Obama is Michael Corleone

[hondo]

Killing Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden and Muamamar Ghadafi were really really really good things, no matter who did it or how it got done. The world is a more wonderful place, even if only for a moment, with those ****ers dead.

A-Freaking-Men. I shudder to think of the total body count stacked up by just those three bastards alone.

 

[Mizzougrad96]

Killing Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden and Muamamar Ghadafi were really really really good things, no matter who did it or how it got done. The world is a more wonderful place, even if only for a moment, with those ****ers dead.

A-Freaking-Men. I shudder to think of the total body count stacked up by just those three bastards alone.

I wouldn't even begin to know where to start my guess... 250,000 killed?

 

[D-3 Fan]

Which begs me to ask, who planted the gun in the bathroom for Obama, like Sonny did for Michael (if my Godfather movie recollection is correct)?

 

[suburbia]

According to some board conservatives, wasn't Libya this administration's "third war" or "fourth war" or something? They seemed eager to assign responsibility a few months ago.

Yes, we clearly engaged in a "third war". And, we did it without Congressional approval.

A couple of points for the folks looking to celebrate this as some genius way of conducting a war:

There was an opposition to aid in Libya. You can't compare it to other countries, like Iraq or even Syria or Iran. You can only pursue this strategy when the opportunity allows.

And, in fact, it's much the strategy GWB employed in Afghanistan, where a small number of CIA and special forces troops helped the Northern Alliance topple the Taliban in a speedier fashion than the Libyan NTC toppled Gaddafi. (And, that strategy was criticized by many hailing our Libya strategy.)

Also, by not fully engaging with the NTC, we exerted very little influence over them.

We began our operations in Libya to prevent a massacre in Benghazi. We achieved that, but then we didn't stop our "allies" from committing their own atrocities.

Sub-Saharan Africans were murdered as suspected mercenaries with no evidence. Sirte/Surt was besieged in a way that we feared for Benghazi.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/19/world/africa/battle-for-surt-threatens-libyas-healing-process.html?pagewanted=all

And, of course, Gaddafi -- murderous thug that he was -- was executed without a trial.

We gave the NTC free reign to become the very thing we said we were there to stop.

And now we are celebrating that we will have no role in the helping to form a post-Gaddafi government in Libya.

Having seen how the NTC has operated, I think our celebrations may be premature.

YankeeFan, it is not the place of the U.S. or any other country to demand a role in shaping a sovereign country's government. That should be solely up to the people of that country. This country has made that mistake so many times over the last century, and it has usually had negative consequences.

We claim to support freedom and democracy and oppose dictatorships. We then can't complain when the resulting democracy refuses to be America's puppet and do its bidding.

Qadaffi needed to go and did. Maybe the U.S. should have gotten involved sooner and/or done more. Maybe it shouldn't have. The bottom line is that Qadaffi is history. It should be up to the Libyan people to determine what happens next. And whatever they decide, the U.S. MUST respect it.

Same goes for Egypt, Tunisia and every other country.