, Our European Allies supported him. When Persians risked life and limb to protest their dictator's theft of an election, the POTUS was silent. When Egyptians protested in Tahir Square, the US Government was caught off guard, but cheered El Baradei on and then convinced the Egyptian Military to throw out Mubarak and to open the politics of Egypt to the Muslim Brotherhood. And weeks into the Libyan Rebellion, the most we get out of the POTUS is lukewarm talk.
The UN is more full of hot air than is DC. Getting consensus on anything is a near impossibility highlighted by the fact that countries like Libya, Iran, and Cuba are on the UN Human Rights Council. It is a mockery. Or as Jon Stewart asked: "What does it take to expel Libya from the Human Rights Council?" after Libya was "suspended" from it.
Sometimes, you have to do the right thing, even if no one else will tell you to do so. Sometimes, you have to do the right thing, even if they'll call you a bully. Letting Qaddaffi Duck murder people in the street is wrong. Yes, Our Military is busy, but they're not too busy to put a few F-15's and F-18's in the air to shoot down any Libyan plane that hasn't already defected. And it really is that easy. For good measure put up an AWACS, bomb his runways, and equip the F-15's with anti-radar missiles. We did it over Iraq for a decade.
If verbal opposition to Mubarrak was a hard choice between pragmatism and the future leaders, real opposition to Qaddaffi Duck should be a no-brainer. Qaddaffi Duck barely holds any rational thought anymore. The smart money used to be that it was mostly calculated bluster, but now it is that he's delusional. He has been a self-proclaimed enemy of the US for decades, a little less active after Reagan dropped a bomb on his tent and a little more compliant when he thought he might be next on W's list, but still a tyrant and an enemy dictator.
Even the leader of a prestigious English University has stepped down for accepting money from Libya, and he was trying to convince them to be a bit more responsible. Even Qaddaffi's political appointees have defected.
What is the UN response? Sanctions. Idiocy. Sure, stop selling him, or anyone in Libya, weapons. That hurts the rebels as much as, if not more than Qaddaffi's supporters.
In times like this, the world looks to the US President for leadership, not to conduct polls of world opinions. In times like this, a leader would say: this is our plan, this is what we are going to do, We hope you'll help us change the dynamics, but if you're too chickens***, we're going it alone, because it is the right thing to do. And it is not the right thing to do, to sit back and watch a tyrant murder his people with air assets, when you could stop it. But a leader doesn't just send out diplomats to ask the rest of the world what they're going to do, or rather say. Even the Dutch are doing more, and they didn't ask anyone if they could send in a rescue helicopter.
Stumble It!
