So, who are the rebels? This is the same as asking if we win, then who wins in Libya?

This is a really big unknown. Surfing through all of the news reports on the Libyan Civil War, the story that we would expect to see is the very one we do not. The one definite thing we know is that when the British sent in Special Forces to help the rebels, the rebels killed them.

Meanwhile, the question is what can the USA and NATO do in Libya? We’ve got one aircraft carrier Enterprise can provide air attacks. Amphibious ships, Kearsarge Ponce, and Bataan can provide ground attacks on the coastal cities but then what?

Another important fact is Egypt’s support of implied Quaddafi (they oppose US intervention).

At the end of the day, it will be up to the rebels to win their own war. We can help but there’s got to be limits.

Picture: Official Navy photo of launch of Tomahawk missle from USS Barry today. They are designating the Libyan operation, “Oddysey Dawn”.

Which brings us to the fickleness of the Arabs generally. Here’s the story in today’s Washington Post. First, they had endorsed the “no-fly zone” military intervention in Libya; now that it has actually started, they want to reverse themselves. What are we to make of this?

1) Acording to the story, the Arab leadership had not properly negotiated the meaning and the scope of “the no-fly zone”. How could such an endorsement have been issued without the proper understandings having been reached?

The suspicion cannot be helped. They were just playing politics. Blame the West for the rebels loosing but now that their bluff has been called, the new line is to blame the West for intervening.

2) Why could the members of the Libyan League not have intervened themselves? Just how weak is the Arab World both politically and militarily?

The bottom line summary of this potential reversal is to underline the political and military weakness of the Arab nations.

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As we watch the civil war in Libya, here’s a few facts to refer to.

Population 5 million

Fertility rate: 2.8

Monetary Unit: Libyan dinar (LD)
GDP: 106,000 million LD or $87,000 million US$. US GDP: $14,000 billion

International reserves: $92,507 million US

Exchange rate (LD to US$) 1.2

Libya fact: Armed forces: army 50,000 + 8,000 navy + 18,000 air force = 76,000.

My Summary:
Libya is small as a power. Still, if we’re going to go in, we’re going to have to take enough force to do the job. Recent military actions have only been successful when we went in to destroy the frontline forces and then when we went in with adequate forces of our own. My rough guess: 100,000 yielding 20,000 combat troops.

One of the advantages of blogging is that I sometimes come across some very cool stuff. For example, I came acoss this story in Herodotus about what must be ranked as one the great heists in history.

(a) This king, they said, got great wealth of silver, which none of the kings born after him could surpass or even come near to; and wishing to store his wealth in safety he caused to be built a chamber of stone, one of the walls whereof was towards the outside of his palace: and the builder of this, having a design against it, contrived as follows, that is, he disposed one of the stones in such a manner that it could be taken out easily from the wall either by two men or even by one. So when the chamber was finished, the king stored his money in it, and after some time the builder, being near the end of his life, called to him his sons (for he had two) and to them he related how he had contrived in building the treasury of the king, and all in forethought for them, that they might have ample means of living. And when he had clearly set forth to them everything concerning the taking out of the stone, he gave them the measurements, saying that if they paid heed to this matter they would be stewards of the king’s treasury. So he ended his life, and his sons made no long delay in setting to work, but went to the palace by night, and having found the stone in the wall of the chamber they dealt with it easily and carried forth for themselves great quantity of the wealth within.

Part II of this story to follow.

Sadly, we just experienced something a lot worse. Obama seems to have made a whole lot of money disappear, too. In our case, it’s called “stimulus” spending and we know who got it: the special interest groups.

History Moments

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Attended my first county convention in 10 years yesterday. Governor Nathan Deal spoke. A bunch of resolutions were passed. There was a right-to-life resolution which combined abortion with a whole bunch of other issues. It narrowly passed. 300+ people attended.

Cobb County is located northwest of Atlanta, Georgia. It is generally considered to be the heart of the Republican strength in the state. Democratic voting strength has grown in the southern part of the county in recent years as population pressure from the core city moves outward into the suburbs.

That’s Joe and me in the picture.

In retribution for the public employees bill in Wisconsin, unions, led by the Wisconsin Professional Police Association delivered ultimatums last week to businesses (we do not know how many). Their ultimatum set a deadline of March 17 to either come out in opposition to the Republicans in their state or else suffer a boycott.

The letter also listed a number of business organizations including the Chamber of Commerce and “requested” companies to disclose their contributions to them.

What’s the country coming to?

Going to see Patricia Pridemore tonight. She’s running for state chair of the Republican Party. County GOP convention is tomorrow. I plan on going.

She seems to be the most active. She has certainly been extremely active in the party going back many years.

I realize that this is just my perspective. Since the county conventions are tomorrow, I’d like anybody else’s views on who to support.

Here is her Facebook page.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Tricia-Pridemore-for-Georgia-GOP-Chairman/133608890036647

The Political Journal

http://poljournal.blogspot.com/

Re: Gitmo. The new spin is that the Republicans made him follow Bush’s policies. – An excuse for everything but . . . Can there be anything to this?

Remember Reagan’s deficits were accompanied by loud cries in the establishment media about how necessary for him to “compromise and cooperate” with the Democrats in Congress. In his time, the Democrats controlled the House and also at the end controlled the Senate, too. It was unfair to lay all the blame for the deficits on him and it may be unfair to blame all that’s wrong on Obama, too.

However, the President is the one guy in the position to do things if anybody is. One gets the sense that Bush was really right on these national security issues and that, more than the politics, is what’s driving Obama’s Gitmo decisions.

I suppose that they could have said, “The devil made me do it. – And the Republicans but I repeat myself.”

A little perspective on Egypt and its role in history from the author of the epic series “History of Civilization”

We stand where Caesar and Napoleon stood, and remember that fifty centuries look down upon us; where the Father of History came four hundred years before Caesar, and heard the tales that were to startle Pericles. A new perspective of time comes to us, two millenniums seem to fall out of the picture, and Caesar, Herodotus and ourselves appear for a moment contemporary and modern before those tombs that were more ancient to them than the Greeks are to us.

I wonder what he would think of what’s going on over there now.

History Moments

http://historymoment.blogspot.com/

Tony Blankley reminds us that Obama enjoys the incumbent’s advantages. He also reminds us that these advantages depends upon other factors. I identify 3 major policy areas which , which are likely to be disadvantageous to the President. I predict that these 3 areas will not be to the incumbent’s advantage in 2012.

Bad/good Economic times are a factor. Obama has gotten a lot of mileage claiming, “Remember, we inherited this mess.” The Republicans and the press has been remiss in reminding people that the Democrats controlled the Congress in the two years before the crash and that key Democrats were Chairman of powerful Congressional committees and that they had made sweetheart deals with the Finance Industry. Obama could still face this point in the 2012 election campaign, however.

Worse for Obama, is explaining how the current economic problems became so bad. If the aftermath of the crash was always going to be intrinsically bad, despite the best policies (which Obama claims he implemented), then why did not he or his party say so beforehand? Instead, he goes into 2012 having to explain why his policies did not take a bad situation and make it worse.

The above has to be put in the perspective of bad economic times continuing for the duration of his presidency.

Then there’s the Health Care issue. It is shaping up to be a mess. Already it is being repealed in a death of a thousand cuts. 1,000 waivers have already been issued – and not by Republicans, but by Obama’s own administration.

There’s the half trillion dollars that’s being counted twice.

A major component of Obama’s Health Care Bill CLASS, standing for Community Living Assisted Services and Support, has been declared “totally unsustainable”, again not by just Republicans but by Obama’s own cabinet secretary for Health and Human Services.

Millions of people have already seen huge increases in their health insurance premiums. In the years ahead, millions will face practical restrictions in health care access as doctors cut patients due to the HC Bill’s regulations.

These are consequential items.

After Obama tires of having to explain his domestic problems, he can look abroad. His foreign successes peaked with his Nobel Prize. Since then, his every initiative has been rebuffed.

What is significant is the degree that he has antagonized so many foreign leaders who have been otherwise supportive of American Presidents. In future crisis, he is unlikely to receive the support that Presidents have in the past.

In modern times, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, and George Bush all failed to win re-election. However, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush did. Thus, the history.

Let’s have a little historical perspective on the King Hearings in the House on radicalization of Muslims in America. Last century the Ku Klux Klan sponsored domestic terrorism and it recruited its members from mainly Christian churches. Our country dealt with this quaisi-Christian threat without going all anti-Christian; we can do the same thing with the quaisi-Muslim threat we face this century.

First step is to identify the problem and learn about it. Denying that we have one was not the answer last time. It only lengthened the scope of the KKK’s reach and power. Denying the problem of Muslim extremism will not work this century, too.

The King Hearings in the House are a necessary corrective to the culture of denial of the problem by the Obama Administration and too many of the Muslim community.

The Political Journal

http://poljournal.blogspot.com/