Things blow up

"Something", well, two things, blew up in Pakistan today and it seems like it was a UAV launched missile attack. President Obama seems to be going after al Qeada on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. I would say he is going after bin Laden, but you can't kill someone who is already dead.

I think bin Laden has left us for the hereafter. With most al Qeada tapes, you get fairly new video footage and speeches. With bin Laden, you get recycled footage of him walking around some rocks while someone claiming to be him does a voice over. And in some cases, the voice over is just speaking in generalities, they rarely mention Obama by name or talk about specific current events.

Bin Laden is either dead (my guess) or in really bad shape. I think he died in such a way that no one will ever be sure (for example he died in a cave collapse thanks to a bunker buster). He is just a few wisps of DNA under 100,000 tons of rock.

It was never really about him, and it was a mistake to make it about him.

Anyway, I have looked around at some of the left side blogs to see how this is playing. For the most part, it has been seen positively.

The Huffington Post for a while had this as their main news item with the headline:

COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF
FIRST MISSILE STRIKES LAUNCHED SINCE OBAMA TOOK OATH

The site had a split picture, President Obama on one side wagging his finger and looking all stern and serious and Islamic Rage Boy's idiot Pakistani cousin on the other side acting all, well, full of rage (other than soccer balls and rage, does Pakistan actually produce anything?). I tried wadding through the comments to see how this was playing to HP's fans, but it is useless. I think 3/4s of the commenters there are trolls (of both left and right).

In any event, I understand why it is being done. When Bush was president I was uneasy about these attacks in Pakistan. That country is barely a country and I worry that these attacks might take down the government and lead to anarchy. By the same token, Waziristan is where the bad guys are, and the Pakistani government barley has any authority there.

I also believe that these attacks take place with a wink and a nod from the Pakistani government. They get to act all enraged to placate domestic audiences while getting rid of bad guys.

On Taylor Marsh's site one of the commenters wonders if President Obama knew about this before hand, or if this was simply a carryover of Bush's ROE. I can understand why some on the left would feel angry at these attacks continuing (though, from my quick view, it is positive, including from Marsh herself).

It is hard to believe now, but back in 2000, Bush promised a "more humble" foreign policy and I remember being annoyed that a day or so after his inauguration, the Air Force bombed some site in Iraq. I remember thinking that it must have been simply a continuation of Clinton's ROE and that Bush knew nothing of it beforehand (ah, those innocent days!) and that he would change the ROE.*

By the same token, this is the policy that President Obama said he would pursue.

Now you see why I pray for the president? Who would want this job?


* Yes -- to preempt the comments, I supported the invasion of Iraq, I supported the surge and I hope that our troops can now leave Iraq, and that Iraq will be mostly stable and most democratic. If you asked me at 8:58 a.m. on September 11, 2001 what my thoughts on Iraq were, I would have said end US enforcement of the no fly zone and come up with a sanction regime that allowed Iraq to buy and sell everything except weapon programs. 9/11 temporarily stopped the drift toward non-interventionism that I started around 1992.

Why Pray for the President?

Why pray for the president?

In the last few days, we have seen:

• War in Gaza
  
• A North Korean general on TV threatening the South
  
• Rumors of Somali terrorists in the US trying to disrupt the inauguration
  
• Hugo Chavez talking about Obama's "stench" (seriously, this guy should be a comedian, with oil now trading in the $30s, he may be due for a new career soon)
  
• Someone claiming to be Osama bin Laden releases a tape threatening Obama (I think OBL is dead, but the threat of al-Qaeda remains)
  
• Iranian rent a mobs setting fire to pictures of Obama and signing up for martyrdom operations
  
• Rumors that Saudis are in talks with Pakistan to buy nuclear weapons to counteract the threat of Iran's nuclear program (this has been floating around for years)
  
• The UK threatening to nationalize its banks.

And let's not forget the day after Obama's election, the Russians announced they were moving nuclear missiles to Kalingrad and the ongoing economic crisis.

Why does ANYONE want this job?

My personal safety and prosperity depends much upon what that one man does (too much on one man under my philosophy, but that is a discussion for another day). And he bears a heavy burden. So I pray for him.

The Gaza War

And so it continues. After months of attacks Israel strikes back hard, leading to lots of damage and lots of deaths. Lots of folks immediately condemning Israel (the usual ones) and lots of others immediately stating support for Israel (the same ones as always).

I have seen complaints that the US media is not really covering this story and that this somehow shows some sort of media pro-Israel bias. While I think most Americans tend to be pro-Israel, Americans simply are not that interested in the Israeli-Palestinian crisis anymore. It is like a T.V. soap opera -- no beginning, no end, but the same characters and the same story lines. "Mideast in Crisis" is a headline the newspapers should have a macro for.

There seems no end to this ongoing crisis.

But at some point, Israel has to ask if a bunch of dead Palestinian kids (as Hamas has no compunction about putting their installations in the middle of civilian areas) is worth it. Hamas is happy right now with Israel's response. Hezbollah will now launch their new war and the whole things starts again.

I mean, Israel's reaction is understandable -- if someone keeps pinching you, then you turn around and punch them in the face and kick them once or twice, it is understandable. Also, even with regards to the blockade, Hamas was trying to smuggle in weapons. Then there were the elections. Some argue that it was stupid to allow the Palestinians to have elections (the US government insisted on them). But what use would have a Fatah negotiated peace been worth if Hamas really had the majority in Gaza.

So should Americans really care? This guy says we should. But I have difficulty in getting any hopes up.

I do not know the answer. Maybe the best we can hope for is an acceptable level of violence, sort of what the British hoped for in Northern Ireland during the Troubles. Or maybe we can hope that the Palestinians will find a Michael Collins, someone who recognizes that violence is only a means to an end and is willing to accept 3/4s of a loaf, so they can get a real country.

But I am not getting my hopes up.