Deja Vu All Over Again

We are only going to use air strikes.  We won't send in troops.  Those are familiar statements about an Action taken by the US in 1999 in Kosovo.  We still have US troops in Kosovo.  Kosovo is tiny, so we don't have many troops there.

Are we going to have the same fate in Libya?  I hope not.  Read the following:


I don't oppose all wars. What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war. What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by ... weekend warriors ... to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne.

... What I'm opposed to. A dumb war. A rash war. A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics.

Now let me be clear: I suffer no illusions about Muhamar Qaddafi. He is a brutal man. A ruthless man. A man who butchers his own people to secure his own power.... The world, and the Libyan people, would be better off without him.

But I also know that Qaddafi poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors...and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history.

I know that even a successful war against the Qaddafi supporters will require a U.S. occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences.

I know that ... without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Qaeda.

I am not opposed to all wars. I'm opposed to dumb wars. So for those of us who seek a more just and secure world for our children, let us send a clear message...

...You want a fight President Obama? Let's fight to make sure our so-called allies in the Middle East, the Saudis and the Egyptians, stop oppressing their own people, and suppressing dissent, and tolerating corruption and inequality, and mismanaging their economies so that their youth grow up without education, without prospects, without hope, the ready recruits of terrorist cells.

You want a fight, President Obama? Let's fight to wean ourselves off Middle East oil through an energy policy that doesn't simply serve the interests of GE and failed "green programs."

Those are the battles that we need to fight. Those are the battles that we willingly join. The battles against ignorance and intolerance. Corruption and greed. Poverty and despair.

Switch Muhamar Qaddafi with Saddam Hussein.  Switch Libya with Iraq, and switch Obama with Bush.  Swich GE and "failed green programs" with Exxon and Mobil . You have Obama's speech on Iraq in 2002.  Funny how perspective changes when you become president.