Barack Obama on US Military: available for “being volunteered by others.”

By: Moe Lane (Diary)  |  March 29th at 10:00 AM  | 

I believe that this qualifies as a “Kinsley gaffe:” which is to say, a politician accidentally telling the truth.  Background: this was from a press conference where the President was trying to explain why his foreign policy was such an improvement over georgewbushgeorgewbushgeorgewbush’s, despite the fact that it lacks a coherent conceptual framework, an overall philosophy, a clear set of objectives, and any sort of | Read More »

Mickey Kaus, Barack Obama, and ‘Humanitarian Imperialism.’

By: Moe Lane (Diary)  |  March 28th at 11:00 AM  | 

“Humanitarian imperialism” is the phrase Mickey’s come up with to describe Whatever The Heck It Is We’re Doing These Days In Eurasia, and it’s a good one.  It’s also one that implies a constant, low-level state of war that goes a good deal beyond the one that we’re in now; and I should make a distinction here between the Bush and the (unstated) Obama Doctrines.  | Read More »

President Obama defended by John Yoo.

By: Moe Lane (Diary)  |  March 26th at 04:00 PM  | 

In some ways, John Yoo’s argument (“Antiwar Senator, War-Powers President“) is almost… superfluous.  The basic point is straightforward enough: President Obama, just like every other President since 1973, has come to the conclusion that the War Powers Act is in fact an unconstitutional and onerous restriction on the executive branch’s constitutionally mandated oversight of military affairs.  This conclusion follows the usual evolutionary arc: as Yoo | Read More »

I don’t know *what* my opinion is on the Libya situation.

By: Moe Lane (Diary)  |  March 22nd at 10:30 AM  | 

You want to know why?  It’s because I don’t know what the heck it is that we’re doing in Libya right now.  Are we toppling the government? Are we setting up an effective partition of the country?  Are we acting? Reacting?  Is there an actual plan, or are we just making this up as we go along?  And not only do I not know: neither | Read More »

Where’s the antiwar movement?

By: Moe Lane (Diary)  |  March 21st at 11:30 AM  | 

Below I’m going to answer some questions asked by the Brittanica Blog (via Instapundit), in the order that they were given at the end of a blog post.  To give the background, the author of said blog post has noticed something that the rest of you knew already: based on recent events, the Democratic party never really gave a tinker’s dam about the Iraq War | Read More »

Darned *straight*, Glenn.

By: Moe Lane (Diary)  |  March 20th at 08:00 AM  | 

People like Andrew Sullivan were dumb rubes to actually believe that any functional candidate for President would actually believe in the progressive anti-war strategy (let alone implement it, once they were in office), and you told them so.  Heck, I told them so – admittedly, when I wrote that it was before the financial meltdown turned what had been a moderately tough election campaign cycle | Read More »

Qaddafi reminded who the weak horse is after all?

By: Moe Lane (Diary)  |  March 18th at 09:30 AM  | 

So.  Now that the UN has authorized a no-fly zone in Libya – which is another way of saying that we have decided to create a no-fly (and no-drive) zone in Libya, using the UN for cover – it’s being reported that the Qaddafi regime has immediately declared a cease-fire.  As Glenn Reynolds put it: “Blink.” If true: well, we should have done this a | Read More »

Barack Herbert Walker Obama?

By: Moe Lane (Diary)  |  March 14th at 10:30 AM  | 

Michael Totten reminds us that if Qaddafi wins in Libya after all, it’s not without precedent.  Specifically, the precedent of Saddam Hussein, post-Gulf War I.  Back then we were all “wouldn’t it be great if the dictator fell?”, too- and back then we pretty much sat around and did nothing printable while the dictator went around smashing the opposition back down into the ground*.  Which | Read More »

Libyans shopped around for favorable Lockerbie diagnosis?

By: Moe Lane (Diary)  |  September 8th at 03:48 PM  | 

I was looking for a palate cleanser, I swear.  Something nice and non-political.  Relaxing.  But Fark Geek had to spoil it for me: Libya paid doctors who said Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Al Megrahi had three months to live The Libyan government paid British doctors for medical advice which could have helped bring about the release of the Lockerbie bomber. Cancer specialist Karol Sikora and two | Read More »

Release the Scottish Lockerbie Letters!

By: Moe Lane (Diary)  |  September 2nd at 10:30 AM  | 

Come, I will conceal nothing from you: when I first read Gateway Pundit’s post that the Obama administration was in contact in June with the Scottish government over the Lockerbie bomber, I ended up shrugging.  The Boston Globe’s article suggested that AG Eric Holder was arguing against letting Abdel Baset al-Megrahi go, after all – which was what you’d want the American government to do.  | Read More »

Sometimes, I miss Tony Blair.

By: Moe Lane (Diary)  |  August 29th at 09:08 PM  | 

Say what you like about the man – and there is quite a lot to say about him – but he and his government had precisely zero interest in letting the Lockerbie bomber walk free under the open sky. Even if doing so might have meant holding up an important oil deal: During Blair’s 2007 visit, BP signed its exploration deal with Libya’s National Oil | Read More »