Watching the news last night and this is EXACTLY what I heard:

Our Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says, “We really do not know who these rebels are just yet”

Five minutes later I hear our UN Ambassador Susan Rice say, “We need to arm these rebels”

Our people need to get on the same page here. On one hand we are saying we need to arm these people and on the other hand we are saying we don’t know who they are or what they stand for. They look foolish and need to at least get on the same page here.

I didn’t really get Obama’s speech the other night (maybe it's me). He says we are handing this cluster over to NATO. The supreme commander of NATO is a US Soldier. We are the number one country funding NATO. NATO is nothing without us. We are taking this from our right hand and moving it to our left hand and saying we handed it off. I don’t know if he is the one who is confused or if he is trying to confuse the American people. He needs to call a spade a spade. That is the least he can do.
Not sure what happens next. If this is a humanitarian effort, what happens when Gadafi’s troops dig in around Tripoli and it comes to a standstill? If the innocent killing stops, what happens next? What’s the plan? Obama’s speech sounded like a victory speech the other night and we still have 8 innings left to play………

Here we go.
The libs loved comparing Iraq to Vietnam however there was little in common.
This on the other hand is VERY similar......

CNN) -- On a day when opposition forces in Libya suffered battlefield losses, President Barack Obama made clear in interviews Tuesday with the three major U.S. television networks that he was open to arming the rebel fighters.

"I'm not ruling it out, but I'm also not ruling it in," Obama told NBC in one of the separate interviews he gave the day after a nationally televised speech on the Libya situation.


and PS - I am not even going to comment on how incredibly funny this is - "I'm not ruling it out, but I'm also not ruling it in,"

Libyan Army pulling back hundreds of klicks, rebels advance hundreds of klicks, both in just days. Rebels (with what constitution and command?) stretch well beyond what would pass for something akin to a supply line and get chewed up. Classic swaping space for extending the opposing force beyond their capabilities.

We're all doomed. :devil2:

Warfare practiced by Poli-Sci majors? I hope O can pull this off but I remain unconvinced it will happen without the US holding the bag.

Ready. Fire. Aim.

And lets not forget who we're fighting for!

LONDON (Reuters) – Al Qaeda's most influential English-language preacher said revolts sweeping the Arab world would help rather than harm its cause by giving Islamists freed from tyranny greater scope to speak out.

Western and Arab officials say the example set by young Arabs seeking peaceful political change is a counterweight to al-Qaeda's push for violent militancy and weakens its argument that democracy and Islam are incompatible.

But al Qaeda preacher Anwar al-Awlaki, in an article published online on Tuesday, said the removal of anti-Islamist autocrats meant Islamic fighters and scholars were now freer to discuss and organize.

"Our mujahideen brothers in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and the rest of the Muslim world will get a chance to breathe again after three decades of suffocation," he wrote, using a term that refers generally to Islamic guerrilla groups or holy warriors.

"For the scholars and activists of Egypt to be able to speak again freely, it would represent a great leap forward for the mujahideen," wrote Awlaki, an American of Yemeni origin who is believed to be hiding in southern Yemen.

He said it did not matter what sort of government succeeded Arab autocrats, as these were unlikely to be as repressive. Imagining that only a Taliban-style regime would benefit al Qaeda was "a too short term way" of looking at events.

"We do not know yet what the outcome would be (in any given country), and we do not have to. The outcome doesn't have to be an Islamic government for us to consider what is occurring to be a step in the right direction," he said.

I think these clowns would have spun it either way. If the middle east truly were to move to a more democratic region , I think it would be harder on the Taliban. Personal opinion though and I think that is a very, very long way off.

No, it's not you.
Like Joe Liberman said the other night,
"If your -NOT- confused, you don't understand the situation." :)

By RYAN LUCAS, Associated Press Ryan Lucas, Associated Press – 1 min ago
AJDABIYA, Libya – Moammar Gadhafi's ground forces recaptured a strategic oil town Wednesday and moved within striking distance of another major eastern city, nearly reversing the gains rebels made since international airstrikes began. Rebels pleaded for more help, while a U.S. official said government forces are making themselves harder to target by using civilian "battle wagons" with makeshift armaments instead of tanks.

Hmmmm, We may need to step it up a tiny bit.

At this point, who cares........just do it and get it over with. Say "We (I mean NATO) pressed the wrong button."

brilliant stuff from VDH


March 31, 2011 12:00 A.M.

Obama’s Amazing Achievements
His military intervention prompted some stunning reversals.




By bombing Libya, President Obama has accomplished some things once thought absolutely impossible in America:

(a) War-mongering liberals: Liberals are now chest-thumping about military “progress” in Libya. Even liberal television and radio commentators cite ingenious reasons why an optional, preemptive American intervention in an oil-producing Arab country, without prior congressional approval or majority public support — and at a time of soaring deficits — is well worth supporting, in a sort of “my president, right or wrong,” fashion. Apparently, liberal foreign policy is returning to the pre-Vietnam days of the hawkish “best and brightest.”

(b) Europe first: Many Americans have long complained about the opportunistic, utopian Europeans. Under the protective U.S. defense shield, they often privately urged us to deal with dangerous foreign dictators — while staying above the fray to criticize America, at the same time seeking trade advantages and positive global PR. But now the wily Obama has outwaited even the French. He has managed to shame them into acting, with a new opossum-like U.S. strategy of playing dead until finally the Europeans were exasperated — almost as if the president were warning them, “We don’t mind the Qaddafi bloodletting if you, who are much closer to it, don’t mind.” The British Guardian and French Le Monde will be too knee-deep in the Libyan war, busy chalking up Anglo-French “wins” and worrying about European oil concessions, to charge America with the usual imperialism, colonialism, and militarism. We are almost back to the 1956 world of the Suez crisis.

(c) Iraq was just a prequel to Libya: Conservatives have complained that opposition — especially in the cases of then-senators Barack Obama and Joe Biden — to George W. Bush’s antiterrorism policies and wars in Afghanistan and Iraq was more partisan than principled. Obama ended that debate by showing that not only can he embrace — or, on occasion, expand — the Bush-Cheney tribunals, preventive detentions, renditions, Predator attacks, intercepts and wiretaps, and Guantanamo Bay, but he can now preemptively attack an Arab oil-exporting country without fear of Hollywood, congressional cutoffs, MoveOn.org “General Betray Us”–type ads, Cindy Sheehan on the evening news, or Checkpoint-like novels. In short, Obama has ensured that the antiwar movement will never be quite the same.

(d) Monster-in-recovery: The Qaddafi clan has been wooing Westerners through oil money and multicultural gobbledygook. In the last few years, the British released the Lockerbie bomber, a native of Libya; Saif Qaddafi, the would-be artist and scholar and the son of Col. Moammar Qaddafi, essentially bought a Ph.D. from the prestigious London School of Economics; the creepy Harvard-connected Monitor Group hired out cash-hungry “scholars” to write tributes to Qaddafi’s achievements; and Mariah Carey, 50 Cent, Beyoncé, and other entertainers earned a pile of petrodollars by crooning for the Qaddafis. Then, suddenly, Obama spoiled the fun and profits by turning Qaddafi from a rehabilitated monster back into Ronald Reagan’s old “Mad Dog of the Middle East.”

(e) Stuff happens: Many supporters of the Iraq War condemned Abu Ghraib as the poorly supervised, out-of-control prison it was. Lax American oversight resulted in the sexual humiliation of detained Iraqi insurgents. It was a deplorable episode, in which, nonetheless, no one was killed, and yet it took an enormous toll on the credibility of Bush-administration officials. But while the media were covering the Libyan bombing and the Middle East uprisings, a number of Afghan civilians allegedly were executed by a few rogue American soldiers. That was a far worse transgression than anything that happened at Abu Ghraib during Bush’s tenure — but it was apparently an incident that, in the new media climate, could legitimately be ignored. Obama made “stuff happens” an acceptable defense for those doing their best to run a war from Washington.

(f) War really is tiring: The media serially blamed a supposedly lazy Ronald Reagan for napping during military operations abroad. George W. Bush was criticized for cutting brush at his Texas ranch while soldiers fought and died in Iraq. Obama rendered all such presidential criticism mere nitpicking when he started aerial bombardment in the midst of golfing, handicapping the NCAA basketball tournament, and taking his family to Rio de Janeiro.

(g) The road to Damascus? After Bush’s interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan, many war-weary Americans believed that we would never again get involved in a Middle East war. But now, with Obama’s preemptive bombing of Libya, giddy American interventionists are again eyeing Iran, Syria — and beyond!

In short, Obama turned America upside down when he bombed Libya — and in ways we could have scarcely imagined

Mr Hanson has a away of showing the hypocrisy, dunnhe.

a) Obama has been taking a lot of heat from the Left on Libya

b) I think Obama has shown some patience that like in Egypt might have paid off. To parlay this into playing dead is a bit o spin.

c) Where again has Obama expanded controversial Bush policies like rendition and GITMO?

d) Actually, if was Qadaffi who was ordering the bombing of civilians and not Maria Carey or Fiddy Cent.

e) Funny, I first read about this on MSNBC.COM !

f) Did RIJIMMY write this one?

g) Giddy American Interventionists have never taken an eye off of Iran.

-spence

:rotf2: You crack me up Spence:rotf2:

I'm serious.
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

Actually, this was broken in Rolling Stone, about a squadron from the army known as the 'kill team' which went as far as taking digits from executed kids as trophies. One of the stories was a soldier threw it in a pot during a poker game.

And it was all over MSNBC on Monday.

but of course, it's all liberal bias.

so it was on MSNBC and in Rolling Stone...wow, that's practically the same level of coverage as Abu G and about 4 people saw it, most of whom were smoking weed.....I apologize for VDH :uhuh:.... did Comedy Central or Saturday Night Live do a funny skit about it or anything?...just wondering

btw..Rolling Stone completely misrepresented the story according to an embedded reporter..combination of liberal bias and too much weed

Michael Yon
29 March 2011

Seldom do I waste time with rebutting articles, and especially not from publications like Rolling Stone. Today, numerous people sent links to the latest Rolling Stone tripe. The story is titled “THE KILL TEAM, THE FULL STORY.” It should be titled: “BULL#^&#^&#^&#^&, from Rolling Stone.”

The story—not really an “article”—covers Soldiers from 5/2 Stryker Brigade Combat Team (SBCT) in Afghanistan. A handful of Soldiers were accused of murder. It does in fact appear that a tiny group of rogues committed premeditated murder. I was embedded with the 5/2 SBCT and was afforded incredible access to the brigade by the Commander, Colonel Harry Tunnell, and the brigade Command Sergeant Major, Robb Prosser.
.................................

he goes on to point out the problems with the RS article, the point that VDH is making is the remarkably different handling that the mainstream media has chosen when you juxtapose this incident with Abu, one was used by the media and democrats to try to drive a president from office and soil the reputation of the entire military, the other ( far more egregious) is largely overlooked and the only difference is the party that the presidents happened to belong to....if you somehow miss the bias then there is little hope for you....

...........
Sen. Edward Kennedy "we now learn that Saddam's torture chambers reopened under new management, U.S. management''....what a patriot he was:yak6:

and the beat goes on, la da da da di, la da da da dah....

The rebels managed to take part of the oil town of Brega the day before, aided by an international air campaign, but the rocket and artillery salvos unleashed on the rebels indicates the government's offensive capabilities remain very much intact.

"When you see this, the situation is very bad. We cannot match their weapons," said Kamal Mughrabi, 64, a retired soldier who joined the rebel army. "If the planes don't come back and hit them we'll have to keep pulling back."

Rebel attempts to fire rockets and mortars against the government forces were met with aggressive counter bombardments that sent many of the rebel forces scrambling back all the way to the town of Ajdabiya, dozens of miles (kilometers) away. There did not appear to be any immediate response from the international aircraft patrolling the skies that have aided the rebels in the past.

"the goal" appears to be paving the way for an islamic power


I guess when you are F-ing things things up you could explain your results by claiming that your intention was to cause chaos and instability all along....could be Obama's re-election theme "WINNING!"..."TIGER BLOOD!"

Libyan Rebels: 'Nato Is Now Our Problem'

Share Comments (108)6:53am UK, Wednesday April 06, 2011

Libyan rebels have accused Nato of being too slow to act - and asked them to suspend operations unless they "do the job properly".

Rebel leader Abdel Fattah Younes has complained the alliance takes hours to respond to events on the battlefield because of an overly bureaucratic process.

He claimed the alliance's inaction was allowing Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's forces to advance and was letting them kill people in the rebel-held city of Misrata "everyday".

He said: "Nato is moving very slowly, allowing Gaddafi forces to advance. Nato has become our problem."

Mr Younes also said if Nato wanted to lift Col Gaddafi's weeks-long siege in Misrata, it could have done it weeks ago.

Nato took over from a coalition led by the United States, Britain and France on March 31.

It puts the alliance in charge of air strikes targeting Col Gaddafi's military infrastructure as well as policing a no-fly zone and an arms embargo.Nato lacking strike aircraft for Libya campaign | World news | guardian.co.uk

good grief :confused:

Mr Younes said: "One official calls another and then from the official to the head of Nato and from the head of Nato to the field commander. This takes eight hours."

I'M SHOCKED!!!

Boston Globe /Opinion /Op-ed Alan J. Kuperman

False pretense for war in Libya?


By Alan J. Kuperman
April 14, 2011

EVIDENCE IS now in that President Barack Obama grossly exaggerated the humanitarian threat to justify military action in Libya. The president claimed that intervention was necessary to prevent a “bloodbath’’ in Benghazi, Libya’s second-largest city and last rebel stronghold.

But Human Rights Watch has released data on Misurata, the next-biggest city in Libya and scene of protracted fighting, revealing that Moammar Khadafy is not deliberately massacring civilians but rather narrowly targeting the armed rebels who fight against his government.

Misurata’s population is roughly 400,000. In nearly two months of war, only 257 people — including combatants — have died there. Of the 949 wounded, only 22 — less than 3 percent — are women. If Khadafy were indiscriminately targeting civilians, women would comprise about half the casualties.

Obama insisted that prospects were grim without intervention. “If we waited one more day, Benghazi . . . could suffer a massacre that would have reverberated across the region and stained the conscience of the world.’’ Thus, the president concluded, “preventing genocide’’ justified US military action.

But intervention did not prevent genocide, because no such bloodbath was in the offing. To the contrary, by emboldening rebellion, US interference has prolonged Libya’s civil war and the resultant suffering of innocents.

The best evidence that Khadafy did not plan genocide in Benghazi is that he did not perpetrate it in the other cities he had recaptured either fully or partially — including Zawiya, Misurata, and Ajdabiya, which together have a population greater than Benghazi.

Libyan forces did kill hundreds as they regained control of cities. Collateral damage is inevitable in counter-insurgency. And strict laws of war may have been exceeded.

But Khadafy’s acts were a far cry from Rwanda, Darfur, Congo, Bosnia, and other killing fields. Libya’s air force, prior to imposition of a UN-authorized no-fly zone, targeted rebel positions, not civilian concentrations. Despite ubiquitous cellphones equipped with cameras and video, there is no graphic evidence of deliberate massacre. Images abound of victims killed or wounded in crossfire — each one a tragedy — but that is urban warfare, not genocide.

Nor did Khadafy ever threaten civilian massacre in Benghazi, as Obama alleged. The “no mercy’’ warning, of March 17, targeted rebels only, as reported by The New York Times, which noted that Libya’s leader promised amnesty for those “who throw their weapons away.’’ Khadafy even offered the rebels an escape route and open border to Egypt, to avoid a fight “to the bitter end.’’

If bloodbath was unlikely, how did this notion propel US intervention? The actual prospect in Benghazi was the final defeat of the rebels. To avoid this fate, they desperately concocted an impending genocide to rally international support for “humanitarian’’ intervention that would save their rebellion.

On March 15, Reuters quoted a Libyan opposition leader in Geneva claiming that if Khadafy attacked Benghazi, there would be “a real bloodbath, a massacre like we saw in Rwanda.’’ Four days later, US military aircraft started bombing. By the time Obama claimed that intervention had prevented a bloodbath, The New York Times already had reported that “the rebels feel no loyalty to the truth in shaping their propaganda’’ against Khadafy and were “making vastly inflated claims of his barbaric behavior.’’

Originally Posted by JohnR ....This is what I fear will happen.

Hopefully Col Q's military and Mercs flip on him. Of course at this stage of the game even if Q is gone and the rebels take over we'll have one of 3 things happen:

1) Rebels will go all fundamentalist anyway.

2) Rebels will fall under Iranian influence and follow the pattern somewhere along option one.

3) We might have some semblance of a modern democracy that remembers help from the west.

Don't expect the latter.






I'M DOUBLE sHOCKED!!!


Clinton says Iran trying to hijack Mideast revolts

Apr 15, 4:11 PM (ET)

MATTHEW LEE

(AP) US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speaks during a press conference at the US Embassy in...

BERLIN (AP) - U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Friday accused Iran of trying to hijack democratic revolutions around the Mideast and warned Arab nations not to permit intolerance against women and religious minorities.

Clinton said Iran was clearly trying to use uprisings around the region to further its own goals and foment broader unrest while at the same time cracking down on its own reform movement.

"I think that that everyone(EXCEPT SPENCE) is aware if its efforts to exploit and even hijack what are legitimate protests. But certainly in an era of instant communication we hope that people will not be fooled by their tactics."

Triple....

April 17, 2011
Syria Heading from Bad to Worse By Neil Snyder

Typical newspaper readers and those with untrained eyes probably read past the report on Monday that Syrian Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohammad Riad Shaqfa declared support for anti-Assad protesters in Syria. Likewise, they probably failed to grasp the significance of a report on Tuesday that Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman, Ramin Mehmanparast, said that the protests in Syria are the result of a plot by Americans and Zionists -- that's Jewish people in general and Israeli Jews in particular.


Syria is a Muslim country, but it's not an Islamist state. Bashar al-Assad, Syria's president, is a Muslim, but he's not a Sharia law aficionado. Even so, he has allowed Hamas, Hezb'allah, the Muslim Brotherhood, Islamic Jihad, and other radical Islamist groups to set up field headquarters in Damascus, Syria's capital. Syria is a resource-poor country and a country that is still technically at war with Israel. Assad thinks that he's using these Islamist groups as leverage to maintain influence in Lebanon and to keep pressure on Israel, but the worm has turned. Iran has assumed the leadership position in the dark world of radical Islam, and Iran is using these and other Islamist groups to dislodge non-Islamist Arab leaders -- including Bashar al-Assad -- throughout the Middle East and North Africa.

Under the best of circumstances, Islamists can't be trusted. Lying is as natural to them as breathing is to normal humans. They don't even trust each other, and if it were not for the fact that they view Israel as their common enemy, they would fight among themselves until the bitter end. Bashar al-Assad, like his father before him, knows these things, and still he opened his arms to radical Islamists, believing as he does that the enemy of my enemy is my friend.


Iran is a game changer. The Iranians came to the party with a strong military, oil, money to burn (and radical Islamists love money), and a lust for transforming the world into a caliphate under Sharia law. From the radical Islamist groups' perspective, it makes perfect sense to dump Assad and embrace Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.


That explains what's happening in Syria, but what about the Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman's remark about Americans and Zionists? Does he honestly believe that these groups are responsible for the unrest in Syria? The answer is a resounding "no." Why? It's because Iran is stoking the fires in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Yemen, Jordan, and Syria. From Iran's perspective, Assad was a good partner as long as radical Islamist splinter groups were relatively weak, but when they became stronger and more beholden to Iran, ditching Assad was a no-brainer.

Looks like Ghadafi won't last long now...

Libyan Rebels Reportedly Within 2 Miles Of Tripoli's Center | FoxNews.com

Perhaps shock and awe isn't always the best solution.

Who are the rebels again?

-spence

I hope so. Still plenty of time to screw it up. Understand that while Tripoli is a center of gravity it is not THE only center of gravity. Area is very tribal and still plenty of time for a cluster bleep.

Don't be dumb please. I realize you have left a lot of room open for "context" - we expect better even from you than that.

You do realize that this may be the worst managed "coalition" of all time, right? The Coalition of the Willowy. From the massive material support of the individual Euronations. 4 planes here, 5 there, 6 but only on Tuesdays from blank country, Occasional tepid Arab support we'll send some planes, no we won't, maybe we will. Some nations flat out. Some nations opening and closing bases for use. Once (semi)self reliant nations wiping out their annual defense budgets.

France and UK on a weapon sales demo. Many nations using up all of their weapons reserves (though this may be good now that the nations have run out of munitions they are less likely to attack Lichtenstein).

This has been an entire Clusterbleep of stoopid proportion. Maybe the only good thing is that we have a better understanding of how badly our "Partner" nations have crippled themselves over the past 2 decades at the alter of social programs.

The parallels between today and the early 20th century are shocking, except the socialists wield more influence today.

Hopefully people that can build something good

I think you misunderstood my comment.

The point being that a solid lean into an opponent at times is better than a sharp blow. This may have been a gamble, but one that has potential to pay off. The US investment is relatively small, but the EU who has more to gain short-term couldn't have done this on their own.

Surprising how the GOP has been pretty quiet eh?

-spence

Do your really think that this was a solid lean? Really? It was anything but. It was a case where fortune happens to award the clumsy and impotent. Had this been anyone other than Quadafi the rebels would have been crushed months ago.

This is a blind squirrel = occasional nut. A half as$ed effort that we'll be lucky if it pays off.

probably prudent to wait till you have all the facts too....oh, I forgot...we're talking Spence...

Battle for Tripoli not yet over as Gaddafi loyalists strike back - The Washington Post

hey Spence...I hope you've seen a doctor because I'm sure that thing has lasted much longer than 4 hours at this point :uhuh:

He could do like you and whenever he's blatantly incorrect, just change the subject by making (what he thinks) is a unique quip.

Is this like a typical Spence-type charge, statement or claim without any evidence to back it up?

We already know what Spence does when he is blatantly incorrect or asked a question whose answer he knows will prove him blatantly incorrect...he just ignores it and skips over to another thread with more "most economists agree, and most Americans think and Obama is exactly like Reagan except for the tan"

:rotf2:

We all know? You should cite some examples...

-spence

While the formation of the coalition was a little clumsy, it would look as though NATO did a good job of ramping up support at the right pace to let the rebels gain momentum and establish relationships with the right people.

This wasn't dumb luck...it seems as though it was quite calculated.

-spence

That's ridiculous.

Not really.... some interesting points in here...
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...08-23-06-55-06

You're missing the point.

Whats the point? It is ridiculous that NATO's support wasn't critical to the rebels sucess? I think w/o NATO, if they had suceeded, that would have been luck...

I'm still not in agreement with our involvement, but when given lemons, make ghadafi-aide I guess...

Interesting article.

Libyan rebels break into Gaddafi's secret underground tunnels | Mail Online

WTH these kids shooting at. WTF is that gun on the back of the pickup :rotf2: