[Flashback March 2011. Since our Egypt and Libya policy are ending in disaster with the Muslim Brotherhood taking power in both countries, with Christians being slaughtered and in the case of Egypt, being attacked by government armored vehicles, and the Obama administration selling tanks, choppers, small arms, and missiles to Egypt and other countries in the Islamic world, we thought a second look at the editor’s previous coverage of this category is in order. The category list is on the lower right hand pane of the page. – Editor]

I was writing this long post as I was going through the speech and then I see my friend Scott Ott at PJTV posted a video which totally stole my thunder. Since a video is much more entertaining than a wall of textual analysis I will just post the video with a few observations of my own.

In Iraq we had real national interests. Saddam was giving money and other material support to terror groups including al-Qaeda. He had violated a cease-fire agreement and the diplomatic credibility was being trashed (if you do not think that this is a good reason to go to war than respectfully, you do not understand history, diplomacy or geopolitics worth a darn). There were 25 reasons in the Congressional resolution but a very important one went unspoken; Iraq is among the most cosmopolitan and secular Muslim countries, if we can make Democracy work there the Middle East has a chance, if we cannot we know what we have to prepare for.

There is one problem though. What are our national interests in this operation? Revenge for Pan Am 103 and the bombing in Europe. I can see that but its a little late on that score with all do respect to the families who are understandably crying out for justice. The question of pay back has value, but is it an honest argument by those who are making it?

The easy flow of oil is an interest but Libya doesn’t make a great deal of it when compared to other countries.

We are facing a very likely possibility that the Muslim Brotherhood and al-Qaeda will fill the power vacuum if Ghadaffi leaves and that is even worse than leaving Ghadaffi intact. If this is indeed the case than removing Ghadaffi goes against our national interests, which Bill Whittle alludes to in his comments below.

There have been some on the right who have had a double standard on this issue, they wanted Obama to go in, and now that he has they are all over him. A few have blatantly flip-flopped, but most are questioning why it took 30 days to make the decision. If it was a priority why not go in three weeks before when the rebels were getting slaughtered?

I refused to support any action there because I feared that whoever took power after Ghadaffi would be worse. In the case of Iraq we stayed to make sure that wouldn’t happen.

[Editor’s Note – You will notice Bill Whittle get a tad emotional in this video. Bill follows every word this president says in detail. He is very aware of how Obama will say that “government needs to live within its means” one day and offer up a budget with $1.6 trillion yearly deficits the next. Or how Obama will brag about how there was not one earmark in the failed Stimulus Bill and days later sign a $411 billion omnibus bill with 8000 earmarks in it. This is the same Obama that took credit for global oil production being up, in spite of the fact that he has instituted an illegal offshore drilling ban that reduced domestic production. The same Obama that blasts the oil industry for having oil leases that are not being drilled upon, while at the same time erecting regulatory hurdles that prevent them from using the leases while his environmental-extremist allies sue at each step of the permit process. So in short Bill has had it with this president, as any informed and sincere person would.]

I thought that the most ironic moment was when President Obama asked if we had to wait for pictures of mass graves before we did anything.

Speaking of mass graves – http://www.usaid.gov/iraq/legacyofterror.html

Countless photo’s (warning pics of mass graves) – http://www.9neesan.com/massgraves/

The interesting thing about irony is that it often brings you to the front door of hypocrisy.

This speech was such a plagiarization of what President Bush said of Iraq that the White House should start sending royalty checks to Texas.

UPDATE – Sarah Palin gives her policy review on this issue (video LINK). In short: Now that we are there if we let Ghadaffi stay in power he will live to seek revenge upon us, if we take him down it seems al-Qeada and/or Muslim Brotherhood may take over. Sound familiar?