Noah Rothman:
The coldblooded atrocities being committed by the fundamentalist militants fighting under the Islamic State’s banners in Iraq and Syria continue unabated.
ISIS militants in the north and west of Iraq are destroying ancient Christian and Shiite religious shrines unchecked, have robbed Christian Iraqis and purged them from the areas they control, and are now carrying out a virtually genocidal massacre of Shia Muslim men.
In a video that was deemed too graphic even for YouTube, ISIS militants revealed their brutality for the world when they posted footage featuring hundreds of Muslim men being summarily executed. “The video shows several dump trucks full of young men on their way to slaughter,” Jim Hoft wrote on Monday. The anguish of those young men who knew they are about to die is beyond recounting.
With these horrors unfolding before our eyes, where are those who once styled themselves champions of the Responsibility to Protect doctrine that once served as the academic framework for humanitarian intervention?
Where is United Nations Ambassador Samantha Power, who once reportedly played a significant role in pushing President Barack Obama to intervene in Libya in 2011 and to advocate for congressional legislation calling for the arrest of Lord’s Resistance Army leader Joseph Kony? The scale of the atrocities being committed in Iraq today is surely on par with those crimes which once moved Power to act.
In her Pulitzer Prize-winning book, A Problem From Hell: America and the Age of Genocide, Power argued that genocides in Armenia, Cambodia, Rwanda, and the German death camps were actively permitted by the international community. This, she suggested, made the world complicit in the crimes being committed by the practitioners of genocide.
“The most common response,” Power wrote of the 20th Century’s genocides, “is ‘We didn’t know.’ This is not true.”
“It is daunting to acknowledge, but this country’s consistent policy of nonintervention in the face of genocide offers sad testimony not to a broken American political system but to one that is ruthlessly effective,” she added. “No U.S. president has ever made genocide prevention a priority, and no U.S. president has ever suffered politically for his indifference to its occurrence. It is thus no coincidence that genocide rages on.”
President Obama, both a Power fan and a benefactor, aimed to change America’s policy of selective intervention into humanitarian crises when he brought her into his administration. Power, along with then U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, successfully pushed for what The New York Times described as “a military intervention on a scale not seen in the Arab world since the Iraq War” in Libya.
And yet, the heartbreaking violence ISIS continues to commit is met with silence from the international community and notably from those champions of the Libyan engagement.
Where is President Barack Obama who once made the dubious assertion that unrest in Libya must be quelled without concern for America’s parochial vital interests in that country?
It looks more simple than Mr. Rothman supposes.
He thinks Obama and NATO are “weighing the costs associated with recommitting to guaranteeing Iraq’s security and are judging them to be excessive.”
But it looks like Obama sides with Islamists.
His every choice in the ME and North Africa only makes any sense looked at this way.
He sided with ISIS in Syria.
So, how can he fight ISIS in Iraq?
He insisted on quick actions in Egypt before the more moderate and secular and multiculturalist parties had a chance to organize, insuring the Muslim Brotherhood’s success.
Obama did everything short of invading Egypt to try to keep the MB in power, too.
He has given Iran BILLIONs in US dollars just for pretending to sit at the table with us.
Meanwhile Iran is building the bomb.
When has Obama cared about Christians in the ME?
Not in Egypt.
Not in Syria.
Not in Iraq.
Obama’s only large scale military intervention has been Afghanistan. US casualties have been negligible everywhere else. There was only minimal intervention in Libya, Egypt, Syria, and everywhere else, and that’s just the way the large majority of Americans want it.
And then, there’s this:
Christians were being driven out of Iraq long before Obama came into office. Obama opposed the Iraq invasion in the first place. Whatever foreign policy mistakes he may have, in retrospect, made, they utterly pale in comparison with those made by President Bush, and the rest of his chicken hawk, chest thumping administration, cheered on by the rest of his gullible chicken hawk followers, who weren’t even willing to raise their taxes to properly support those who sacrificed so much in the service of creating a disaster of a gift which will keep on giving to Presidential administrations yet to come, and so much misery to so many around the world.
As Beck said: he was wrong. The liberals were right.
Larry Weisenthal/Hintington Beach CA
Glenn Beck is an $80 million man.
Unlike quiet Christians Beck tooted his horn (see what Jesus had to say about such people) over his gifts to the illegals at the border.
Ever since that he has been at odds with many people he thought were his unwavering allies.
Now he shifts to the Left?
When he says it would have been better not to have done something that was done, he is only looking at an aspect of it, not all of the consequences of doing it.
Note that Larry’s link says: Most liberals in the Senate and Congress, including Hillary Clinton and John Kerry as well as leading liberal journalists like Thomas Friedman and the late Christopher Hitchens were in favor of the invasion….
Beck then, apparently mistakenly, says, “Most people on the left thought waging war on Iraq was a bad idea from the beginning….”
So, which is it?
MOST liberals in elective office (who were FOR invading) or MOST liberals NOT elected to a thing who (according to WHAT?) were OPPOSED to invading?
And, if MOST unelected liberals were so anti-war, why did they elect so many liberals who were pro-war?
Not that it matters…..we cannot change the past…..we can only deal with the present.
We are going to be stuck with the consequences of Obama’s lead-from-behind foreign policy for decades to come.
@Nanny G: You asked:
Proof positive that liberalism and it’s li’l bro RINOism are mental disorders!
Most of these jerks are for (or against) something before they are against (or for) the same something! Plenty of examples are out there!
@Larry Weisenthal: One thing you forgot to mention; under Bush, we WON in Afghanistan and Iraq. Under Obama, we squandered the victory. Of course the cost to re-pacify Iraq is too high; especially politically and that is the only cost Obama concerns himself with.
Obama opposed the war in Iraq. He (and Hillary) also admitted he opposed the surge (you know… the key to success) on POLITICAL grounds, only to score points.
But, to the point of the article, liberals are always willing to do what is required to protect the innocent… as long as it is easy and a guaranteed political bonus.
Hi Nan,
In the first place, we are talking about Obama and not about Hillary Clinton or John Kerry. Obama was publicly opposed to the Iraq invasion, as was I, in the Jan-March, 2003 run up to the invasion.
In the second place, the politicians at the time relied on what they were being told by the administration. They were being told that Saddam Hussein had yellowcake uranium and centrifuges and active biological weapons (not old rusting cannisters of 20 year old sulfur mustard, obtained by Saddam with the compliance of the Reagan administration). I blame Clinton, Kerry, et al for not being as critically skeptical as were Obama and I and for giving the Bush administration a blank check, without due diligence, but, again, we are talking Obama and not Kerry; so your observation isn’t relevant.
When you talk about “leading from behind,” and whether or not that was wise or not, you have to come up with specific examples of what could have/should have been done differently.
Take Egypt. If Obama had try to flex heavy American muscle to keep Mubarek in power, what could have been done to prevent the uprising? We were supposed to be standing shoulder to shoulder, propping up a dictator as bad as Assad (in the minds of his people)? That’s not realistic. So Obama “led from behind” and let the Egyptians tend to their own problems. So they elected an Islamist. Bad news. But then what happened? The secular dictators came back into power. With no American footprints. But do you know what America did or did not do to facilitate the removal of the Islamists? No, you don’t. But there is no question that American interests were best served, ultimately, by the approach taken by Obama. Egypt is, by far, the most important Arab country in the world. Through the stewardship of two Democratic Presidents (Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama), Egypt is a stable country which is actually a behind the scenes ally of both Israel and the USA.
Now we go to Libya. John McCain wanted a robust American military presence. Obama was cautious. Another word for cautious is “conservative.” It’s amazing to me how self proclaimed “conservatives” are anything but, when it comes to foreign policy and war making. The GOP used to be the party of peace. The party of non-intervention. My step-father was a Republican and he, circa 1960, used to refer to the Democrats as “the party of war.” That’s consistent conservatism. But today’s “conservatives” want to see the USA throwing around military muscle all over the world. Obama did what was necessary to save Eastern Libya from slaughter by Gaddafi. In response to calls for help from our NATO allies. He had to do what he did, to keep the alliance functionally together. We can’t ask the British and French to help us when we want their help and not help them when they ask for our help. So Libya is what it is and if you think we could have done something more effectively, please enlighten us all (and let’s leave the Benghazi embassy out of this particular discussion, as it’s not relevant).
Moving to Syria: Who, precisely should we have armed? Who are the “moderates?” And, when all is said and done, isn’t it actually possible that Vladimir Putin has actually done us a favor by aiding Assad? The Assad family has governed Syria for a long time. Whatever their political sins, Syria was a stable country with an unstated understanding with Israel, despite various and sundry flare ups. The Devil you know, sometimes, really is better than the Devil you don’t (e.g. Iraq).
The Ukraine. Yes, please tell me precisely what Obama should have done differently there? And how, precisely, is Ukraine going to turn out? And what should we be doing to have it turn out the way we may wish?
North Korea? Malaysia? Whatever?
With regard to the USA having “won” the Iraq War, that’s total poppycock. I believe that we lost an additional 500 soldiers and marines between the end of the “surge” and the final withdrawal, plus many more grievously wounded. It was Bush who negotiated and signed the agreement to fully withdraw US forces. If we’d kept them in place, they would have continued to be blown up. How many troops would it have taken to secure Mosul in perpetuity? The comparisons with Germany and Okinawa are entirely odious. Obama ran on a platform of getting out of Iraq, which is an entirely artificial “country,” to begin with — World War I creation of the French and British. Joe Biden had it right. The only “solution” is a three way partition, along rational ethnic and religious lines. The only rulers who ever gave a modicum of “freedom of religion” in that part of the world have been the secular dictators. The Shah. Mubarek. Assad. AND Saddam.
Former Reagan NSA Chief Lt General Wm Odom said that the ultimate outcome of Iraq would be decided by civil war, and it wouldn’t matter if the USA stayed for 1 year or 5 years or 10 years or 20 years. He was obviously correct.
Why did the lavishly US equipped and trained Iraqi Army cut and run in Mosul, when they had big advantages in number of troops and material resources? Because they were Shiites and didn’t care a hoot about defending traditional Sunni territory. So Iraq is going to be partitioned, just as Joe Biden said it should be. Only it’s going to be very bloody. Most Americans are very happy that it’s not going to be American blood which is being spilled. Most Iraqis wish that America had minded its own business, which is defending America and not dictator removal and nation building.
– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach CA
@Larry Weisenthal:
Ah, yes, Obama’s “good” war. Odd how we no longer see photographs of flag draped coffins returning from Afghanistan since Obama took office, although, to date and under Obama, we have lost 1,708 American military lives in Afghanistan.
So what? Is Beck, nothing more than a talk show host and media mogul, now the arbiter of the conservative philosophy in the U.S.? Since when do dedicated progressives like yourself, Larry, put stock into, and give credence, to what Glenn Beck says?
As much as you would like to, you cannot separate Clinton and Kerry from the Obama administration. They are part, and parcel, of the whole. They both took orders from the President, who is Obama. If Obama’s philosophy was that we should have never entered Iraq, why did he choose a Secretary of State who voted for military action in Iraq?
That is correct, but it was the Clinton Administration that claimed Saddam was such a threat to American security. The statements of the pols that were basing their opinion on the Clinton administration have been listed here more times than once. You seem to want to ignore those statements.
And so he did. 500 tons of yellowcake were removed from Iraq. You may want to debate its efficiency, but the fact remains that Saddam had yellowcake, and the fact remains that he continued to try to develop the centrifuges to use that yellowcake in a war head (proven by documents removed from Iraq by our own military after Saddam was deposed).
Let’s do. While the lapdog media was reassuring us that the Muslim Brotherhood had nothing to do with the riots in Cairo, and that the Muslim Brotherhood was not interested in leadership in Egypt, Jodie Evans, partner of Medea Benjamin (a major Obama bundler) in Code Pink went to Egypt to hold “talks” with the Muslim Brotherhood. And while those who study, and understand the Middle East, all warned that the MB would take control in Egypt, the Obama administration poo-poohed that idea. When Egyptians finally got a belly full of Morsi, Obama’s MB buddy, and ousted him, Obama, in his true “my way or the highway” fashion, demanded the inclusion of Morsi over and above what the Egyptians themselves wanted. So while you say:
Obama flexed his muscles to keep Morsi, a new dictator same as the old dictator, in power.
McCain is a senile old fool. Yet, you drag him out like he is the voice of conservatives, just as you used Beck as the voice of conservatives when it suits your needs.
Libya was Obama’s stellar achievement in the Middle East. “Look how great Libya is” was the rallying cry from the left, until the Benghazi attacks. And while the Democrats have circled the wagons to keep the truth of the actual problems surrounding Benghazi, the truth of how this current administration screwed the pooch in Libya is coming to the surface.
It is not who we should have armed. The problem is who we did arm. We armed those now known as ISIS. The British papers were full of reports on how the “moderates” were anything but, and some Republicans were constantly asking “Who are these people we are arming?” There were NO good actors in Syria, and there still isn’t.
Grow a set. If you can’t see that Putin rolled Obama when it comes to the Ukraine, you are so blinded by your partisanship that you can see no failure on the part of Obama (which is what I suspect is the case). Ukraine needs arms and weapons to defend themselves from the Bear, and Obama sends them MREs. The recent sanctions will have no effect on Putin as he doesn’t give a tinker’s damn about the suffering of his own people. You on the left need to stop thinking that everyone else in the world have the same values and standards we do. They don’t.
I would be interested in knowing exactly where you think Obama has had success in the foreign policy arena. It was clear, from the beginning of his administration and his actions against Honduras, that Obama would be a foreign policy nightmare. And he is. Iraq is lost; Libya is lost; Honduras is thumbing its nose at him; Assad is still in power and Putin is going to push the edge of the envelope because he knows Obama has no cajones.
Obama was never interested in foreign policy. He sees himself as a “domestic policy” president, much like FDR did until WWII was thrust upon us. Only problem? Obama does not have the wisdom of FDR nor the ability, consequently, even our domestic scene is a disaster with real unemployment/underemployment now hovering at 18%.
What “arms” should/could anyone have sent to Ukraine that would have changed one thing?
Be specific.
Who signed the agreement to remove US troops from Iraq?
What weapons did the US supply to ISIS? Be specific. What difference did this make? be specific!
How many Americans lost their lives or were permanently disabled, following the “success” of the surge? How many more, had we remained? How many would have gone down over the next ten years? What will be the ultimate cost to the US treasury of the Iraq misadventure?
I am currently flying over Texas.
Giving you a friendly wave.
We need to just let the Mideast work out its own problems. I think I speak in the matter for a healthy majority of Americans. We don’t control any events whatsoever there. The less we “lead” in places like greater Islamistan, the better for ourselves and the people of that region. Ask them. Look at the polls. We weren’t the most hated nation on earth until we started beating our chests and up sheathing our sabers. I happen to agree entirely with John Kerry and our NATO allies about the greater virtue about playing the long game with 21st Century weapons.
Regarding partisanship: I was every bit as critical of a certain Texas Democrat over his own disaster out chest beating in a place in the world where we had no business being as I am of the Texas Republican under most recent discussion. Horribly misguided war making is not a monopoly of either party.
Larry Weisenthal/Over Texas on Jet Blue
@Larry Weisenthal:
What’s in the arsenal? Anything short of an atomic bomb that would allow the Ukrainians to defend themselves from ethnic Russian separatists who think they have a right to the Crimea since it was given to them by Stalin.
Nice attempt at a gottcha question, Larry. Of course, you asked a question for which you already have the answer. But no contract is concrete. It can be changed with the efforts of both parties involved. Obama made no attempt to change the contract since he had campaigned on getting our troops out of Iraq, consequences be damned. Now, who refused help to the Iraqis when the requested the U.S. bomb the staging areas of ISIS in ISIS’ early march across Iraq? You know the answer, really, you do.
How many died in WWII defeating totalitarians? And why did that war end? Oh, yeah, we bombed the hell out of our enemies, collateral damaged be damned. No squishy, mushy feelings about how we were killing women and children. No rules of engagement that said “Oh, we can’t do that. We are so much better than they are in spite of the fact they are killing the hell out of soldiers.” We killed the enemy with impunity until they stopped trying to kill us. We won. They lost.
Keep flying. Do not stop off for a quick brisket and potato salad. We already have enough progressive lunatics in our midst.
Waving back. Just not using all my fingers.
Of course you do. You’re another delusional progressive. Islam, and let’s be clear that is all the Middle East is, will never work out their problems. They have sects, just like we have Methodists, Catholics and Baptists. And they don’t get along and haven’t since the death of Mohammed. They will kill each other until they find it advantageous to band together to kill us. So while it was mostly Saudis that flew large planes into American buildings, it was the Palestinians that danced in their streets, handing out sweets to their children, celebrating our “demise.” And while Egypt may be against Hamas because Hamas is a Muslim Brotherhood spin-off, when push comes to shove, they are all Muslims, and in the end, that is the only fact to them that matter.
Well, unlike Bill Clinton, I am not swayed by polls. And of us to not be involved in the machinations of the Middle East, well, see my previous paragraph. And no, you do not speak for the majority of Americans. You only speak for the majority of Kumbaya progressives who thinks we can just be sweet and everyone will leave us alone. They won’t, any more than the Japanese did.
Of course you agree with John Kerry. You are a pacifist, and he, well he should be making little rocks out of big rocks at Leavenworth. But what happened? I thought Obama was going to bring a new level of respect for the United States. After all, he grew up in Indonesia and understands the Muslim mindset, right? Oooops, what happened in Iraq, and Libya, and Syria with his “red line.” And now Putin is bending Obama over and acting like a leader who wants to bring greatness (albeit, the Communist kind) to his nation while Obama plays golf with his boy toy, Reggie Love.
Sabre rattling works. It worked with Japan, Italy and Germany. It worked to bring down the Berlin wall. It worked to destroy the U.S.S.R. When you are the biggest badass on the block, and everyone knows you CAN kick their ass, you don’t get picked on, and you don’t have to prove you can kick their ass.
But then, you’ve done nothing but blather the same Communist dogma that I listed to all through the ’60’s.
@retire05: I have to admire your time and patience in refuting (i.e. pointing out the obvious untruth’s in) Larry’s snarkie points. In reality your last sentence just sums up the whole problem with communicating with our current crop of lib’s — you just mis-spelled “listened” as “listed”:
Some dupes I met in Bizeerklie in the early 1970’s actually had their roots in and could name them from the 1930’s. (Malvina Reynolds was still alive and an icon of the communists – her and her husband had been members of CPUSA back ‘in the day’).