Tom Friedman on Libya: Do ya feel lucky, Barack?
Or, when hope for luck became a plan for war kinetic military action. After saying that he’s glad the American president won’t wait for images of mass slaughter to act (but what if there are no photographers on hand?), Friedman rubs the belly of a lucky totem, wishes upon a falling star and searches his yard for a four-leafed clover:
I don’t know Libya, but my gut tells me that any kind of decent outcome there will require boots on the ground — either as military help for the rebels to oust Qaddafi as we want, or as post-Qaddafi peacekeepers and referees between tribes and factions to help with any transition to democracy. Those boots cannot be ours. We absolutely cannot afford it — whether in terms of money, manpower, energy or attention. But I am deeply dubious that our allies can or will handle it without us, either. And if the fight there turns ugly, or stalemates, people will be calling for our humanitarian help again. You bomb it, you own it.
Which is why, most of all, I hope President Obama is lucky. I hope Qaddafi’s regime collapses like a sand castle, that the Libyan opposition turns out to be decent and united and that they require just a bare minimum of international help to get on their feet. Then U.S. prestige will be enhanced and this humanitarian mission will have both saved lives and helped to lock another Arab state into the democratic camp.
Dear Lord, please make President Obama lucky.
Maybe you should get to know Libya, Tom. Hope is not a plan. Hoping for luck is even less of a plan. Hoping for luck in a part of the world where the enemy of your enemy is your very temporary friend, and where religious/political violence is a way of life and a frequent path to power, is insanity.
Tom is in a world of his own delusions.
why people quote him is a mystery to me. another self hater.
thinks he can watch from the sidelines. where are the people of conviction. the good people not the evil ones …seems they (the evil) have the conviction market sewed up.
Friedman is a day late and a dollar short on this one. He would be on solid ground if William Jefferson Clinton were still President. That guy was (and still is) the luckiest SOB that ever walked the planet. If Bill were still in the White House then Qaddafi would have succumbed to a massive stroke or had a building fall on him about two weeks ago. Nothing sinister about it – He would have just died thus taking everyone off the hook.
They say God loves fools and children and Bill Clinton has always been a bit of both.
Well, I hope Obama’s lucky too, because surely we don’t want a bad outcome, a.k.a. an outcome that’s any bloodier than it has to be, out of this, even if that bad outcome validates your position on the matter.
What interests me is that Friedman recognizes an issue that I wish more leftists would, i.e., the fact that in a situation like this the US is the only entity able to effect anything resembling a positive result in such a situation. Any American “progressive” advocating a weaker U.S. is advocating the end of humanitarian military interventions, even the allegedly “good” ones like this. Most of them, unfortunately, apparently don’t make that connection.
This sort of reminds me of the Iran Iraq war.
You sorta wish both sides could lose.
@3 Gene
“Any American ‘progressive’ advocating a weaker U.S. is advocating the end of humanitarian military interventions, even the allegedly ‘good’ ones like this. Most of them ['progressives'], unfortunately, apparently don’t make that connection.”
To quote a couple of older folks, “Life is tough; its tougher when you are stupid” and “Ignorance can be cured with education; stupid is forever.”
Spinoneone, I’m never one to deny the awesome power of stupidity, but I’d point out that many “progressives” (yes, I will always use quotes around that word) really do think they are morally and intellectually superior to their political opponents. The stupidity comes into play when they assume that a morally superior being can find a way around a situation with no “good” choices. When it becomes clear that they can’t, denial of the consequences of their positions sets in.