Gaddafi's Ass

Why Isn't a US Predator Drone Sticking Out of 
Gaddafi's Ass Right Now?

Today, February 23^rd, two days after Libyan military aircraft opened fire on peaceful protesters, - http://www.haaretz.com/news/international/report-libya-air-force-bombs-protesters-heading-for-army-base-1.344775 - the known death toll now standing at over 300, President Obama is calling for “the world to speak with one voice” against the atrocities taking place. He stated that the Libyan government “must be held accountable.” So how does the Nobel Prize winning peacemaker plan to do this? What is the most powerful man in the world going to do to stand up for democracy (this is a big parenthesis: We have already witnessed his unwillingness to act on the behalf of a united populace in Egypt, but that 'revolution' was relatively peaceful being that the military stood behind the movement. Despite early confrontations with the police, a camel-back Tahrir Square charge, and the violence sustained by reporters, especially the “brutal and sustained sexual assault" on Lara Logan - if you look at the numbers in black in white, with the detached lens of a statistician, this was a successful and peaceful revolution and Obama's unwillingness to come out directly against Mubarack can be understood in terms of diplomacy; Mubarack's long-standing cooperative relationship with the US; and in terms of his being a stabilizing pillar within the Middle Eastern leadership. Gaddafi is another story . . . ) ?

The answer?

sanctions

America's rapid response to this humanitarian crisis, in which Gaddafi, a known sponsor of terrorism (Lockerbie bombing, '86 Berlin discotheque bombing, and '89 UTA Flight 772 bombing; as well as supplying military aid to any group claiming to fight “imperialism” - i.e. PLO, IRA, etc.) who has only been tolerated on the international stage because he controls the largest oil reserves in Africa (9^th largest in the world) is sending Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to Geneva next Monday to join a UN Human Rights Council meeting, where they will negotiate a resolution on Libya. Of those options discussed in the resolution, the sanctions are the most hard hitting; with others including a call on Libya to protect its citizens, condemnation of the violence and a demand for an international inquiry and access for humanitarian groups. Talk about shock and awe. Ronald Reagan must be spinning in his grave right now (especially after the Somali pirate debacle).

Get 'em Ronnie!

Iran has been under US sanctions since 1979, when the Iran hostage crisis began after a group of radical students in Tehran seized the American embassy and took 66 hostages, and they have been under increasing international pressure since 2005 when Ahmadinejad lifted the suspension on uranium enrichment which had been previously brokered with the EU3 (France, Germany, & UK). Most people my age (born in '82) don't have first-hand knowledge of these goings-ons (if they have any knowledge of them at all), but after numerous (failed) rescue attempts and diplomatic manueverings, what eventually ended the standoff between Iran and the US was the election of Ronald Reagan. Running against the painstakingly peaceful Jimmy Carter (for a commander-in-chief . . . I'm very anti-war, but that little red button is there for a reason), Reagan made a campaign promise that if elected president, he would bomb Iran as his first act in office. On January 20, 1981, 20 minutes after Reagan had been sworn into office, all the remaining hostages were on a plane out of Iran.

The carrot and the stick.

Sanctions are a pencil-pusher's attempt at making peace, and by no-one's account have they ever brought about a speedy resolution to any situation. But when lives are on the line, and when a country full of people yearning for democracy, a people who have been under the rule of the same man since 1969 - over 41 years – are dieing trying to earn their basic freedom, America has an obligation to act swiftly and decisively. What good is having the world's greatest military if we only use it to occupy countries rather than free them ( . . . like having the "world's greatest health care system" I can't afford)?

Why, when one in three killed by drones in Pakistan is a civilian, - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/pakistan/7361630/One-in-three-killed-by-US-drones-in-Pakistan-is-a-civilian-report-claims.html - are we so cautious when it comes to cracking a few eggs to make an omelet in Libya?

Coming from a family tradition of backing the Democratic Party, it pains me to trash Obama (I remember staying up to watch his inauguration live via the internet when I was in Australia and getting all teary-eyed), but after failing to stand up for the middle-class and minorities that elected him domestically (failing to end tax-cuts for the nation's richest and adding $2.2 trillion to the deficit over the next ten years is only the latest in a long line of sellouts), if Obama fails to act now, on the international stage, then I fear he may face the same one-term fate that Carter did.

You won't be seeing this one in the 2012 campaign,
unless it's off the desk of Karl Rove.
(photo taken July 9, 2009)

Maybe not, he is a hell of a salesman, and Jay-Z is going to be involved in his campaign. As for me, I'm writing in Ralph Nader.

(For those wackos who are keeping their fingers crossed for Donald Trump to throw his hat in the ring, the “Don” allowed Gaddafi to literally 'pitch his tent' on one of his estates in Bedford, New Jersey during Gaddafi's visit to the UN General Session in 2009. Gaddafi had previously tried to set up camp in Central Park and on Libyan government property, but both were protested by community leaders.)

"You're Fired!"
Somebody buy this guy a hat.