In Praise of Obama, Remember Bush.

President Obama deserves praise for acting on intel that led to locating and killing Osama Bin Laden.  That is what Presidents do as Commander-in-Chief.  They make decisions, sometimes right and sometimes wrong, with only the available intel and their gut feeling.  President Obama made a great decision based on overwhelming evidence gleaned over nearly 10 years, and it paid off in the successful operation that avenged 9/11 by executing its chief architect.

As new details emerge over the coming days and weeks, it will become increasingly clear that this operation's success hinged on key decisions made by two very different Presidents.  President Bush assured Americans and the world in the wake of 9/11 that America would bring al Qaeda and Bin Laden to justice.  He issued an Executive Order on 9/17/01 authorizing US troops and intel assets to assassinate Bin Laden.  Wanted: Dead or Alive was Bush's doctrine, and his later decision to capture terrorists as enemy combatants and hold them at Guantanamo was grounded in a strategy of ferreting out information about al Qaeda's leaders and their locations.  Take the fight to the terrorists and disrupt/destroy their infrastrructure.  Remove their safe havens.  Put them on the run or in hiding.

Interrogations at Gitmo produced the first-known references to a trusted Bin Laden courier.  Bush-Era Interrogations Provided Key Details on Bin Laden's Location - FoxNews.com Interrogations then led to further intel regarding the location in Pakistan where the trusted courier was operating.  Intel obtained during the Obama administration finally provided the courier's true name and facilitated surveillance and the remainder of the necessary details to launch this week's successful strike operation.  Clearly, without the information gleaned from Gitmo detainees through the interrogations so  harshly criticized by Obama and his party, Bin Laden would still be haunting America today, living in luxury, free to run his terror network behind the wilfully blind eyes of Pakistan's military, intelligence, and government.

President Obama's deliberateness in not acting on intel until the CIA was highly confident Bin Laden was at the Abbottabad compound seems to have been a blessing to this operation.  The decision to not share key intel about the planned operation with even our staunchest allies was also wise.  Although Andrea Mitchell and other media figures have mocked Bush by hinting that Obama got the "mission accomplished" celebration that Bush dreamed of, Obama's classy action to call Bush and Bill Clinton to tell them the good news before announcing it to the world was a recognition on his part that he could not have succeeded in finding and killing Bin Laden without the tireless fight carried on by Bush/Cheney and to a much lesser degree, Clinton.

It is time for Republicans to be generous in their praise for President Obama's handling of this matter, in which he has been more Presidential than at any time since being elected.  It is likewise time for Democrats to cease their derision and apoplectic hatred for George W. Bush, who made decisions based on available intel, launched a war on al Qaeda, authorized interrogations that made Obama's successful operation possible, yet receives only spite and irrational loathing for his efforts to protect America and its allies from vicious terrorists.  It took the best qualities of Bush and Obama to bring Bin Laden to justice.  The two Presidents can stand side by side, join hands, and raise them together in this important victory.  Both men also know that we won a battle, but not the war.  Yet.

Opportunity to Topple Gaddafi is Passing Quickly

It appears my optimism for a coalition of Western and Arab nations to jointly enforce a Libya no-fly zone was premature.  France and England are strongly urging action before Gaddafi's airstrikes cripple rebel forces and the opportunity to assist Libyans with their revolution is lost.  The Arab League supports the no-fly zone and is requesting that the UN Security Council move swiftly.  So far, movement has been glacial and the Obama administration may be squandering a chance to help Libyans remove a terrorist from leadership of a strategic North African nation, with the approval of virtually the entire Middle East.

The hesitancy from the Obama administration stems from its desire to not act without support from China and Russia, both of which have expressed concern or overt opposition to intervention in Libya.  China in particular is wary of seeing another successful overthrow of an oppressive government, as China seeks to quell any similar uprisings from its own people.

Ultimately the Obama administration will have to choose whether to displease it biggest creditor, China, or the Arab League, an entity with which the President hopes to establish an alliance for diplomatic, strategic, and economic reasons.  Given America's precarious debt situation and China's ability to exploit that to our detriment, it will take an act of courage for the President to defy China's warnings and act to assist Libyan rebels before the window of opportunity closes and Gaddafi crushes the revolutionary spirit of Libyans.

Flying Libya's Friendly Skies

After a week of waiting for the inevitable invitation, UN Security Council nations, led by European nations and the U.S., have finally been asked by the Arab League to establish a no-fly zone over Libya.  Rebel forces who have courageously taken, lost, and retaken strategic cities throughout Eastern Libya, have been hampered consistently by Gaddafi's air strikes.  Air superiority is essential to any eventual military victory, and Gaddafi's ability to pin down rebels and bomb their weapons depots was perhaps the only remaining obstacle to a successful rebel march on Tripoli and removal of Qaddafi from his decades long dictatorship.

Photo by Sky News

The UN and the Obama Administration have received ample criticism for, in the view of some, waiting far too long to intervene directly in the struggle between Libya's rebels and the Qaddafi government.  The rebels who led the revolution against one of the world's most ruthless dictators have been driven back and are in real danger of defeat if Qaddafi continues air strikes with impunity on rebel positions.  Some argue that the U.S. should have immediately sent aid to the rebels at the beginning of the revolutionary conflict, and imposed a no-fly zone weeks ago.  However, lessons learned from the removals of Saddam Hussein and the Taliban came into play in the decision to wait for a coalition in support of intervention.  An unusual coalition was needed; not simply a coalition of our usually reliable allies, but a coalition placing the UN Security Council nations and Arab League nations on the same side, supporting the rebel cause with united desire to see Qaddafi removed and the Libyan people choose new leadership.

The Arab League has reliable intelligence sources within Libya's rebel forces, and according to those sources, the situation is approaching desperation almost entirely due to Gaddafi's air superiority across the nation.  Successful ground wars depend on air support, and the rebels' ground war is stalling.  Having U.S. and Arab nation fighters working together to enforce the no-fly zone offers new opportunities for cooperation, respect, and achievement between vastly different cultures.  The U.S. could have intervened unilaterally weeks ago, and the move would have been applauded in America and in a handful of other allied nations.  However, the Arab world would have objected to our exercise of military prowess over a fellow Arab leader, even one as universally despised as Qaddafi.  Establishing a no-fly zone jointly with Arab partners is a good move militarily and diplomatically.

U.S. F-22s are already in position to begin operations once the coalition is assembled, and the days of Gaddafi's terrorism against his own people and the world, are numbered.  The world should expect desperate acts from Qaddafi in the final days of his dictatorial rule.  Whatever he has stockpiled, he will use.  He knows all too well that his fate will be no different than Saddam's if captured and tried by his own people.  He is unlikely to let that happen.  The no-fly zone will not only end aerial bombardments of rebel bases and supply lines, it will also end the possibility of Qaddafi escaping Libyan justice by air.  The noose is tightening, and a truly international coalition will soon create friendly skies over Libya for the first time in 40 years.  A man who funded and encouraged terror in the skies, including over Scotland, will soon find his world crashing down upon him from above once more.