I sit at my desk every morning listening to the sounds of cable television in the air. Now a lot of it is about Libya. And I'm just blown away by the constant, almost unanimous chorus in favor of some sort of active, military involvement in the country. At this moment, I'm listening to some person say that it just doesn't make sense -- that it's inconsistent -- for the President to announce that it is our national policy that Qaddafi should leave and yet not take military steps to make that happen. I've also heard numerous voices arguing that we 'didn't act' in the Balkans and then didn't act in Rwanda and that we should not make the same mistake today.
This is a wildly different standard for military action than we've ever heard before, even in an era where our interventions have become much more frequent and when they've often been wise and necessary.
The Village fix is in, just like Afghanistan, just like Iraq. Count on it. Nick Kristof in the NY Times:
"This is a pretty easy problem, for crying out loud.”
For all the hand-wringing in Washington about a no-fly zone over Libya, that’s the verdict of Gen. Merrill McPeak, a former Air Force chief of staff. He flew more than 6,000 hours, half in fighter aircraft, and helped oversee no-fly zones in Iraq and the Adriatic, and he’s currently mystified by what he calls the “wailing and gnashing of teeth” about imposing such a zone on Libya.
I called General McPeak to get his take on a no-fly zone, and he was deliciously blunt:
“I can’t imagine an easier military problem,” he said. “If we can’t impose a no-fly zone over a not even third-rate military power like Libya, then we ought to take a hell of a lot of our military budget and spend it on something usable.”
He continued: “Just flying a few jets across the top of the friendlies would probably be enough to ground the Libyan Air Force, which is the objective.”
General McPeak added that there would be no need to maintain 24/7 coverage over Libya. As long as the Libyan Air Force knew that there was some risk of interception, its pilots would be much less motivated to drop bombs and more inclined to defect.
“If we can’t do this, what can we do?” he asked, adding: “I think it would have a real impact. It might change their calculation of who might come out on top. Just the mere announcement of this might have an impact.”
Along with a no-fly zone, another important step would be to use American military aircraft to jam Libyan state television and radio propaganda and Libyan military communications. General McPeak said such jamming would be “dead easy.”
We fly a few planes around, we scare a few Libyan pilots into defection, we play "Danger Zone" by Kenny Loggins as loudly as possible while doing it, and then we all have wings and beer on the way home. Duh, winning! Tiger blood! Adonis DNA!
What could possibly go wrong with our plan to depose Qaddafi?
Military commanders expect the United States to have a "significant presence" in Afghanistan for another eight to 10 years, according to a member of Congress who just returned from a trip to the region and has introduced legislation calling for a full accounting of the costs of the war.
Rep. Bruce Braley (D-Iowa) spent his congressional four-day weekend on a fact-finding trip to Afghanistan, meeting with Gen. David Petraeus, Amb. Karl Eikenberry and members of the Iowa National Guard. In an interview with The Huffington Post on Wednesday, Braley said that while there has clearly been some significant progress, challenges will remain even after 2014, when combat operations are supposed to end.
"It was very clear that under the best-case scenario, there will be some significant U.S. presence, according to them, for the next eight to 10 years," Braley said, adding that he expected that presence to include both military and civilian personnel. "That includes a very clear commitment that the drawdown will begin on schedule in July, and that the targeted date of being out with most combat forces by 2014 will be met. They continue to maintain that they are on pace to maintain those objectives."
We'll be greeted as liberators and the oil will pay for the invasion and WARLOCK IS LATIN FOR WINNING PEW PEW PEW!
The lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan are that we have not learned a goddamn thing in the last nine years and we are basically screwed beyond my capacity for rational thought. Last one out, turn off the lights.
New tag: Libya Is Latin For WINNING.
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