Something is really wrong with the Conservative movement when it comes to foreign policy. Prominent Conservative politicians and websites are calling for US intervention in Libya. None of them have given a legitimate rationale for doing this. It has all been based on emotions and that the US has a duty. Andrew McCarthy, who is no isolationist and is as anti-Jihad as one can get, has been steadfast in his opposition to this. He is one of the few prominent Conservatives to go against this opinion. He even disagrees with the editorial board of the National Review, which he writes for.
I respectfully dissent from Wendesday’s NRO editorial, which urges that the United States go to war with Libya.
The editorial doesn’t put it that way. Indeed, it doesn’tcall for President Obama to seek a congressional declaration of war, or at least an authorization for the use of military force, as the Bush administration understood was required before commencing combat operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. In this case, complying with the Constitution is almost certain to result in a resounding “no” vote from the people’s representatives — and if you think getting the Patriot Act reauthorized was uphill, figure getting Congress to bless another adventure in Islamic nation-building as Olympus … squared. So apparently ensuring that the American people support a war against Libya is a step is to be dispensed with. The editors instead claim that “the request by the rebels and the Arab League [is] all the authorization we need,” a proposition that I imagine would have come as something of a surprise to Madison, Jefferson, et al.
In any event, they would have President Obama, post haste, launch our tapped-out nation into an open-ended military intervention, one that is to start with not only the “no-fly zone” that the editors recently opposed but a “no-drive zone” to protect the “rebels” in their tottering eastern stronghold of Benghazi. That sure sounds like a full-blown U.S. invasion of Libya, although the editors are less than clear about exactly whose boots would be hitting the ground. They assure us that they seek only a “meaningful” U.S. military commitment, not an “overwhelming” one “comparable” to the Islamic nation-building misadventures in the fledgling sharia states of Iraq and Afghanistan. But of course, no one was talking about occupying Muslim countries for a decade or more when those projects started.
[…]
The editors do not explain why dictates of the “freedom agenda” would not turn Libya into another exercise in nation-building. The plan is to leap in first (to “check Qaddafi’s offensive”) and “then we can consider other options.” But the three trial balloons they fly for a purportedly limited engagement (though they do not actually restrict themselves to a limited engagement) are utterly unrealistic: (a) if it’s important enough to intervene on behalf of the “rebels,” it’s unseriousto suggest that we would go no further than shoring up their enclave “so they can fight another day”; (b) “decapitation strikes against the regime in Tripoli” would produce exactly the sort of chaos that became the justification for entangling ourselves in Iraq (can anyone forget Colin Powell’s bromide, “You break it, you own it”?); and (c) as Daniel Freedman points out in the WSJ-Europe, we and the “international community” have no credibility to, as the editors put it, “bargain Qaddafi out of the country,” having relentlessly undermined the deal by which Nigeria induced Liberian dictator Charles Taylor to step down in 2003. As Mr. Freedman recounts, the Bush administration joined Europe’s preening over the “need to bring Charles Taylor to justice.” Qaddafi, naturally, took notice of what he called this “serious precedent” — a precedent that now has convinced him to fight until “the last drop of blood is spilled.” (Call Qaddafi crazy, but he often seems to understand how the world works better than our “progressive” diplomats do.)
Read the rest: On the NRO Libya Editorial, I Respectfully Dissent
Andrew McCarthy is spot on here. Why does the US have to get involved in Libya? It’s not our problem and frankly I’m sick of the US getting involved in the affairs of Islamic nations. The people in those countries hate us and I couldn’t care less about them. The majority of the American public want no part of this. Bosnia, Kossovo, Afghanistan and Iraq should be enough for us. It’s time for the US to tell the Islamic world to go take care of themselves.
What is wrong with the Conservatives’ views of foreign policy? Why do many Conservative leaders buy into the Wilsonian Progressive concept of pushing Democracy everywhere? Why are these so called Conservative leaders so obsessed with assisting Islamic causes? Clearly the modern Conservative leadership is Transnationalist. They are no longer concerned with America’s interests. It’s now all about wars without end and sending our youth to die for useless causes. There is nothing Conservative about this foreign policy view. It’s Progressive and Leftist.
I am just one voice but I will stand up against these calls for the US to get involved in another Islamic conflict. I will stand by Conservatives like Andrew McCarthy who is standing up to the Transnationalist hijackers of Conservatism. The stench of Progressivism has infiltrated the Right and we must resist this. If not we are no different than progressives. War without end is not Conservative, it’s a Marxist-Trotskyite idea. Conservatism should be about America’s interest, not the International Community.
Update:
Since the writing of this post, there has been breaking news. The UN security Council has voted to establish a no fly zone over Libya.
The United Nations Security Council approved a resolution Thursday evening authorizing a no-fly zone over Libya and other measures military action against Libya.
The vote was 10-0 with five abstentions, including Russia, Germany and China.
Here we go again!
Update II:
All indications are that it will be British and French forces that will attack Libya.
PM David Cameron went to the Commons after an emergency cabinet meeting to tell MPs he had instructed the chief of the defence staff to start drawing up plans on how to enforce the resolution.
Mr Cameron confirmed the planes would be deployed in the “coming hours”, moving to air bases from where they can take the necessary action.
He said: “Britain will deploy Tornados and Typhoons as well as air-to-air refuelling and surveillance aircraft.
What a waste.
Tags: Andrew McCarthy, Col. Mumar Qaddafi, National Review, Wilsonian Progressives
