The great George Will brings a detached perspective on the use of U.S. power. Will has always been the voice of true conservatism, the Edmund Burke and William F. Buckley Jr. ‘politics of reality’ brand. A brand that I am quick to abandon when I see Islamofascism on the other side. Partisan hacks typically don’t oppose their own side of politics, like Will did with Bush going to war, and credit people on the other side, like John Kerry, when the facts bear out their analysis. An excerpt from his column:
… our Libya policy — if what seem to be hourly improvisations can be dignified as a policy — began as a no-fly zone to protect civilians from wanton violence. Seven weeks later, our policy is to decapitate the government by long-distance assassination and to intensify a civil war in that tribal society, in the name of humanitarianism. What makes this particularly surreal is that it is being done by NATO.
Unpack the acronym: North Atlantic Treaty Organization. NATO was created in 1949 to protect Western Europe from the Red Army. Its purpose was, in Lord Ismay’s famous formulation, “to keep the Russians out, the Americans in and the Germans down.” NATO, which could long ago have unfurled a “mission accomplished” banner, has now become an instrument of addlepated [JC: confused] mischief.
This is an episode of presidential malpractice. Obama has allowed NATO to be employed for the advancement of a half-baked doctrine, a quarter-baked rationalization and an unworthy national agenda.
The job of the next global security organization will likely be ‘to keep the Chinese out, the Americans in and the Islamofascists uncovered and down. NICO?
The entire George Will column is copied at end of post.
Continue reading →
George Will just saved me a lot of time I would have spent reading RCP articles about the 2012 presidential election over the next year. He did so by reminding us that the election will hinge on the same battleground states since 2000, not any national polls. An excerpt:
2 Think Good 