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Wednesday, March 30, 2011

The Least-Bad Way Out 

President Obama told the nation on Monday that America's interest in Libya was the protection of Libyan civilians from Moammar Qadaffi's murderous regime. While that statement might ring with clarity, it's a commitment that's every bit as open-ended and nebulous as it is noble.


The current Libya mission will be put to a serious test in the days ahead now that the rebels have been pushed back to the territory they held when the bombing started. The rebels just don't have the firepower to repel rocket, mortar, and tank attacks from the Qadaffi loyalists. America would certainly be tempted to go the next step and start attacking Libyan army positions outside of rebel-held towns.


America's position in Libya is truly a no-win situation. If we go all-in with airpower to defeat the Libyan army and overthrow Moammar Qadaffi, the rebels begin the messy process of trying to rebuild (salvage?) a failed state. It's encouraging to see the State Department engaging in dialog with the rebel leadership, but they are unlikely to find common ground. This rebellion has more to do with tribal rivalries than any genuine desire to build true democracy.


The alternative, if we continue with our humanitarian mission of protecting the rebel strongholds, is a protracted and open-ended air war that will cost America billions, put our airmen at more risk, and lead to a Libyan stalemate between the warring parties. Europe, already dealing with the clash of cultures from waves of north African immigrants, will bear the brunt of the Libyan refugees from the ongoing conflict. The price of oil will be inflated across the world. Moammar Qadaffi could even resume the terrorist bombings of American airliners and European nightclubs. Nobody wins from a lengthy Libyan war.


The model of Operation Allied Force against Yugoslavia (Serbia) in 1999 may provide America, Europe, and the rebels the easiest of many challenging courses of action. By bombing Libyan military and leadership targets, the US and its allies could force Qadaffi to the negotiating table for a peace settlement. President Obama would have to abandon his goal of "Qadaffi must go," but it could result in a peace deal that gives the rebels self-rule in the teritories they currently hold. Islamic countries would need to step up and provide peacekeepers to enforce the terms of peace in the rebel enclaves. It might be a tough pill to swallow for the Islamic countries, but after all the military aid they've received from the US it's the least they can do to help us out of our predicament.

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

The Great Health Insurance Swindle 

I've realized for a while that Americans are getting swindled when it comes to health insurance. Dean Zarras has a great piece in Forbes laying out the case against the current insurance model. Hopefully more people will catch on to what a ripoff they've been subjected to for the past several decades, and Congress can get more serious about promoting medical savings accounts and rolling back the insurance mandate from ObamaCare.

A for-profit company like an insurance company must take ion more revenue than it pays out in claims; the insurance rates are designed to ensure that the average American, over the course of his or her lifetime, is paying more for insurance than they normally would for the out-of-pocket costs associated with their health care. It's important to note that while access to healthcare is a human right, access to health insurance should be anything but. In many ways, the health insurance industry embodies everything that's screwed up with healthcare in America.

The best point that Dean Zarras makes is that nobody expects auto insurance to cover routine maintenance like oil changes. But why do Americans expect routine medical services to be covered by their health insurance? A high-deductible, low-premium health insurance plan is the way to go for most Americans, to ensure that unexpected and catastrophic health problems are covered.

With ObamaCare, the last Congress controversially mandated that the vast majority of businesses provide insurance for their employees. Rather than making the bloated insurance companies even richer, why isn't Congress mandating that all employers give their employees the option of having contributions placed in a medical savings account?

Friday, March 25, 2011

Obama to Qadaffi: Let's Dance? 

When America goes to war, presidents usually try to drum up as much public support as possible. Popular opinions of wars inevitably erode over the length of the conflict, but presidents arely go to war when the majority of the American public is opposed. One of the most unique things about the current military action in Libya is how weak the public support is. Only 51% of Americans in a recent survey approved of the president's handling of Libya, compared to 75% support for Operation Desert Storm and 70% support for the initial invasion of Iraq in March 2003 when those wars began.

The march to war with Libya has been muddled with mixed messages from the White House. While President Obama was clear in saying that Moammar Qadaffi needed to go because he had lost his legitimacy (if he ever had any,) he would not commit to military action unless it was requested by the Libyan rebels, the Arab League and the UN. Eventually his hand was tipped thanks to the intervention by advisors like Hillary Clinton & Samantha Power. A UN resolution was passed on March 18; by March 19th there were bombs over Benghazi.

A wise professor of mine once used the term "Washington War Dance" to describe the tradition of presidents stirring up popular support for war before committing their forces. George H.W. Bush's administration was able to work from August 1990 to January 1991 in villifying Saddam Hussein and casting their mission in the gulf as noble before going to war. President Clinton had Christiane Amanpour of CNN for weeks to put the atrocities in Kosovo on television so he could wage war against Serbia. George W. Bush had 10 months etween his 2002 West Point commencement address and the March 2003 invasion of Iraq to sell American on the imminent danger of Saddam Hussein, weapons of mass destruction, and Iraqi al Qaeda.

Admittedly, President Obama didn't have much time to work with in laying out his case for the Libyan war. The rebel victory he likely counted on never materialized. Indeed, the rebels were on the cusp of defeat before the bombs started falling. But the American people were never prepared for the possibility that their armed forces would have to directly intervene to save these ragtag rebels. The administration's spokespeople and media organs did little to convince Americans that this was a noble mission worthy of American blood or treasure.

Now Americans are left wondering how long this war will last or what we hope to achieve. President Obama wants to protect Libyan civilians, but how do we know when the mission is accomplished? Most of the airstrikes thus far seem to have been defensive in nature, protecting the rebel enclaves without helping them to break out or march on Tripoli. But Americans are left bewildered when they try to ask what the acceptable end-state looks like in Libya. Now that he's committed Americans to war, President Obama needs to be a leader and give us a reason why we should fight.

Saturday, March 19, 2011

Obama-Style Regime Change 

Operation Odyssey Dawn began today with airstrikes against Libyan armored vehicles and air defense installations. Beyond the initial questions of the impact these strikes are having, the much wider question is how deep America and its allies will get sucked into the changing of regimes in Libya.

There can be no doubt that Libya's Qadaffi regime is depraved, and the world would be better off if it were swept into history's dustbin. Qadaffi likely ordered the terrorist bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie Scotland in 1989, and the blood of the doomed airliner's passengers is covering his hands. Yet American policymakers had to pour over the question of whether its long-standing vendetta with the Libyan despot is worth the lives it puts at stake in a wider war to push the regime out of power.

Airstrikes against Libya are being carried out under a UN resolution aimed at protecting Libyan civilian protesters against Qadaffi's air force. Qadaffi has obviously used excessive force against his own people in an effort to quell the uprisings against his regime. At the same time, Qadaffi faces a legitimate armed threat from members of his own armed forces who are leading the rebellion. Using military force against armed internal threats is not a violation of the laws of war, and the UN does not have legal jurisdiction to intervene within Libya's civil war.

America's reaction to the Libyan uprisings is deeply rooted in the guilt of Spring 1991, when Shiites and Kurds took President George H.W. Bush's words to heart and rose up against Saddam Hussein. Yet American pilots, who owned uncontested control of Iraqi airspace, had to watch helplessly as those rebels were slaughtered. Policymakers in America did not want to deal with the consequences of Shiite and Kurdish success if they succeeded in ousting the Saddam Hussein regime. Enforcing a no-fly zone against the Iraqi helicopters who shuttled elite Republican Guard forces to the rebel strongholds may have turned the tide of that battle. There is no doubt that the Obama administration wanted to avoid a grim replay of that shameful moment in America's past.

President Obama's supporters, who cheered when their standard-bearer called Iraq "a dumb war," now find themselves behind a president who lacks a legal causus belli for yet another war of regime change. It's doubtful that Libya will be as costly on a human scale or protracted as Iraq was, yet the nation building following the end of the Qadaffi regime will likely get just as messy. Will America have the stomach for the alliance-building and possible sectarian score-settling that are likely to accompany the birth of a new Libya? Or will President Obama draw the line with the politically-safe option of keeping America's war effort to a strictly aerial one, regardless of the realities on the ground? It's easy to get into the Libyan civil war, but it will be much harder for America and its allies to get out.

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