Politicians try to clarify their confusion

It’s amazing that someone as incoherent on Libya as Newt Gingrich is being considered to be presidential material. Gingrich is as incoherent on this topic as Barack Obama who, for the past few weeks, has been saying that Gaddhafi has got to go.

Until today, when his press secretary (I just saw this on CNN) stated that regime change is not a goal of the military action in Libya.

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Erich Vieth

Erich Vieth is an attorney focusing on civil rights (including First Amendment), consumer law litigation and appellate practice. At this website often writes about censorship, corporate news media corruption and cognitive science. He is also a working musician, artist and a writer, having founded Dangerous Intersection in 2006. Erich lives in St. Louis, Missouri with his two daughters.

This Post Has 4 Comments

  1. Avatar of Mark Tiedemann
    Mark Tiedemann

    I should probably have put this up a week ago so it would have sounded more prophetic, but…

    As in other situations of this sort, a simple P.R. equation is always in force.

    If we do nothing and refuse to intervene, we'll be heartless bastards.

    If we do intervene and it takes "too long" then we'll be imperialist dogs interested only in the oil.

    Somewhere between these two extremes is the reality, but those are the positions between which popular politics get played.

  2. Avatar of Erich Vieth
    Erich Vieth

    Ron Paul on U.S. intervention in Libya:

    "Aside from the manner in which the administration took us to war, it is also troubling that our government has taken a decisive stand for one side of an internal conflict in another sovereign country. The administration speaks out of both sides of its mouth on this, claiming that the U.S. is not attempting to overthrow the Gadhafi regime while clearly benefitting the rebels and stating that Gadhafi must leave. Does this make any sense? Gadhafi may well be every bit the “bad guy” we are told he is, but who are the rebels we are assisting? Do we have any clue? Will they bring freedom and prosperity to Libya if they are victorious? We might like to hope so, but the fact is, we don’t know. Michael Scheuer, former head of the CIA’s bin Laden unit, explained in a recent article that there is plausible reason to believe the rebels are current or former Islamist mujahedin, eager to engage in jihad. Indeed, Gadhafi has fought against Libyan Islamists for years and is seen by them as a bitter enemy. Astoundingly, it may well be that we are assisting al-Qaeda in this new war!"

    http://original.antiwar.com/paul/2011/03/28/an-ad

  3. Avatar of Erich Vieth
    Erich Vieth

    I'm not going to pretend that being President is easy. Perhaps Barack Obama made a reasonable decision to involve our military in Libya based on things that are not public.

    What I do resent is that the Peace President has decided that he alone has the authority to start a war. Here's what Glenn Greenwald has to say about this trashing of the U.S. Constitution:

    "Most Democrats, liberals, and even traditional conservatives and libertarians purported to find such lawlessness outrageous and dangerous during the Bush years. It isn't any less so now."

    http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald

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