COMPARE AND CONTRAST
By David Vance On March 31st, 2011Here he is speaking in 2002.
President Barack Obama, as an Illinois state senator in 2002, said that using military force to topple a murderous dictator amounted to a “dumb war” and should be opposed.
And now, in 2011, Obama uses military force to to topple a murderous dictator in Libya.
Was he dumb back then or is he dumb now?
Two entirely different sets of circumstances.
David, I think you fail to appreciate the perhaps complex distinction between starting a war and stopping a war.
This is not a war – why, Noel explained this to me just the other day here at ATW.
Obama clearly states that it is a “kinetic military operation.”
Obviously, it’s “Liberal Smart Power.”
I wonder what ATW was saying in 2002.
>>This is not a war – why, Noel explained this to me just the other day here at ATW.<<
Patty, apparently I didn't explain clearly enough.
I didn't say there was not a war in Libya. In fact I said several times (and, yes, this really did have to be pointed out to some people) that there was a war going on there with much loss of life before anyone from the west showed up.
I also said the US is not at war by virtue of its intervention in Libya.
A war for me, and I'd say for most people, entails large deployments of troops, significant casualties on all sides and a general frank exchange of lead. None applies to US forces in Libya, althogh this could change, which I also said the other day.
Yo Patty
Had an all too short visit to Irvine / Huntington Beach yesterday.
Pretty nice area
Here’s the way I see it: I don’t think that either what Obama said back then, or what he says now, necessarily makes him ‘dumb’: The bottom line is that he’s a politician, and he said what he said back then because he thought it would make people like him and vote for him, and he says what he says now for much the same reason.
However, that said, it shows a certain weakness and lack of leadership to merely say whatever he thinks will make him popular at the particular moment in question.