Thursday, October 25, 2012

On Libya; The Return of the Angry Reader

Victor Davis Hanson  A reader takes Hanson to task over an earlier column, thinking he had said we should not have taken out Gadhafi. Mr. Hanson attempts to disabuse the writer of this notion here: 
...."We knew that fact within hours after Ambassador Stevens was killed.

"Why did I write they were lying? Because the Obama administration, as I argued, was wedded to a pre-election rosy narrative of the Middle East: Obama had Osama bin Laden taken out, and thereby that fact rendered al Qaeda impotent; and Obama intervened in the Arab Spring and thereby shepherded in democracy. But the murder of an ambassador by Islamic terrorists suggested that both radical Islam is quite active and we in our triumphalism were woefully unready."....

...."The point is that we now have no control over what Libya becomes, as we have no control over what Egypt or Syria becomes. So as I said Libya is "a blueprint for nothing." How clear can one be? Ceding authority to the UN, ceding authority to the Arab League, ignoring the US Congress, outsourcing leadership to the Europeans, failing to vet the opposition, failing to protect Americans on the ground, lying about the death of an Ambassador to preserve a false pre-election narrative — all that seems pretty "nothing" to me."

No comments: