AN ANVIL CHORUS OF HYPOCRISY
(by those who want to be seen as having….clean hands)

The members of Congress who are now yapping about how President Obama has improperly – gone to war – with Libya, are the same ones who, some weeks ago, were all clamoring for him to take the lead in getting the UN to impose a no-fly sanction on Gaddafi, and fuming about his hesitancy to decide whether to intervene….or not. The rest of the world is doing the same. Most of Europe, most of the UN (except for its Russian, Chinese, Hindu, and Brazilian members who have preferred to sit on their hands, from the safety of the sidelines), and even Gaddafi’s erstwhile Arab League brothers, all, screamed for intervention.

But what a difference a few weeks make. Now it’s an anvil chorus of hypocrisy by those who want to be seen as having….clean hands….talking out of both sides of their mouths at the same time! All because the reality of what –no fly- really means is….carnage and blood on the ground. And their motivations involved in this are less than honest. Here at home our career politicos are solely driven by how they might be perceived comes election time in 2012. The Europeans are mostly concerned with potential interruption of their oil supplies, if the conflict in Libya drags on. As for the Arab League, its motives are murkier; but, these are mainly aimed at trying to stay on the right side of the revolutionary tsunamis flooding over its members, all of whom are either too chicken, or militarily impotent(perhaps both) to do the job themselves. Of course, as usual, they’ve maneuvered America to do the dirty work for them.

Even more dishonest is the rationale for invoking such a no-fly sanction. Ostensibly it is a “humanitarian” effort….supposedly to protect the Libyan people from Gaddafi’s murderous intentions of revenge for having dared to rebel against him. The real reason, however, is everyone hopes that, somehow, it will get him bumped off in the process. So why does the world community hate his regime like that? What makes his any different in the way it is attempting to put down a revolt than, say, Yemen, Bahrain, Syria, or even Iran’s clamp down on protesters last year? Is it considered a different case because of Gaddafi’s displays of lunatic personality? It’s that lunatic factor which seems to offend the international community’s tender sensitivities about how one should put down a rebellion by folks who want to get rid of those who’ve been oppressing them for decades. Apparently watching a lunatic do that is more offensive, than watching sane and coldly calculating autocrats do the same thing. Whether you use planes, tanks, artillery, and mercenaries, to kill those who are rebelling against you, or, whether you use motorcycling, camel riding, or horseback charging, goons with clubs, guns, or machetes, the end result is still the same….folks end up dead and red with blood in the street.There is no difference.

Well, long ago in Saudi Arabia, as part of a mission to train and modernize its National Guard, I was invited for tea and a chat by a Palestinian political “commissar”(charged with making sure the young Palestinian training assistants and interpreters we were working with, were not corrupted by us from the official party line). He was convinced I was not just an ex-military officer doing a training mission, but a CIA plant of some sort. At one point in our tete a tete full of polite pleasantries and small talk, he posed this question to me: “Sir, what are your views about the Israeli-Palestinian situation?” Realizing this was a deliberately loaded question, but unfazed by it, my response was blunt and to the point (after all I was an old soldier….not a diplomat or spook): “Yours is a good question, but, as my late grandmother always told me….never intervene in family feuds…everyone will end up hating your guts for doing so. She was a wise old lady, don’t you think?”

His wry-grin at that ended our conversation….but I was never again invited to tea….which didn’t hurt my feelings too much since….I’m a dedicated coffee drinker.

CENTURION