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Andrew McCarthy answers back the Interventionists

by Phantom Ace ( 18 Comments › )
Filed under Al Qaeda, Headlines, Islamists, Leftist-Islamic Alliance, Libya, Progressives, Tranzis at July 1st, 2011 - 1:32 pm

The Wilsonians have control over the GOP’s foreign policy establishment. If anyone challenges them, they silence that individual. The GOP Trotskyites use the term isolationists against those who challenge them. Andrew McCarthy has stood up to them. They have smeared an attacked him. He has been called isolationist and other terms the Wilsonians use to keep Conservatives in line. He is not backing down and takes the fight to them.

Republicans like John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and Condoleezza Rice supported propping Qaddafi up with U.S. aid, including aid to his military. If Max was offended by that arrangement, if he inveighed against these U.S. government officials for supporting an incorrigibly anti-American homicidal dictator, I guess I missed it. Nevertheless, one of the reasons the Bush and Obama administrations regarded Qaddafi as a key ally was the fact that he was providing us with intelligence against Islamist operatives in his country — particularly, in eastern Libya — which, by percentage of population, was sending more jihadists to kill American troops in Iraq than any other country.

Many of these anti-American Islamists are part of the “rebels” — the polite name for the Libyan mujahideen who are Qaddafi’s opposition. Eastern Libya is their stronghold. They are supported by the Muslim Brotherhood, whose chief jurisprudent, Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi, has issued a fatwacalling for Muslims to kill Qaddafi, with the goal of toppling him and setting up a sharia state that would be just as anti-American as Qaradawi is. Furthermore, John Rosenthal has reportedhere on NRO in recent days that even Libya’s National Transitional Council admits that the rebels include Islamic extremists (though its spokesman lowballs them as “no more than 15 percent” of the rebels — as if that would make us feel better if it were true). As Mr. Rosenthal has also recounted, French analysts who have studied the “rebels” conclude that only a small minority of them are “true democrats” — in fact, the “rebels” are thoroughly infiltrated by al-Qaeda and its affiliates.

[….]

For now, we must assume the concerns we have expressed about the “rebels” cannot be answered. With no vital U.S. interests at stake, and with our country engaged in multiple military excursions while teetering on the financial brink, pro-interventionists have made a mockery of domestic and international law.

[….]

The Obama administration has steadfastly refused to do this, and the pro-interventionists have cheered the president on — despite the facts that (a) there is no international authorization for a war against Qaddafi, (b) the president has shamefully claimed that we are only in Libya to protect civilians even as U.S.-backed NATO forces wage war on his military and seek to kill him; (c) while ignoring Congress, the Obama administration consulted closely with the United Nations and the Arab League; and (d) the “responsibility to protect” doctrine that is guiding the Obama administration in Libya (see Stanley Kurtz’s essential essay, here) is a transnational progressive nostrum that ought to be anathema to conservatives and those who see American power as reserved for American interests.

I hope Andrew McCarthy and other real Conservatives keep up the good fight. Jacksonianism is back and the Wilsonian name calling will not make it go away. We are broke and this interventionist attitude must be defeated.

Now they want to get rid of Qaddafi, in 2009 they were genuflecting in his tent

by Mojambo ( 162 Comments › )
Filed under Libya at April 3rd, 2011 - 11:30 am

Well. well, well – I forgot that John McCain, Miss Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman aka “prune face” went on a hajj to Qaddafi’s tent in 2009 praising him and offering him  incentives to behave. Times sure have changed, now they want to kill him.  Frankly I have zero use for McCain and Miss Lindsey and barely tolerate Lieberman only because the alternatives in Connecticut are far worse. You can always count on the gruesome twosome of  McCain and Graham to ride to the rescue of Barack Obama.

by Andrew McCarthy

John McCain, Joseph Lieberman, and Lindsey Graham are the Senate’s most energetic proponents of sinking the nation ever deeper into the Libyan morass. In a joint interview on Fox last weekend, Senators McCain (R., Ariz.) and Lieberman (I., Conn.) were breathless in their rendering of the “freedom fighters” and the “Arab Spring” of spontaneous “democracy.” Friday they upped the ante with a Wall Street Journal op-ed, rehearsing yet again what an incorrigible thug Qaddafi is and how “we cannot allow [him] to consolidate his grip” on parts of Libya that he still controls.

For his part, Senator Graham (R., S.C.) told CNN Wednesday that he would like President Obama to designate Qaddafi an “unlawful enemy combatant” with an eye toward legitimizing the strongman’s assassination. He and Wolf Blitzer discussed whether the hit could be pulled off by the covert intelligence operatives President Obama has inserted in Libya. The next day, in his plaintive questioning of Defense Secretary Robert Gates at a Senate hearing, Senator Graham wondered why American air power could not just “drop a bomb on him, to end this thing.”

As a matter of law, Graham’s proposal is ludicrous — no small thanks to federal law that Graham himself helped write, about which more in an upcoming column. What was especially striking about the hearing was the tone of righteous indignation Senators Graham and McCain took in whipping the Obama administration over government blundering.

But what about their own blundering? The senators most strident about the purported need to oust Qaddafi, to crush his armed forces, and to kill him if that’s what it takes to empower the rebels, are the very senators who helped fortify Qaddafi’s military and tighten the despotic grip of which they now despair.

[…]

On and on it goes, made all the more nauseating by the reality that nobody was under any illusion that Qaddafi had truly reformed. McCain made a point of telling the press that “the status of human rights and political reform in Libya will remain a chief element of concern.” Note the gentle diplomatic understatement: Qaddafi is — and was, as McCain well knew — a savage autocrat. Yet this brute fact was softened into “an element of concern” regarding “the status of human rights and political reform.” Pretty sharp contrast from the senator’s sardonic grilling of the U.S. defense secretary on Thursday. The McCain who was face-to-face with Qaddafi was very different from the McCain who today rails about Qaddafi. Back in the tent, none of his concern would dampen the cozy mood. The Arizonan swooned over “the many ways in which the United States and Libya can work together as partners.”

[…]

As is his wont, President Obama took President Bush’s blunder and ran with it. Not only did the new administration continue Bush’s aid to Qaddafi, the aid was stepped up. In fact, Obama increased military aid to Qaddafi’s regime only a few weeks before the current crisis began — support Hillary Clinton’s State Department said would go to further strengthening Qaddafi’s air force (the one our no-fly zone is now shooting down), to train his military officers (the ones the senators now want to bomb to smithereens), and to support what the Obama administration, echoing the Bush administration, insisted was Qaddafi’s staunch anti-terrorism.

With eyes wide open, the interventionist senators abetted the U.S. aid to Qaddafi and the legitimizing of his dictatorial regime. Given that this policy has contributed mightily to Qaddafi’s current capacity to consolidate his grip on power and repress his opposition, one might think some senatorial contrition, or at least humility, would be in order. But, no. Having been entirely wrong about Qaddafi, the senators would now have us double down on Libya by backing Qaddafi’s opposition — the rebels about whom McCain, Lieberman, and Graham know a lot less than they knew about Qaddafi.

As for what they knew about Qaddafi, the story gets even worse.

It goes without saying that the interventionist senators’ case for why Qaddafi must go always comes back to his terrorist past and, in particular, to the bombing of Pan Am 103. What they neglect to mention is that at the very moment they were huddling with Qaddafi, reports were circulating that the dictator was pressuring British and Scottish authorities (with the knowledge of the Obama administration) for the release of the Lockerbie terrorist, Abdel Baset al-Megrahi. In fact, while the senators were on their Tripoli jaunt, the imminence of Megrahi’s release was so well-known that the American embassy in Libya began advising that, because a celebratory “youth rally” was being planned, American citizens should steer clear of downtown Tripoli on August 20 and 21. Contemporaneously, President Obama was pleading with Qaddafi not to give the bomber “a hero’s welcome.”

[…]

Yet, there they were in Qaddafi’s tent only a year and a half ago, amiably chatting about our new bilateral “partnership” and plans to give this terrorist sundry assistance, prominently including military aid. Hovering over the meeting is Lockerbie. Far from ancient history, it is very much front and center because Qaddafi’s chief perpetrator of the attack is on the cusp of being released. So, with this powerful a reminder of Qaddafi’s monstrousness staring them in the face, do the senators say, “Don’t you dare try to spring that bomber”? Do they declare Lockerbie to be Exhibit A in the case that Qaddafi is an incorrigible terrorist who must be removed? Do they assure Qaddafi that if he rubs our nose in that mass-murder again by feting the murderer, there will be hell to pay?

[…]

Read the rest: The Senators Sway

The Libyan Freedom Fighters lie

by Phantom Ace ( 154 Comments › )
Filed under Al Qaeda, Barack Obama, Democratic Party, Dhimmitude, Hezballah, Islam, Islamic Invasion, Islamic Supremacism, Leftist-Islamic Alliance, Libya, Muslim Brotherhood, Progressives, Republican Party, Socialism, Tranzis at March 31st, 2011 - 8:30 am

Andrew McCarthy is one of the few prominent Conservative bloggers who has been telling the truth about Libya. He has been warning us about the Islamist nature of the the Libyan “Popular Uprising”. In his latest column he not only goes after the Obama regime for getting us involved in this mess, but also Fox News for not mentioning more about the Al-Qaeda connection to the Libyan rebels.

A “howler,” the Wall Street Journal called it in an editorial yesterday. That certainly is a fitting description of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s latest mindboggling foray into Middle East analysis. It makes sense, she maintains, for American armed forces to get “kinetic” in Libya but not in Syria because Moammar Qaddafi is a brutal dictator while brutal dictator Bashar Assad is really a “reformer.” Perhaps she has been watching too much al-Jazeera, this former first lady who was so instrumental in her husband’s airbrushing of the terrorist kleptocrat Yasser Arafat — a peace-seeking statesman . . . at least between intifadas.

[…]

Another howler . . . or is it? Fox News, for example, is fast becoming the Arab Spring Channel.

[…]

Tough questioning — fair, but tough and unyielding. That is Mr. Wallace’s trademark — or at least it was until Sunday’s program shifted to the breaking news in Libya. Without congressional consultation, much less endorsement, the Obama administration had just dispatched the nation’s armed forces to take sides in a civil war. Problem? Not at all, not for Mr. Wallace’s giddy guests. One after the other, Sens. John McCain (R., Ariz.) and Joe Lieberman (I., Ct.), longtime Islamic-democracy-project enthusiasts, gushed over the “rebels” and the joys of America’s finally being aligned with the “Arab street” (i.e., the people who celebrated the 9/11 attacks and, just this month, the murder of the Fogels, a family of Jewish settlers in the West Bank). Without a hint of challenge from the formerly dogged Wallace, McCain and Lieberman seemed to compete over who could ooze more affinity for the “freedom fighters.”

Read the rest: Middle East Howlers

I am disappointed that Fox News is not hammering the Obama regime for their collusion with Islamic Imperialists in Libya. I also can’t understand why the Republicans don’t hammer Obama on the Libya mess. The American public have turned against this war as the truth is getting out. Obama is vulnerable on this issue and our side should hit it head on. Instead Lindsey Graham and John McCain are calling for more US intervention in Libya. Lindsey even compared the Al-Qaeda backed rebels to our founding fathers. The GOP can say in all reality that Obama is allied with Al-Qaeda. Yet, they don’t have the guts.

I salute Andrew McCarthy is speaking the truth. He will not be invited to cocktail parties for taking on the GOP establishment. But he can go to sleep at night, knowing he has honor in not supporting a war for Al-Qaeda.

Andrew McCarthy disagrees with the NRO Editorial Board

by Phantom Ace ( 195 Comments › )
Filed under Dhimmitude, Islamic hypocrisy, Libya, Politics, Progressives, Republican Party, Tranzis at March 18th, 2011 - 8:30 am

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.