Reflections From a Murky Pond

Allegedly President Obama ordered a military operation that killed the jihadi vermin, Osama bin Laden, ending a decade long hunt for the misborn ibn al khanzeer.

While I have some lingering doubts as to the truth of this, they don’t really matter very much since most of the world is taking this good news on faith. Hence I will accept these claims at face value until the unlikely event that they’re proven false.

That being the case, proper accolades are much in order, irregardless of my overall feelings about the Obama Regime, their near total lack of concern over those feelings, and the improbability that any of them would ever read this post:

Well done, Sir! Fucking well done! Huzzah!

To loosely paraphrase the First Lady, for the first time I’m proud of something you’ve done as President of my country.

– jonolan

President Obama acting as the POTUS and C-in-C gave the order for DEVGRU and the CIA to undertake a “kill mission” – codenamed Operation Geronimo – to exterminate Osama bin Laden in t’s compound in the affluent suburb of Abottabad, Pakistan – a mere 35 miles from the capital, Islamabad. Obama ordered the commencement of Operation Geronimo without notifying the Pakistani government due to realistic fears that they would help Osama bin Laden escape.

To paint this in a negative manner, as America’s enemies, both foreign and domestic, will certainly do, President Obama unilaterally violated the territory of a sovereign nation and violated several articles of international in order to assassinate a private citizen in a private residence, killing multiple others in the process of this act.

More accurately stated, President Obama put the needs and desires of the American people before the sovereignty of a “state” that created and continues to support the Taliban and Al-Qaeda and did not allow the puling sensibilities of foreign interests, most of whom are no friends of America, to get in the way of doing his duty.

It was a job well done, both in specific execution and in the tone of the message it sends the world.

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Looking at what is happening in Libya right now brings an odd, but not entirely unpleasant, thought to my mind. The thought is that prosecuting UNSCR 1973 is going to give Mu’ammar Qaddafi, President Obama, and whole bunch of other people a small, but still bitter, taste of the pain that Israel suffers every single day.

UNSCR 1973, alongside calling for a “No-Fly Zone,” demands the protection of civilians:

Authorizes Member States that have notified the Secretary-General, acting nationally or through regional organizations or arrangements, and acting in cooperation with the Secretary-General, to take all necessary measures, notwithstanding paragraph 9 of resolution 1970 (2011), to protect civilians and civilian populated areas under threat of attack in the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, including Benghazi, while excluding a foreign occupation force of any form on any part of Libyan territory, and requests the Member States concerned to inform the Secretary-General immediately of the measures they take pursuant to the authorization conferred by this paragraph which shall be immediately reported to the Security Council

Old Mu’ammar Qaddafi, Libya’s more than slightly deranged dictator, is fighting a civil war against rebel forces in Libya’s eastern provinces. These insurrectionists wear no uniforms or identifying badges and fight from within urban zones with concentrated “civilian” populations, blending with those populations.

Obama and the coalition forces, required to use only air and sea assets, are trying to disable Qaddafi’s air assets and his heavy weapons capabilities. Sadly for them, many of these assets are mobile and Qaddafi has shown no hesitation in moving them into civilian areas and using his civilian population as human shields against airstrikes or missile strikes. Qaddafi has also seemingly shown no hesitation in moving civilians into his fixed military installations, again to use them as human shields.

It’s ironic and a little pleasant – schadenfreude is a fact of life – to see Israel’s enemies facing the same problems that Israel has been faced with daily for the last half century or so as they’ve fought a war against the Islamist Terrorists of Hamas and Fatah who refuse to wear uniforms, fight from densely populated urban areas, and regularly make use of civilians as human shields.

Obviously Qaddafi will be branded a war criminal. What, if anything, will Obama be labeled though? He’s no more or less guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity than his predecessor President George W. Bush was and many decry him as a war criminal and seek to prosecute him for those supposed crimes.

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So what exactly is the foundation of Obama’s foreign policy? What are Obama’s goals for America’s international relations? Nobody seems to know those answers, not our State Department, not Congress, not the People, not our Enemies, and certainly not our Allies.

With no apparent rhyme or reason to Obama’s statements, occasional half-measures, and string of inactions in response to any of the situations in the Mid-East, Africa, Asia, and Latin America people keep searching for some deeper game that he’s playing and ascribing various and sundry motivations to him.

There’s a far simpler and, I believe, much more likely rationale for Obama’s foreign policy inconsistencies:

Infographic: Obama’s Foreign Policy Goals

There are two rules one should always remember: “The simplest explanation is most likely the correct one” and “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.”

I firmly believe that Obama already displayed the extent of his foreign policy. He apologied to all and sundry for America’s status as a superpower, vilified the actions of his predecessors, and thought that our enemies would now begin to like, if not America, at least him.

Beyond that, I don’t think that Obama has any foreign policy goals.

As the international situation grows ever more fluid and we in America move towards the 2012 Elections this is something to keep firmly in one’s mind.

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