A Sartorial Genius of Our Time

--MQ's 2007 Palace of Versailles visit

________________________

Not to be snide at all -- because Qadhafi's fate was an abomination -- and most Middle East countries still need a strongman, IMHO.

But a couple of years back Vanity Fair offered a tour of some of the more spectacular looks Mr. Qadhafi rocked over the years while "completing his transition from international pariah to statesman" in "Colonel Qaddafi—A Life in Fashion." The text accompanying the photos is also precious (esp. accompanying slide #12, which is left for you to discover).

Per the above aviator look, one imagines Top Gun had some influence. Not that George W. Bush did not look equally foolish on that flight deck in the flight suit, and just about as credible.

What we don't admit to is, we are every bit the saps for a good uniform that the Arab world is. For us, Mr. Obama's Hart Schaffner Marx impresses; for the Libyans, an 8-line ribbon board with lots of shiny stars thrown in for good measure does the trick. Wait -- maybe that's us, too?

"All that’s missing from the signing of the official guest book during the colonel’s December 2007 visit to the Palace of Versailles are aviator goggles. The Snoopy hat and leather bomber jacket raise the questions: Where does this extraordinary individual get the ideas for his wardrobe? Does he have a team of designers back in Tripoli, working up the hundreds of bizarre looks required of a world leader on official business? What gave him the idea that a fur trapper’s hat was right for this moment in the home of the Bourbon dynasty?"

Doesn't Mean That Much to Me

--Stolen valor, anyone?
SOCNET would have a field day busting
Muommar Qaddafi

I been talkin' to playwriters
I been workin' on words, phrases
--Running Back to Saskatoon, Guess Who

The good life was so elusive
Handouts, they got me down
I had to regain my confidence
So I got into camouflage
--I Love a Man in a Uniform,
Gang of Four

But we've got to verify it legally, to see
If she is morally, ethic'lly
Spiritually, physically
Positively, absolutely
Undeniably and reliably Dead
--Ding, Dong, the Witch is Dead,
Wizard of Oz (1939)
___________________

Every time another story is spun on the Arab Spring, I am disgusted anew that the U.S. has wasted so much time and money for nothing to benefit ourselves, and possibly nobody else, either. (Aside from war contractors, that is.) Ten years wasted, and much pain wrought upon our own heads, not to mention others.

The leveling of our society is almost complete. First, they did in our schools with mainstreaming. Next came the corruption and dumbing down of entertainment and media. Now, the U.S. sits in thrall to events worlds away in time and space, their energy which should be placed into local issues dissipated in a flurry of much too many helter-skelter streaming media feeds.

It saddens me knowing my country is a dupe and has paid dearly for one side of the nutters to kill the other, having their snapshots taken near the iced, bullet-riddled body like some cheery Japanese tourists:

"In Misrata, residents crowded into long lines to get a chance to view the body of Gadhafi, which was laid out on a mattress on the floor of an emptied-out vegetable and onions freezer at a local shopping center.

. . .

"Men, women and children filed in to take their picture with the body. The site's guards had even organized separate visiting hours for families and single men." (Gadhafi Put on Display in Shopping Center Freezer.)

Libya's leader Qaddafi was killed in a most brutal fashion by a power-hungry mob of dissidents, yet Secretary of State Clinton heralds the barbarity as "[bringing] to a close a very unfortunate chapter in Libya's history, but it also marks the start of a new era for the Libyan people ..." How does Clinton know that?

"For the millions of Arabs yearning for freedom, democracy and new leadership, the death of one of the region's most brutal dictators will likely inspire and invigorate the movement for change." They summarily executed their nation's leader and are pumping meat cleavers in the air -- that is unlike any democracy I know. But it's pretty to think so.

Britain's defense secretary, Philip Hammond, said the Libyan revolutionaries' image had been "a little bit stained" by Gadhafi's violent death. Both he and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said a full investigation is necessary.

The head of the National Transitional Council, Mustafa Abdul-Jalil said Islamic Sharia law would be the "basic source" of legislation, and that existing laws that contradict the teachings of Islam would be nullified (Libya Declared Free).

So the mumblecore is, the new leaders' integrity is "a little bit stained". Well, thank Allah and the US they're free to oppress again in the spanky new Theological Republic of Libya.

Instead of discussing the implications of his murder, we are treated to news that Qadhafi's executioners tore off his toupee, and told he often looked like a comical buffoon (Arab strongman: With Gadhafi death, an era passes.) DUH? The press offers entertainment as commentary, mentioning his vanity until the end -- but what leader does not want to look good, and we have had our own share of "comical buffoons".

If our infotainment sector can be said to be more directional than a paramecium, there was some pretty good pre-planning here, collusive with our government's intent. There were articles predating the "uprising" by months of Qadhafi's feebleness, and his reliance upon his retinue of young female assistants. One coup interview was with one of his Ukranian nurses, spilling the goods on her erstwhile benefactor.

The press did not so much focus upon the relatively good state of women's right in Libya under Qaddhafi, something we like trumpet as a cause in Iraq and Afghanistan. After all of this time grooming Qadhafi as a world citizen, would it not have been less costly and destructive to have assisted on the negotiating side, rather than the inflammatory bombing side? It seems only when one becomes old and weak -- comical -- that we descend like vultures. Reverence for age (among other things) is something we lack.

Gadhafi's death proves one thing: The biggest brute wins, for the moment. Oh, and money is essential. Yet again, the U.S. forks it over, having spent several Billion dollars aiding this group of brigands to murder the last. Why the U.S. is in the business of facilitating the ouster of sitting rulers is an unanswered question.

Qaddafi was a brutal dictator, no doubt, typical of the stripe the Middle East is wont to create. But the U.S. or any nation cannot change the people in whom this spirit is indwelling. So Libya has gone from one monster, somewhat contained, to a metastacized new group of monsters -- why would that please anyone?

Libyans are wallowing in an orgy of blood. Meanwhile, where are my well-paved roads and all the other niceties and necessities fast-evaporating from my western nation.

*** PLEASE VOTE! ***
RAW is neck and neck in two categories
in THE RUNOFF BELOW:

[cross-posted @ BigBrassBlog]

NATO Nonsense

--Free Ride, Paresh Nath (UAE)

Make yourself a mule,
and someone will ride you
--Carl Sandburg
__________________

U.S. Department of Defense Secretary Robert Gates accused NATO of "collective military irrelevance" in a recent speech in Brussels, a long-time stance of RangerAgainstWar.

NATO has been superannuated since the fall of the Soviet Union, and was irrelevant in the 1970's and 80's -- it has always been a legerdemain foisted upon the American taxpayer.

From The Week's "Putting NATO in its Place":

"(fr. Madrid's El Mundo): The European countries (who else would be in Nato?) have slashed their defense budgets, with the result that, while the U.S. used to count for half of Nato's funding, it now makes up 75%. ... Only 4 of Nato's other 27 members spend 2% of their GDP on defense, as required by the treaty." [Pablo Pardo's report can be read @ "The UN, NATO and Nuclear Weapons".]

George Will recently wrote that the Libya imbroglio "is igniting a reassessment of NATO, a Potemkin alliance whose primary use these days is perverse: It provides a patina of multilateralism to U.S. military interventions on which Europe is essentially a free rider" (Libya and the Potemkin Alliance). Will suggests that some legislators are awakening to their job, in the face of Obama's disingenuous assertion that the U.S.'s involvement in Libya does not constitute a war. Fellow WaPo columnist Eugene Robinson asked poignantly in "Obama's Novel Definition of "Hostilities":

"The advent of robotic drone aircraft makes it easier to wage war without suffering casualties. But without risk, can military action even be called war? Or is it really just slaughter?"

This is a question that demands an answer.

There is no discernable military threat to the European conglomerate, so WHY is there still a NATO structure sans a threat? From Saudi Arabia's Arab News ("End of NATO?"):

"What will it take for the West to face the reality that the Cold War is over and the NATO is long past its sell-by date? It might have had its uses and played its role in checking communism. But it’s time to give it a decent burial. If the world needs an international peace keeping force to deal with trouble spots like Libya, it should exist under the UN command. "

In addition, NATO's activities should be clearly defined. For instance, it is spurious to label NATO's actions in Libya Peacekeeping (PKO) since PKO's are supposed to be neutral and humanitarian in nature. The Libyan venture is an undeclared war of aggression, plain and simple.

Now, after a NATO airstrike killed 9 civilians this weekend, Moammer Gaddafi now calls for Global Jihad against the U.S. and the West. Twenty years of grooming "the madman", down the drain. Faint traces of another fouled up "intervention" termed success waft by . . .

"Heckuva job, Brownie."


[cross-posted @ milpub.]

A Country for Old Fools

--Hanoi Hillary?

"Is that a Chevy '69?"
How bizarre, How bizarre
--How Bizarre, OMC

For my military knowledge,

though I'm plucky and adventury,

Has only been brought down to the beginning of the century;

But still, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,

I am the very model of a modern Major-General

--The Major-General's Song, Pirates of Penzance

--How'd you sleep?

--I don't know. Had dreams.

--Well you got time for 'em now.

Anythin' interesting?

--They always is to the party concerned.

--No Country for Old Men (1987)

____________________

Last night my nightmares returned me to the Vietnam War. Since time had regressed, Hillary had taken Jane Fonda's position, this time on a Libyan anti-aircraft gun, goofily looking through the sights as her assistant gunner John McCain prepared to feed rounds into the piece.

How much more bizarre does a nightmare get? Fonda was called a dupe and a traitor for supporting the Viet Cong's right to overthrow the Saigon puppet regime, yet McCain has now supplanted her in supporting his heroes, who happen to be the equivalent of his former enemy, Victor Charlie (Sen. John McCain says rebels fighting Gadhafi troops are his heroes during visit to east Libya).

The Libyan rebels and the VC are the same critter: They lack legitimacy, are not in accordance with the laws of their respective governments and are in open rebellion. Does McCain see the high irony of opposing the rebels in Vietnam War yet heralding their moral equivalent as heroes in Libya?

Neither McCain, Clinton nor O-bomb-a can clearly explain why it is incorrect for Moammer Qaddafi's troops and loyalists to attack and kill rebels, while at the same time supporting the "rebels" for doing likewise to Qaddafi & Co. Where is the sense, especially when a cash-strapped America must get the operational funds to do so at a Chinese Title & Pawn Shop?

In a word, McCain has once again pulled a flip-flop. McCain was bombing the folks of North Vietnam because they were supporting the rebels of South Vietnam. Now, he has done an about-face.

As for Clinton, it is equally difficult to understand her warmonger stance as a former Flower Child of the 60's. Clinton was the picture of a liberal intellectual, so how did she end up taking Jane's seat supporting the rebels?

Ranger wonders why Ms. Fonda keeps her mouth shut these days. Where is her outrage at the U.S. actions in Iraq and Afghanistan? Where is any outrage for that matter?

Keeping Mum

I'm a mummer, you're Moammer,
wouldn't you like to be a mummer, too?
--Possible North Atlantic Counsel recruitment jingle
for The Libya Show
(stolen from the Dr. Pepper commercials of yore)

As I rained blows upon him,
I realized there has to be a better way.
--George Costanza (Seinfeld)

Are you president of the United States,
or president of the world
--Ali Abdullah Saleh, to Obama
__________________

Sorry, I just don't get it. The U.S. is for militants (in Libya), except when we're not (in Iraq and Afghanistan):

US likely to keep combat role after Libya shift (AP)

AP - U.S. warplanes will keep flying strike missions over Libya even after the U.S. relinquishes the lead command role to NATO as early as this weekend in the fight against Moammar Gadhafi's forces, the Pentagon indicated Thursday.

In addition to bombing yet a third country in a decade, the U.S. via its NATO affiliation is soon to enforce a "no-drive" zone upon Moammer, to be known as DWM (Driving While Moammer):

NATO also agreed to launch military planning for a broader mandate, including a "no-drive" zone that would prevent Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's armor and artillery from moving against rebels his forces had been routing before the coalition's air assault began late last week. The North Atlantic Council is scheduled to meet on Sunday to consider the plans (NATO takes command of part of Libya operation.)

And what's with the new spelling, "Gadhafi"? The guy's only been running Libya for how many decades, and we still don't know how to spell his name? The U.S. and its military are acting like a bunch of loose cannons.

How can we keep the faith when we don't even know what it is?