Libya and American Exceptionalism

Obama's Libya speech was one of his better efforts. He rises to the occasion with foreign policy subjects, possibly because he doesn't have to hedge his bets. His domestic policy speeches generally have a "liberals believe X, conservatives believe Y, they're both somewhat right, so we'll do some of each," nature to them. Nothing wrong with that - the most memorable example was the whole "there is no red America and blue America, there is the United States of America!" from way back when.

I digress. His foreign policy speeches are usually more forceful "I believe X and this is why I am right." That's good too -- he's fairly persuasive and usually right. On Monday with Libya, the theme was American exceptionalism: the notion that America stands unique as a force for good in the world, and we have unique capabilities to stand up for freedom, self-determination, and the prevention of mass slaughters. Conservatives love American exceptionalism (although they generally think it means that Jesus loves America more than other countries, a pretty odd claim on a lot of levels) and liberals are fairly skeptical of it on the grounds that a) it makes us seem arrogant and b) we should focus on our own problems first, not go out solving everyone else's.

Anyway, the middle ground (I guess Obama did go middle ground again without saying it!) is that America should be humble and modest when it interacts with other countries, but we do fundamentally have the power to help those in need much more than almost any other nation - and under certain circumstances we should not hesitate to lend our aid, whether it be civil or military.  I think most people would agree with this - it's the justification for why we fought Hitler in World War II.  But taken too far in the wrong extreme you get situations like Iraq or Vietnam - wars that should never have been fought.  The other side of this is that the method of the fighting matters as well - Iraq I (Desert Storm) worked because our missions was just to push Saddam out of Kuweit; Iraq II failed because we occupied the entire country.

The point is, this shit is complicated. I am about 75% convinced that we should be involved in Libya helping the rebels fight the mad dog of Africa, Gaddafi. I'm not convinced we should be directly selling them weapons. And I'm disappointed that all of this has been done without congressional authorization - but that's really a critique of Congress at least as much as it is about Obama. So far, the war has been going well, but we need to be very cognizant not to get drawn too far into the conflict. I trust Obama's instincts of knowing when enough is enough - we'll see if he validates my trust. But this is one of those times that America should stand up for what is right.