Obama Makes A Speech

Even Associated Press took the President of the United States to task for his platitudinous rhetoric.

Most laughable moment was, "Some nations may be able to turn a blind eye to atrocities in other countries. The United States of America is different. And as president, I refused to wait for the images of slaughter and mass graves before taking action."

Reeeaaallly? [insert sarcasm here]. This is the man who ran on an anti-war platform and now takes the US to war in Libya (of all places) without Congressional advice or consent.

Mass violence against civilians has been epidemic in the world without recent U.S. intervention.

So why Libya?

Obama and his supporter's castigated Bush for his foreign wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and even Clinton was criticized heavily for committing the U.S. to action in Yugoslavia, mass graves and genocide notwithstanding. [I personally agree with our intervention in Serbia's killing fields, but the point is that many of Clinton's own supporters are against any military action overseas.] Bush Senior was castigated for intervention in Somalia, which had U.N. approval, and involved a multi-nation task force bent on providing humanitarian aid (contrary to Democrats shrill accusations that it was just for "oil" which if it exists at all in Somalia, is totally undeveloped).

So why Libya? And why not take it to Congress for approval, as the Constitution requires?

Obama redux: "I refused to wait for the images of slaughter and mass graves before taking action.""

So what are you doing about Syria, where the government is slaughtering civilians in the streets?

And where was your voice when the Bajlis militia gunned down protesters in Iran? Why did you not share the outrage of millions over the death of Neda, a woman deliberately targeted and shot to death while standing on the street and simply watching a demonstration demanding a recount of a fraudulent election.

And how do you excuse your silence over Darfur, where human rights organizations have amply documented the slaughters, rapes, kidnappings, maimings of Black Sudanese by their Arab overlord's well-armed gangs?

Do you have anything to say about intervening in North Korea, a repressive regime which starves its citizens and kills dissenters?

Or Myanmar (Burma), which is equally repressive?

Or how about the current and on-going attack-helicopter sorties against Kurdish villages in Turkey and across the border into Iraq by the Turkish military. Civilians are butchered by your NATO ally to oppress an indigenous people who aren't seeking independence or civil war, but who are asking for autonomy: the right for their children to learn the Kurdish language, keep Kurdish festivals, keep Kurdish names and not have to be "Turkicized" in order to be considered citizens of the country they live in. [A right, oddly enough, given Turkey's opprobrium towards Israel, granted to Arab Israelis, who are permitted to run their schools in Arabic.]

And what about the Ivory Coast, where the will of the electorate in the first free election in decades has been thwarted by the dictator who will not leave, Laurent Gbagbo. U.N. observers have reportedly documented his forces using heavy weapons against his own civilian population. Press reports claim there are confirmed reports of more than 460 killings of supporters of the legitimately elected leader, Alassane Ouattara.

Why is Ggabo more legitimate than Gadaffi? Why is Kim Il Jung more legitmate than Gaddafi? Or Erdogan, Turkey's Kurd-killing leader?

Tell the world what distinguishes this military intervention from all other places crying out for protection from brutal, murderous leaders who fire on their own populations, such as Iran. Why is Libya a legitimate target, and Iran, which is trying to build nuclear weapons with which to terrorize and control the Middle East, is not?

Tell me it isn't just oil. No one can be that stupid.