Stop Me Before I Vote Again

i'd bet against a spin off

why bother ???

col Q is lunch meat

why carve the place up ???

col Q is lunch meat

his tanks "target fun"

review the Saddam tank turkey shoot in 1991

now the Egyptian supreme command
is arming the rebels

Maybe: parts of Libya are useless to extraction regimes and the HQs in the various bourse cities of the Core. Partitioning Libya into a EU/US friendly extraction zone and an permanent testing ground for "anti-terror" activities makes sense, from Empire's vantage.

And the CIA never had a hand in the initial stages of the lemon revolution? Or in the policy choices of the Egyptian supreme rendition command, recipients of most of $2 billion per year US aide since Sadat went to Jerusalem?

The way the shoo fly zone was agreed and implemented, e.g. no congressional input required, is more evidence, were it needed, that Obassanova is more powerful than his predecessor.

Any advice to Col. Godawful, wise ones? Should he accept that he will die soon and attack Sicily with his remaining air force? It is out of the zone after all, and it might be instructive about the actual state of Nato air defenses. They can dish it out, but can they take it?

Arab League criticizes allied airstrikes on Libya
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iRRC-Ij_xoxpHpSxJd-LVDd1JHXQ?docId=999067b967b7412c83d7cce7921da560

"Amr Moussa says the military operations have gone beyond what the Arab League backed.
Moussa has told reporters Sunday that "what happened differs from the no-fly zone objectives." He says "what we want is civilians' protection not shelling more civilians.""

Someone must have forgotten to tell him how this cruise missile liberalism thing works.

I'm just a playright, not a theorist, so help me with this: why did Germany abstain, why did Sarkozy take the lead (with Britain until someone told Cameron to back off), why did Obama promise no ground forces (risking re-election if things change later), how is a partitioned Libya going to become stable without foreign troops, and who is going to provide them? Can we at least say that the imperial consensus moves clumsily while individual members figure out their interests and political liabilities?

Sen,

Is the point of a partitioned Libya "stability"? Iraq and Afghanistan are unstable, and that seems to suit the boni, no?

They are currently doing their damnedest to destabilize Yemen and Pakistan, too.

I see: permanent crisis requires military presence everywhere. Military presence everywhere gradually becomes tolerable to brain-numbed electorate, as words like "commitments" (used by retired general on CNN this AM) make aggression sound compatible with democratic values.

Still digesting all the news out of Libya vis-a-vis Obummer's hypocrisy vis-a-vis Saudi arms sales and Bahrain so I can come up with some decent cartoons, so... no comment, other than my favorite old Fugs song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7VQVzMR4Rs

That is all.

Mike, a story on a pro-democracy activist you might find of interest.

"Partitioning Libya into a EU/US friendly extraction zone and an permanent testing ground for "anti-terror" activities makes sense, from Empire's vantage.....Iraq and Afghanistan are unstable, and that seems to suit the boni, no?"

????????????

Need more than that, Anon. What's the question?

The tribes themselves might want to partition the country. Remember they had no say so in the drawing of the modern map. Don't forget they asked for help in stopping Qadaffi.

Libya divided into Leaded Republic and Unleaded Kingdom might work

Crispin' Libyans Sartwell update:

I was gonna write a post about this, but I don't want to degrade Father Smith's spot with too much more about this nincompoop. Still, I can't let this pass without comment:

http://eyeofthestorm.blogs.com/eye_of_the_storm/2011/03/there-hundreds-of-supporters-offered-themselves-up-as-human-shields-cheering-to-newly-minted-dance-songs-about-their-adorat.html

I guess that settles it, eh Oxtrot?

I mean, "surely every decent person wants to gaddafi deleted from the species?"

No. Surely every decent person doesn't want to see anyone "deleted from the species" -- even moral monsters like Tony Blair, Michael Ignatieff and Crispin Sartwell. I'm guessing that's the basis upon which most non-belligerents oppose the death penalty.

"...that doesn't mean that obama is the moral equivalent of gaddafi, or that it isn't admirable for sarkozy, problematic though he is on many grounds, to assemble a coalition to bitch-slap that motherfucker."

Now, in my earlier post I had associated the term "Air Strike Anarchist" with Mr. Sartwell. I take that back. I may have some differences with anarchists, but, credit where credit is due, their opposition to warmongering is admirable, and every other anarchist I know of has come out against the invasion of Libya. Clearly this is just one guy who derives his world view not from Bukharin or Proudhon, but from close readings of Frank Miller's graphic novels and extended viewing of CNN.

I don't know why you are directing a rhetorical question to me, FB, when you are quoting Sartwell.

You'd be wiser to engage him directly at his blog.

That's the sloppiest presentation of the wrong fly I've ever seen. And I'm an eager cutthroat, not a wily old brown.

Clue: I do not support a roast-and-toast foreign policy, and I haven't the slightest clue where you'd get the idea that I do otherwise.

And if there was some secret-handshake-joke I was supposed to get? Sorry, apparently I'm not clever or "insider" enough for that one.

Oxtrot,

I'm referring to this:

"Did Prof Crispy say he wanted to kill people? or is that being inferred from a perhaps arch/sarcastic post?

Posted by CF Oxtrot | March 2, 2011 6:34 PM"

Not implying that you support the air strikes in Libya (see the last paragraph of my comment)

I'm not able to answer for him on what he intends, whether he's being sarcastic, arch, ironic, hyperbolic.... I don't know.

I don't think you know either. I think only he knows. Which is why I say it's best to engage him at his blog, rather than triangulating here with me as an involuntary proxy.

On the tangential field where I can offer some ideas:

I don't think Sartwell is the official spokesperson for anarchic perspectives of any variant but his own.

Whether he would choose to use an aggressive, intrusive, militaristic, murderous invasion of another's lands is obviously a personal issue of his and not a tenet of anarchism.

I'd hope anyone commenting on anarchism would at least inquire into it further than the colloquial equation with murder and mayhem.

I'd also hope anyone commenting on Sartwell by projecting a predicted stance would first acquaint him/herself with what Sartwell has written on anarchism, on his take on its utility, and on his own preferences for foreign matters and where they affect his stance on government-or-not.

I'm pretty sure context is important when trying to discern content and motive.

FB, read the Sartwell link. Same shit, different war. Amazing how even self-proclaimed radicals line up behind power, isn't it? I got flashbacks to 2002-03 reading that post.

I got flashbacks to 2002-03 reading that post.

Yeah. Amazing that he doesn't even bother to argue it. Fortunately he seems to be very much in the minority.

I wonder where Michael Berube is these days.

I'm not sensing any ambiguity or irony in Sartwell's statements. They're unambiguously stupid and evil.

They're unambiguously stupid and evil.

I wouldn't go that far. I actually think he means well. I certainly don't have any moral qualms with wanting to 'delete' Qadaffi. It's the gullible common cause with Empire that bugs me.

I think this situation is different enough from some of the recent predecessors that people with good intentions could conceivably support this intervention. They're wrong, but I don't think they're necessarily evil.

It's easy to win "arguments" when your "opponent" is a hologram.

Yeah... it's a hologram, all right:

http://eyeofthestorm.blogs.com/eye_of_the_storm/2011/03/i-take-all-these-objections-and-positions-on-libya-seriously-let-me-say-i-realize-that-there-are-incredibly-difficult-quest.html

http://eyeofthestorm.blogs.com/eye_of_the_storm/2011/03/watching-arwa-damons-amazing-reporting-for-cnn-from-bengazi-alright-on-saturday-the-libyan-army-rolled-into-town-in-tanks-w.html

http://eyeofthestorm.blogs.com/eye_of_the_storm/2011/03/ok-ill-try-i-admit-we-have-no-idea-how-this-is-going-to-turn-out-i-do-not-know-how-this-is-going-to-turn-out-but-i-think.html

I'm not sure what purpose your radical doubt regarding the meaning of his statements serves.

In the future, I'll be sure to fire off an email to Larry Summers to be certain that I'm interpreting him correctly before criticizing. I'm sure that MJS will also pop by Melissa Gittingswell-Dundstrom's office hours to make sure her whole career isn't performance art before mocking her.

Yeah... it's a hologram, all right:

http://eyeofthestorm.blogs.com/eye_of_the_storm/2011/03/i-take-all-these-objections-and-positions-on-libya-seriously-let-me-say-i-realize-that-there-are-incredibly-difficult-quest.html

http://eyeofthestorm.blogs.com/eye_of_the_storm/2011/03/ok-ill-try-i-admit-we-have-no-idea-how-this-is-going-to-turn-out-i-do-not-know-how-this-is-going-to-turn-out-but-i-think.html

I'm not sure what purpose your radical doubt regarding the meaning of his statements serves.

In the future, I'll be sure to fire off an email to Larry Summers to be certain that I'm interpreting him correctly before criticizing. I'm sure that MJS will also pop by Melissa Gittingswell-Dundstrom's office hours to make sure her whole career isn't performance art before mocking her.

http://www.counterpunch.org/patrick03212011.html

a most sensible piece
by a less decorative
more empirick cockburn

Who is the goddamn 'we' they're talking about on crispin's blog?

The Good Guys... duh. He saw it on TV

http://eyeofthestorm.blogs.com/eye_of_the_storm/2011/03/watching-arwa-damons-amazing-reporting-for-cnn-from-bengazi-alright-on-saturday-the-libyan-army-rolled-into-town-in-tanks-w.html

So, a person can't post things at his own blog for the mere provocation of discussion/argument?

Everything stated on a person's blog is a point-blank, no-questions-asked assertion of an immobile personal stance? A fixed position? One fully supported with every fiber of one's existence?

Advocating for the devil, that's not possible?

Wow. Kinda hard to imagine yourself a thinker when you don't allow for thinking, isn't it?

Go, "moralist." GO!

Also, to Mr Bethune:

Where have you found an explanation in Sartwell's published works -- books, I mean -- for this stance you're attacking?

Have you?

Have you found anything but what you read into his blog posts?

When I suggested not using Sartwell as an examplar of the Bethune-imagined limitations of anarchism, I was talking about this theme of misunderstanding because of projection.

Seems you don't want to get into that, and would rather ignore the possibility that it's what's really going on here, rather than Bethune picking apart Sartwell's stated points on Anarchism.

Gosh. It almost makes you look... childish.

"Make no mistake. This war is about oil. Plain and simple......The conflict is also tribal..Libya could well become a new Somalia..."

fairly representative gibberish
as far as i can tell

seems obvious
not one of those three propositions
holds up very well in its present form
least of all lumped into one complex of propositions

what's delightful
is the use of GWOT reflexes
to back up the opener round
of
" oh the innnocent humanity"

if the notion is
"uncle needs to finish off col Q
the riff is usually along the lines of
"a splintered anarchistan stalemate
is any good terrorists'
favorite host country

or

col Q left in place in a rump state
will welcome
to his fragment
terroristical free booters by thhe short ton

yup

colQ needs to be Saddamized

this delightful zanny tyrant
will be missed

btw
note those "reporters" from tripoli

seems the vogue leader of the maghred
has a keen sense of the useful role
of the unspiked western media

let em in
let em chatter
let em refute the massacre claims

with the western mainframe media on the scene
certainly the free ranging press
can establish

---if
as it seems
this is the case ---

the col hasn't gone
on a butcher boy romp

ever since he was warned not to
col Q seems to have deiced
NOT to tempt his betters
with a string of self indulgent atrocities

despite repeated claims from the rebels
we've not seen atrocities
certified in reconquered areas ..yet
or in the capital

unlike those that accompanied
nato's clever
yugo-shatter circa 199x

No one can ever say that Oxtrot isn't loyal to his pals, well beyond the point of absurdity.

Sartwell isn't a "pal" and I'm not "loyal to" him.

Where have I defended his take on Libya?

uh huh.

FB is the worst flycaster I've ever watched. Too much wrist.