Americans who follow current events must admit these are strange days indeed. We are witnessing a surreal situation where the 44th President of the United States conducts himself in a manner that is not only out of synch with the rhetoric he used on the campaign trail, but is literally antithetical to it.
Who’s the better Commander-in-Chief? I think we know
As everyone who was paying attention remembers, in 2007-2008 a young upstart and would-be presidential candidate named Barack Obama spoke disparagingly (if not disrespectfully) of President George W. Bush’s willingness to go to war in Iraq. And then-Senator Obama also did everything in his power to insure Bush lacked the approval to go to war anywhere else. (For instance, to keep Bush from attacking Iran Obama introduced S.J.Res.23, requiring that “any offensive military action taken by the United States against Iran must be explicitly authorized by Congress.” And just to be doubly sure Bush’s hands were tied, Obama bravely declared: “[the] president does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.”)
Of course that’s all just so much water under the bridge now, as President Obama has both demonstrated his willingness to go to war in Libya without congressional approval and to do so where no imminent threat to the United States existed.
Moreover, Obama has done these things weakly and without any clear goals to be achieved.
While critics may malign Bush for lacking a plan to keep the peace once Iraq was liberated, no one can accuse him of starting a war while lacking a plan and clear objectives to begin with. (In Iraq, we toppled Saddam Hussein’s regime in about the same time it took us to topple the Taliban in Afghanistan – 3 weeks.)
And we must never forget that before Bush took us into Iraq, he first received Congressional approval and then invaded with an impressive coalition of forces from Afghanistan, Albania, Australia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Colombia, Czech Republic, Denmark, El Salvador, Eritrea, Estonia, Ethiopia, Georgia, Hungary, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Netherlands, Nicaragua, Philippines, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and Uzbekistan. (30 separate coalition members other than the United States, for those of you who like to keep count.)
Obama, on the other hand, acted unilaterally (no Congressional approval), and entered into war against Libya with a much smaller coalition of countries: France, the United Kingdom, Italy, Canada, Belgium, Denmark, Norway, Qatar, Spain, Greece, Germany, Poland, Jordan, Morocco, and the United Arab Emirate. (15 separate coalition members other than the United States, or about half as many as Bush was able to pull together.)
And whereas Bush had a plan for Iraq, Obama had no plan for Libya (and still has no plan for Libya). He called out the bombers against Libya so impulsively that in order to cover his tracks, White House officials used the phrase “kinetic military action” instead of “war” to describe it. They, along with Obama, told us it was only going to take days, not weeks; that American forces were going to launch airstrikes then slide back to allow other nations took the lead; and that there would be no American boots on the ground.
In short, the operation was going to be as magical as Obama’s promises of hope and change. We were going to sling a few cruise missiles at Gaddafi and he wasn’t even going to shoot back. Afterward, everybody was just going to hug and be happy.
However, the days, not weeks of “kinetic military action” that began on March 19th are still raging in mid-April. There are American boots on the ground in Libya (Central Intelligence Agency) and American forces are still taking part in the bombing campaigns over that country.
I guess the point I’m trying to make is that if this is how Obama was going to demonstrate real war fighting and put Bush in his place, he’s blown it big time. Instead, what he’s done is remind us that many of those who criticized Bush for sticking to his guns in Iraq should have kept their mouths shut (Obama included).
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