Monday, March 28, 2011

Interests vs. Values

I happened to be driving home tonight during the President's scheduled address on Libya, so I tuned in courtesy satellite radio.  The speech was--of course--our President's way of informing us why he's decided to get the country involved in ISLAMOWAR III, except he took his sweet time getting around to telling us about it.

I heard nothing unexpected in the speech and I remain unconvinced we have any business being involved in the Libyan situation.  He tried hard to convince us all of the compelling national interests at stake in Libya, but he was not persuasive.

The one thing that made me wrinkle my nose a bit--and which I'll spend more time thinking about when I have the time--was the President's twice repeated statement of our willingness to fight for our interests "....and values".  Wow.  Kinda slipped that one by us, big guy.  We're gonna fight for our values now too?  Not just our interests?  I'm ok with the concept of the President using his CINC power to pursue our interests--largely because I don't think we have a better option.  But letting the President go to war to pursue and protect our "values"?  Which values?  All of them, or just a few of the biggies? 

Seems to me that this little humdinger carries with it the opportunity for more mischief than any of us care to think about.

1 comment:

"The Hammer" said...

You shake the tree and you had damned well better know where the leaves will fall. This guy is flying by the seat of his pants without a clue as to the ramifications of his actions. I've seen it all before with jimmy Carter's Middle East "policy". We could very well end up buying our oil from Hamas/Hezbolah/Al-Qaeda, take your pick.

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