Unforeseen Consequences of American Foreign Policy
I am very conflicted about Libya. Once you make a threat you must follow through no matter what or America’s enemies will view you as weak. That’s why you don’t make threats unless you are ready and willing to act.
But truth is we were screwed no matter what happened: If we didn’t attack and Gadhafi slaughtered the rebels, we’d be blamed for not acting. By acting we will now be blamed for anything that happens. The Wife was joking today after seeing a report about attacks against Libyan tanks that al Jazeera would report the tanks were driven by pregnant mothers and puppies. We simply cannot win either way when Muslims are involved.
The problem with preventing genocide is that you don’t see the events you stopped. Those hippies chaining themselves to the fences outside of the White House today would have been the first ones screaming for us to do something when the cell phone videos came back of Gadhafi forces machine gunning women and children to death in Benghazi. By choosing to intervene, we prevent that from happening, but put ourselves at risk. Libya is yet another intervention in a long series that have fostered unforeseen and unintended consequences for American policy.
Muslims never allow any good deed to go unpunished. In 1982 President Reagan orders the Marines into Lebanon in order to protect the Palestinians from the advancing Israelis. Hezballah showed its gratitude by detonating two suicide truck bombs that killed 241 American Marines and 58 French soldiers. Beginning with the Carter administration the US backed the Mujahadin against the Soviets in Afghanistan, thereby educating and arming an entire generation of Muslims who went on to attack American and Western interests throughout the 1990s and 2000s – including Osama Bin Laden. In 1991 we stopped Saddam Hussein from invading Saudi Arabia. The Saudis rewarded our protection by financing al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups bent on the destruction of western civilization.
We feed starving Somalis and rescue Pakistani peacekeepers, and the bodies of our soldiers get dragged through the streets of Mogadishu (and Bin Laden learns from our failure). We protect Bosnians and Kosavar Albanians (Muslims) from slaughter at the hands of Russian-backed Serbs, and one shoots and kills two unarmed soldiers in gratitude. American individuals and corporations donated $1.5 billion to the relief effort after the 2004 earthquake and tsunami devastated parts of Indonesia. That hasn’t stopped Indonesians from protesting against the United States and supporting the Taliban and al-Qaeda with cash and recruits. And when we get airliners slammed into the Twin Towers there are celebrations throughout the Muslim world (including by the precious pets of liberals, the Palestinians).
Had we not supported the Mujahadin, would Afghanistan be better off today? Would the United States? It’s hard to imagine not. The Soviets had the Mujahadin on the ropes, but success there would not have prevented the empire’s collapse a few years later.
241 Marines would be alive today if we had simply allowed the Israelis to clean the PLO out of Lebanon. It’s quiet possible that the Lebanese and even the Palestinians themselves would have benefited by a PLO that had been wiped out. Perhaps a new organization would have formed to represent them, one less corrupt and steeped in 1960s socialism.
If we had turned a blind eye towards Saddam’s invasion of Saudi Arabia (as he initially thought we would), the Saudis, Kuwaitis and the Iraqis would have been worse off, but would we have been? Saddam knew how to handle religious fanatics: he killed them as soon as he found them. If he couldn’t find them, a family member would do. It’s quite possible that the Saudi 9-11 attackers would have been executed fighting against a Saddam regime, or at the very least too terrified by it to get themselves worked into a Koranic frenzy against the United States.
What will the unforeseen consequences be of our actions in Libya today? It’s difficult to say, but we should begin at least begin to consider and discuss them.
For those opposed to the intervention, would you have been able to live with yourselves seeing Ghadafi’s forces going “house by house, alley by alley” gunning down people in cold blood in Benghazi? Such an action would at least have served as a reminder to Muslims that when it comes to body counts, Muslims have more Muslim blood on their hands than all Jews and Americans combined. Now Ghadafi can play the “crusader” card, something that Vladimir “W’s BFF” Putin has already suggested.
For those supporting intervention the questions are more obvious. How are you going to win when you don’t even have a set clear goals – let alone a battle-tested command/control center? What are you going to do if Ghadafi survives in power and the “rebels” prove that they all don’t wear white and carry lightsabers? Is it really a good idea to support these uprisings in the Middle East? There are no Muslim Lech Walesas, no Islamic Vaclav Havels, Andre Sakharovs or Nelson Mandelas. Progressives under the direction of billionaire judenrat George Soros are desperately trying to make the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood into Charter 77 or Solidarity. So far smearing lipstick on that pig hasn’t worked.
Rob Miller:
Good one Scott! ‘Billionaire judenrat George Soros’ LOL!
22 March 2011, 7:57 pmWatcher of Weasels » Watcher’s Council Nominations – Libyan Switcheroo Edition:
[...] The Razor – Unforeseen Consequences of American Foreign Policy [...]
23 March 2011, 1:17 amWatcher of Weasels Council Weekly Article Contest 3-34-11 | Maggie's Notebook:
[...] The Razor – Unforeseen Consequences of American Foreign Policy [...]
23 March 2011, 1:15 pmWatcher of Weasels! | Restoring Honor Starts Here:
[...] The Razor – Unforeseen Consequences of American Foreign Policy [...]
23 March 2011, 1:28 pmWatcher’s Council Nominations – Libyan Switcheroo Edition | Obama Forcasters:
[...] The Razor – Unforeseen Consequences of American Foreign Policy [...]
23 March 2011, 11:42 pmThis Week’s Weasel Watching Nominations | UNCOVERAGE.net:
[...] ProtestsVA Right – Is Rigell Virginia’s Lone Fiscal Conservative in Congress??? The Razor – Unforeseen Consequences of American Foreign PolicyThe Glittering Eye -Uncertainty Snapped Shot – Reuters Leaves Something Out The Colossus of Rhodey [...]
24 March 2011, 6:01 amBookworm Room » Something new at Watcher of Weasels:
[...] The Razor – Unforeseen Consequences of American Foreign Policy [...]
24 March 2011, 12:59 pmWatcher of Weasels » The Council Has Spoken!:
[...] This week, a number of Council members saw fit to weigh in on President Obama’s blithely taking us into a war based on a UN resolution without even consulting Congress. This week’s winner, The Razor, took a jaundiced but quite accurate look at the end results of our interventions in the Muslim world in his fine piece, Unforeseen Consequences of American Foreign Policy: [...]
25 March 2011, 12:45 amThe Council Has Spoken on the Weasel Watcher Awards | UNCOVERAGE.net:
[...] quite accurate look at the end results of our interventions in the Muslim world in his fine piece, Unforeseen Consequences of American Foreign Policy:Libya is yet another intervention in a long series that have fostered unforeseen and unintended [...]
25 March 2011, 6:01 amBookworm Room » Watcher of Weasels winners, 3/25/11 edition:
[...] *First place with 2 2/3 votes! The Razor –-Unforeseen Consequences of American Foreign Policy [...]
26 March 2011, 10:33 amYmarsakar:
There are indications that the rebels are Leftist or Islamic in ideology and funding. Soros if Leftist, Arab league and Sunnis if Islamic.
That means the US is in fact acting at the behest of either a Jewish billionaire or Islamic fanatics in conducting military actions.
Which also means the aftermath will turn out like Iran’s Revolution did. The Left, if it is present, will be bundled up and executed by the real fervor of religious zealotry. Which is far more real than the Leftist wannabe utopian belief system.
And Ghaddafi’s military actions may be no more and no less than attempt to stop Islamic violence or Leftist revolutionary anarchy. He may see it as a domestic matter. Or he may have gotten hints from two faced American administration that he could have a free hand because he gave up his nuke programs. Saddam invaded Kuwaitt chiefly because he thought the US gave him the green light.
All of it goes straight back to the State Department and the nest of anti-American insurgency guised in the form of bureaucracy, political shenanigans, and politics.
28 March 2011, 6:43 am