Attacking Gaddhafi.

Well, it's official. We're launching surgical strikes against Libyan dictator Mommar Gaddhafi, with the full blessing of a U.N. security council resolution, and with the French on our side (for once). It's interesting how, in this time of an un-winnable military action in Afghanistan, Obama has initiated a very winnable one in Libya. We have a clear-cut definition of victory, namely, the insurgents win. We're spending small amounts of resources in conjunction with an international force to impose a no-fly zone. We're not putting boots on the ground. This isn't costing us a trillion. In short, we're doing this right. And it's in the finest Republican tradition of what the GOP expects from a President. At least, for once, the political right won't be able to criticize our Obama for...

What? They're criticizing him for it anyway? Oh, hell! What's the problem this time?

Well, they're saying how strange it is that the left, which opposed the invasion of Iraq so harshly, is now so much in favor of this action. This amounts to a way of disapproving with Obama without overtly opposing that which they know every Republican president would certainly do in his place.

Interesting. Okay, I, for one, am a slightly left-of-center person who did not oppose the war in Iraq. Hussein was a bad man with a long list of prior offenses. And I don't take silly positions such as it being wrong to oppose the removal of a brutal dictator. But there are some important differences in this case. For one, Bush used an expired UN resolution to invade Iraq, claiming it still held. Even those on the right agreed that was rather shirt-tail, but the UN held its tongue, because it was starting to feel rather toothless at the time. Second, we put our own troops on the ground without a clear plan for winning the peace. We're not screwing up THAT way again, are we? Third, we have an actual coalition of allies instead of us, and Great Britain making up the other 25% our forces didn't.

What really scares republicans is Obama getting his military stripes. If Gaddhafi falls, and I think he will, then Obama becomes unassailable as a liberal peacenik who would misuse our military. That makes him a 2012 shoo-in, and there goes the right-wing Supreme Court: which, of course, is the primary goal of this entire Rupert-Murdoch-fed and Christian-extremist fueled media machine.

It all boils down to Roe v. Wade on whether or not Obama's dealing with Libya is a good idea. Fuckin' A.

Hey, I'll give the Right credit. They're asking what kinds of people these insurgents are. They're wondering what kind of government Libya will have afterward. In short, they're asking all the questions they were too busy kissing Bush's ass to ask back at the onset of the Iraq invasion. And, once again, we must welcome back the Republican pennitant sinner with open arms, while asking where the fuck their common sense has been all this time.

We don't know what kind of government Libya will get. But at least our boys aren't in harm's way when the dust settles. And a democracy isn't even possible unless the dictator first falls, so whether the dictator should fall becomes moot. Libya may end up worse, but it deserves a fair shot.

Strike while the iron is hot.

Eric