"Never modest about himself, Obama is supremely modest about his country. Yet at a time when the world is hungry for America to lead -- no one has anything near our capabilities, experience and resources -- America is led by a man determined that it should not. A man who dithers over parchment."
The NYT's Certainty
The New York Times, another newspaper with strong neocon tendencies, has taken the case for regime change in Libya into its news columns, as it did regarding Iraq in 2002-03 when the Times acted as a conveyor belt for the Bush administration's propaganda about Iraq's non-existent WMD.
This time, the Times has reported as flat fact that Gaddafi's regime orchestrated the 1988 bombing of Pan Am 103 -- a conventional wisdom that is now repeated across the U.S. media spectrum despite the many holes in the 2001 conviction of Libyan intelligence agent Ali al-Megrahi. [For details, see Consortiumnews.com's "Through the US Media Lens Darkly."]
This combination of ignorance about the internal politics of Libya (i.e. who are the rebels?) and the misplaced certainty of the U.S. press corps about another designated villain (Pan Am 103 terrorist mastermind Gaddafi) has set the stage for a potential repeat of the Iraq disaster.
In Iraq, it turned out that Saddam Hussein, who had destroyed his stockpiles of WMD, was serving as a bulwark against both al-Qaeda-style terrorism and Iranian influence. His removal advanced both Islamic terrorist movements across the region and Iran's power in the Persian Gulf.
Now, the neocons are baiting Obama into a wider war to overthrow Gaddafi. But they appear as ill-informed about the possible consequences in Libya as they did in Iraq:
If the "rebels" are influenced or controlled by al-Qaeda-style terrorists, would they inflict massacres of Gaddafi's supporters, thus flipping the notion of a humanitarian intervention?
Would a rebel victory give the Islamic terror groups of eastern Libya a foothold in or possible control of the whole country and its oil wealth?
Would the prospect of an al-Qaeda affiliate in charge of a strategically placed Arab country require the United States to commit ground troops to the conflict to prevent an outcome that the U.S. intervention had unintentionally caused?
Over the past several decades as the neocons have grown in influence inside the U.S. political/media circles, one of their consistent characteristics has been to advocate wars against perceived "enemies" in the Muslim world.
But the neocons' lack of realism -- and their enthusiasm to do whatever they think might be helpful to Israel -- have often made them the classic sorcerer's apprentice, stirring up trouble that grows worse and worse without knowing how to bring the chaos under control.
Yet, despite their war-mongering incompetence, the neocons have one great strength: they are clever enough -- and well-connected enough -- to block any accountability. Even when their policies go horribly wrong, they can simply reframe the narrative to make themselves out to be the smart ones.
Until their ability to rewrite the history is countered, the neocons can be expected to continue leading the United States into disaster after disaster.
[For other examples of how neocons shape the narrative, see Consortiumnews.com's "Inside America's "Adjustment Bureau.'"]
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