Charlie Rose

ShalomFreedman  03/10/2011 12:22 PM Report

Leon Wieseltier makes the critical point that whether the U.S. intervenes or doesn't intervene it is involved, and held responsible. And this is simply because it is the one nation in the world who is most powerful militarily and has the means to intervene. So doing nothing and allowing Gaddaffi to use his air- force and mercenaries to mop the rebels up does not seem a very attractive option. On the other hand the no- fly zone may too prove ineffective and only delay a Gaddaffi victory over the rebel forces. If that is the case, then what are the U.S. and the international community to do next? No one wants to intervene on the ground.

It seems to me the U.S. should ground Gaddaffi's air- force. It can do this quite easily and without any real risk to American forces.

However what will come of this is not at all clear. The opposition may be thought of by us as passionate advocates of true democracy but this is probably our imagination at work.

There is no real good option, and no likely favorable outcome.

Welcome to Reality.

blank  03/10/2011 03:51 AM Report

i would go for a no fly zone but i wouldn't arm the people you can't have somebody dropping bombs on cities 2,500 people is a lot of people

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12695077

also

i watched jimmy kimmel live on the internet earlier i'm not going to start watching that show but charlie rose could interview Amanda Seyfried and Kim Kardashian

he could just ask them a bunch of really hard philosophical questions and leave them to answer live on air

i would want to watch that

http://www.ashastd.org/herpes/herpes_learn_oralherpes.cfm

http://www.emedicinehealth.com/oral_herpes/page8_em.htm

is just trying to make me develop a mental disorder

tired i stayed up too late i gotta go to sleep i've been trying to wake up at 6am everyday and i keep missing it

charlizecourriers  03/09/2011 04:26 PM Report

If may borrow David's crystal ball, I predict O'bama will institute a No Cry Zone, just as soon as he figures out what that means. We all know that this could be a Jimmy Carter 'rescue in the desert' moment for Brother Barry.It's just too scary (and likely,in his unconsciousness) for him to act. As this show has suggested, the reelection campaign has begun and no one wants to sabotage that campaign. Sorry, Libya! P.S. Another great meeting of the Good Democrats Club.

doodah  03/09/2011 01:06 PM Report

... If this experiment called, 'democracy' (or more accurately, Roman Empire on Steroids(modern-technology) is going to Continue to work. Then we better start caring about and promoting, 'Values'. The Values that built the foundation of the American Democracy. Or modern DC will become ancient Rome much sooner than later.

BUDDY ROEMER won't let that happen.

doodah  03/09/2011 12:29 PM Report

The question of what to do about this problem depends on what the facts are. What are the facts? None of these folks know, I doubt Brian Williams (or his lookalikes) knows (or really cares for that matter) (like real journalists WOULD or SHOULD). Hopefully the CIA (and it's lookalikes) would have a more thorough understanding of the situation; so the President can do the appropriate thing to keep investment of our foreign friends in our Debt.

Like it or not, we are the world's policeman, if we abandon that responsibility, the economy will most surely collapse, and then Armageddon. But our foreign investors, don't like to see stupidity either, so it would be smart not to do something stupid. So that rests with the intel, is it best to put forth the resources to help topple this clusterfuck of ants? or would it be like trying to ride a rutting horse?. The Buck Stops with the President.

One panelist did raise an interesting point, that the possibility that the President's name and ethnicity could possibly have something to do with 'giving confidence' to this secular revolution now taking place in the region ('secular revolution' as it is PRESENTED to us by the American media; so they too must brunt some responsibility as to the QUALITY of the Intel as they pertain to the FACTS. as they obviously affect public (and by default our investors) opinions.) Unless of course, the foreign journalists are better.?. Which is probably the case since they don't have a Hollyweird to distract them.

REMant  03/09/2011 11:36 AM Report

Let me say that I am as depressed by what is taking place in Libya as anyone else ought to be. But any action taken should be aimed at ending the fighting, not deciding whether the govt is just or who the winner should be, which is no one else's business, but theirs. The UN, NATO, UK, US, AU, what have you, have no mandate to make the world safe for democracy. If they did NO country or individual would be safe. Most likely we will either have to intervene decisively and completely, siding with one party against the other, or not at all, and we are probably fooling ourselves if we think we can do it without in fact wasting more lives in the process, being sure of siding with the right party, or that it will not degenerate into even more factionalism.

I do not at all see this uprising, as has been claimed repeatedly by those clamoring for yet another war to save humanity, being made by "THE PEOPLE," but at least Mr Wieseltier, The New Republic's "literary editor," disciple of Isaiah Berlin, friend of Joe Lieberman, and son of "Holocaust" survivors, but who, altho of age, seems to have not served during Vietnam, is clear about his supposition. He was a member of the "Committee for the Liberation of Iraq," (DC is chock full of lobbying groups such as these) however, the NYT Magazine quoted him in 2002: "Democracy in Iraq would be a blessing, but it cannot be the main objective for embarking on a major war...If there is one thing that liberalism has no time for, it's an eschatological mentality. There is no single, sudden end to injustice. There's slow, steady, fitful progress toward a more decent and democratic world...We will certainly win, but it is a war in which we are truly playing with fire."

I agree with Jessica Matthews, president of the Carnegie Endowment for Peace, that this has less to do with helping these particular little brown buddies, than with some (dare I say) "Progressive" egos. For a few it probably has to do with profits, and if the some Arab countries think intervention is a quid pro quo for oil, perhaps the world ought to rethink their relationship with them, too.

I saw Prof Slaughter giving the same spiel earlier yesterday. She did not graduate from college until Vietnam was long over, in the midst of Reagan's self-pity, Iran-Contra and support for what would become the Taliban. Troublesome is the fact that she undoubtedly knew the president at the Univ of Chicago law school, where they both taught, and until a few weeks ago was director of policy planning at the State Dept. She is also a director of the Council on Foreign Relations.

All this noise is exactly what we heard from supposed liberals during the run-up to Iraq and can be viewed in Bill Moyer's excellent documentary "Buying the War," http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/btw/watch.html But the main reason the rebels in Libya have not wanted our help is surely because of the mess we made there and in Afghanistan. Slaughter has, nevertheless, like Tony Blair, continued to defend it. No one, BTW, seems to be asking him or W about this.

Parenthetically, I see that she took it upon herself a few yrs ago to explain to us what American "values" are, sounding suspiciously like globalization and Reaganism, and part of yet another attempt at historical revision. I found a similar argument - that the American Revolution had no real values compared with the noble Egyptians - on the Al Jazeera website, (which, I am afraid, is fast losing its own). I reminded the author, who fancies himself an historian of the early republic, that the revolution was fought against the progressives and civilizers of the time, who have always been with the monarchy. It was fought by republicans, for free trade and fundamental justice, not either religious fundamentalists or liberals, both of whom sided with Britain. The appellation adopted by the contemporary Tea Party in the US is entirely apt. It was less a revolution, in fact, than a war of independence, and tho externally never really in doubt, even without the French, who, did, in fact, after their own revolution, look to hijack it and had to be repelled no less than the nation we had fought. Internally, however, it was a fight for hearts and minds seduced by imperialism. It took place a century or more after settlement, and it cannot be said the colonists had never known repression, as the author alleged. Certainly they had no representation in London. The planters had ample reason to feel aggrieved in business dealings or they would not have revolted, and the majority of them were opposed to the continuation of slavery, like George Washington, freeing their slaves, despite Samuel Johnson's armchair pontification. It was not slavery the parliament was upset with anyway, but money. As for his claim that war was then more civilized, the writer seemed to have forgotten the British prison ships, as well as, the fallen. In any case, we have, in the intervening two centuries, become a country which can pity ppls such as the Indians and Arabs, while at the same time systematically exterminating them. I'm not sure even the Civil War really had much of anything to do with the slavery it has so often been said to be about. Lincoln would have liked to have sent them all to Belize.

The president, of course, voted against Iraq, but the stand the Tea Party, et al, should take on this is simple: 1. The Constitution says the Senate declares war, not the president; and 2. that the House pays the bills for it. If the House does not want to pay for this adventure, it should not fund it, and if the president takes action without obtaining the Senate's explicit declaration of war, the House should draft articles of impeachment, and any other finagling brought to the Supreme Court.