[I usually don't read comments on posts because so often they're a complete waste of time. This time, though, I thought the comments from FrumForum's conservative-leaning readership were interesting. No cherry-picking; I've included them all.]
April 2nd, 2011 at 10:58 am FrumForum News
Professor Charles Krauthammer writes:
Obama Wages War Like a Professor
President Obama is proud of how he put together the Libyan operation. A model of international cooperation. All the necessary paperwork. Arab League backing. A Security Council resolution. (Everything but a resolution from the Congress of the United States, a minor inconvenience for a citizen of the world.) It’s war as designed by an Ivy League professor.
True, it took three weeks to put this together, during which time Moammar Gaddafi went from besieged, delusional (remember those youthful protesters on “hallucinogenic pills”) thug losing support by the hour — to resurgent tyrant who marshaled his forces, marched them to the gates of Benghazi and had the U.S. director of national intelligence predicting that “the regime will prevail.”
But what is military initiative and opportunity compared with paper?
Well, let’s see how that paper multilateralism is doing. The Arab League is already reversing itself, criticizing the use of force it had just authorized. Amr Moussa, secretary-general of the Arab League, is shocked — shocked! — to find that people are being killed by allied airstrikes. This reaction was dubbed mystifying by one commentator, apparently born yesterday and thus unaware that the Arab League has forever been a collection of cynical, warring, unreliable dictatorships of ever-shifting loyalties. A British soccer mob has more unity and moral purpose. Yet Obama deemed it a great diplomatic success that the league deigned to permit others to fight and die to save fellow Arabs for whom 19 of 21 Arab states have yet to lift a finger.
Comments after the jump.
16 Comments so far:
ottovbvs // Apr 2, 2011 at 11:57 am
Scholar soldiers? T. E. Lawrence. Leon Trotsky. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain. David Petraeus. Alan Brooke. Mao Tse Tung. Carl von Clausewitz. Gerhard von Scharnhorst. Sebastien Vauban. David Bacevich……really Krauthammer is a total fathead.
TerryF98 // Apr 2, 2011 at 12:07 pm
Come out of the closet Kraut, you have been in there far too long.
independente // Apr 2, 2011 at 12:21 pm
If “professor” is being used as a pejorative by Krauthammer, then he has failed in his endeavor.
busboy33 // Apr 2, 2011 at 1:07 pm
. . . and Kraut cheers for war like a self-centered coward.
Guess we all have our little foibles.
Rob_654 // Apr 2, 2011 at 1:08 pm
I love hearing guys who graduated from Harvard using education as a pejorative term.
By the way I am still waiting for the Iraq war to pay for itself so we can stop going further into debt to the stupid thing.
armstp // Apr 2, 2011 at 1:13 pm
“Obama Wages War Like a Professor”
I like this title. Waging war like a professor is exactly what the U.S. needs. Someone to actually use their head before taking this country to war. Every single war the U.S. has gotten involved in since WWII, with the exception of Korea, although Korea really went no where, has been a complete waste of time, blood and money.
We need more, not less, professors running the U.S. government.
gmat // Apr 2, 2011 at 1:33 pm
as opposed to, say, like a moron?
jerseychix // Apr 2, 2011 at 3:01 pm
+1 gmat
TerryF98 // Apr 2, 2011 at 1:39 pm
I liked the way that there fake cowboy fella did it, you know the one who had that God guy whispering in his ear all the time.
Now that guy could start two wars at the same time, never actually finish or win one but boy could he start wars. Can’t remember his name right now but it rhymes with “tush”
nuser // Apr 2, 2011 at 2:05 pm
Krauthammer hears voices and so does Frum, mostly from Europe.
TAZ // Apr 2, 2011 at 2:32 pm
As opposed to, say, like a Palin!
Thats Right, I went there…..
jakester // Apr 2, 2011 at 2:40 pm
I guess when you work for FOX, you have to pander to the same bunch of Palindronic idiots who react to anyone smarter than themselves by whining about elitists. Too bad this hypocrite who puts down the “chattering class” as if he isn’t the prime example of a talking head, doesn’t have the integrity to actually write anything thoughtful and honest anymore.
nhthinker // Apr 2, 2011 at 4:50 pm
Charles Krauthammer gets it right…
Gates does not know if NATO can take over:
“Even Defense Secretary Robert Gates wondered out loud whether the NATO airstrikes can succeed without the United States in the lead.
“They certainly have made that commitment, and we will see,” Gates said. ”
Of the couple thousand of so “Rebels”, at least 70%completely untrained with maybe a few hundred that have military experience. They have kids going to the front line and getting in the way with nothing more than bravado and a pocket knife.
Mortars are relatively likely to go in the wrong direction. They have no serious command structure. All their communication is routed through Ghaddafi’s phone network.
It’s like telling child to go kill ten professional killers. And we’ll bomb the killers as long as they wear uniforms and uses big weapons- so we tell the child not to worry- go kill the professional killers! You have righteousness on your side!
Now the killers change in to civilian clothes and use the same weapons as the child-”Rebels”.
The NATO forces are now accidentally killing Rebels because they can’t tell the difference.
Actually it is easy to tell the difference. The killers know how to kill and the Rebels know how to flee and die. That is why the Rebels called for a cease fire. But the coalition wants the rebels to go out as bait so the planes can actually target Ghaddafi’s forces. The ugliness of war for all to see.
The Professor that grew up thinking war was totally repulsive and thus was never capability to study it seriously, tries to fight a war in a manner that has no realistic chance of prevailing- and tries to exit as the killing of the Rebels becomes fated unless an entirely different approach is taken.
“They certainly have made that commitment, and we will see,” Gates said. ”
As Obama passes the hot potato.
armstp // Apr 2, 2011 at 5:38 pm
nhthinker,
I am not sure what your point is or Krauthammer’s is?
I think Obama has done the smart thing and not got the U.S. heavily involved in a civil war. Setting a no-fly zone or no-drive zone and stopping the massacre was the right thing to do. If you and Krauthammer wanted something more then great, but I think Obama has been very clear from the beginning: a limited U.S. involvement and the U.S. military will not be used for regime change. The Libyans will have to sort this out on their own.
Primrose // Apr 2, 2011 at 6:41 pm
I think Krautammer has to prove first that his prognosis has proven correct enough times for his thoughts to be considered at all. Of the pundits, I seem to recall he has a pretty poor track record. It’s all talkng points said snidely.
Frumplestiltskin // Apr 2, 2011 at 8:15 pm
I have no idea what the hell point Kraut is making, when the rebels looked like they were winning, why exactly would we have intervened and in what manner? We couldn’t magically wave a wand and put in place a no fly zone, especially when the rebels were at that time fighting to gain control of a lot of these places and were mixed in with Gadhafi loyalists. Look, it made perfect sense to wait and see if the rebels could win on their own so as to have legitimacy within Libya and the rest of the world instead of being viewed as US backed puppets. We gave them their shot and they failed so to prevent a massacre in the East we intervened.
nhthinker, my God you are a patronizing son of a bitch, how dare you call the fighters “children”. Show me any evidence that the rebels are putting guns in the hands of children.
“It’s like telling child to go kill ten professional killers.” Listen, that is despicable. Did you not notice how these people you characterize as “children” rose up and took the whole of East Libya armed with nothing more than molotov cocktails and primitive weapons? How they are still holding on to Misrata after 3 weeks of being besieged?
By the way, military service is obligatory in Libya, many of the rebels had military service…far more than we in the west acknowledge, they just don’t have any of the elite training or weaponry of Gadhafi’s own personal guard.
How the how else to you imagine these rebels knew how to use Ak47’s or rocket propelled grenades? Yet you call them “children” and know nothing about them. If you don’t follow the news and educate yourself, it is best not to say anything instead of be made to look the fool.
The Gadhafi forces have artillery that has twice the range of the rebels, and have a great deal more ammunition and communication equipment, yet you mock the rebels as being “children”
Disgraceful.
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