muammar gaddafi Archives - Where Is The Outrage?

Grab bag Monday

How are you this evening?

Several years ago, as I was searching for a theme for my blog, I started watching the O’Reilly factor. I would listen to his rant and then I would post the rant plus whatever I thought he got wrong or distorted. I got tired of documenting the egregious errors of Fox news. I just figured that Fox doesn’t care. They are going to say what they want to say regardless of the facts. (watch the video)

Libya confuses me. Libya’s dictator Muammar Gaddafi appears to be a repugnant dictator with little or no redeeming qualities. If he gets overthrown, ousted or otherwise booted out of power… This would be a good thing for the United States and for the world. It would be a great thing for the Libyan people. This thing is very complex. So, after a series of moves, a ragtag coalition has come together to enforce “no-fly zones” over Libya. On one hand, I think this is a good thing. I think that letting Gaddafi indiscriminately kill his own people is simply wrong. Does this riddle have a military solution? I think we all remember the genocide that went on in Rwanda in the mid-1990s. We should not let that kind of killing go on again, ever. On the other hand, what is our goal? Is our goal to destroy every airplane and helicopter that Colonel Gaddafi owns? Is that enough? As I see it, there are many pitfalls to this strategy. Remember Somalia? We were just delivering humanitarian aid. Then we were going to stop folks for stealing the aid. Then there is this serviceman being drug threw the streets. Finally, if the former Russian president, Vladimir Putin, opposes this action, I’m thinking this action is a good thing.
A federal appeals court has reinstated a case against the government which was filed by the ACLU and multiple other groups. The case contends that it is unconstitutional for the executive branch to vacuum up all this information found in e-mails and international phone calls.
I find it interesting that the Obama administration is not going to ask for any funding for this Libya campaign. By the way, how much military action can a president engage our troops in without Congressional approval?
Former Minnesota governor has made it official, sort of. Tim Pawlenty has formed an exploratory committee. He has really been running for president for the last 2 years. I’m not sure what this committee is for. He knows where he stands with the American public. He has been monitoring his status for the last 24 months.
ATT is going to buy T-Mobile. Is this good for you and I? I can’t think of a single merger that has happened in the last 10 – 15 years that has benefited the American consumer. Watch Morningstar’s thoughts on this takeover.

BTW, if the Tea Party throws a convention and nobody shows up (about 300), does that mean that the Tea Party was just a fad?

President Bush Jumping into Presidential Election?

President George W. Bush was addressing the Knesset (Israel’s Parliament) today. Bush said: “Some seem to believe we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: ‘Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.’ We have an obligation to call this what it is — the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.”

Somebody please help me. Who said anything about appeasement? Pat Buchanan pointed out that the Bush administration negotiated with Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi. He gave up his nuclear ambitions. We tried the hard line with North Korea and they made more nuclear weapons during the Bush administration than in their history. We tried the hard line against Iran and they are clearly stronger now than since the late 1970’s.

Barack Obama had a thoughtful statement: “It is time to turn the page on eight years of policies that have strengthened Iran and failed to secure America or our ally Israel. Instead of tough talk and no action, we need to do what Kennedy, Nixon and Reagan did and use all elements of American power — including tough, principled and direct diplomacy — to pressure countries like Iran and Syria.”

It appears to me that Bush is trying to go out of his way to prove how bad his administration truly is. I’m not sure that he did Senator John McCain any favors.