Legal Commentary

Beldar admits error on whether there's a constituency that favors Kadafi's survival

By Beldar

In my reactions to Pres. Obama's speech on Libya on Monday night, I disputed ? but didn't discuss at much length ? the president's assertion that that "[i]f we tried to overthrow Gaddafi by force, our coalition would splinter." My reaction was:

Not if you did your job properly. Not even the Arab League wants to see Kadafi left alive. What's making them nervous is the collateral damage from the airstrikes you're already doing, not concern for Kadafi.

In some lunchtime political debate Tuesday, I pointed out this line to a liberal friend as yet another example of dishonesty in Obama's speech. "There is no constituency for Kadafi's survival anymore, not anywhere," I insisted to my friend, "and there is simply no one who will be sorry to see him killed."

Later, driving away, I mentally footnoted that: "Except, maybe, for the grifters, thugs, mercenaries, sycophants, and (broadly defined, to its dirtiest outer limits) 'service industry' people, somewhere in the world, on whom Kadafi, if he survives, will continue spending those many tens of billions of dollars he's stashed. Those parasites would rather see him in a lengthy and profitable-for-themselves exile."

I now find that I was both wrong and right, at the same time.

Kadafi does indeed still have a constituency, someone willing to go to bat for him ? and it consists of Daniel Ortega and the Sandanistas from Nicaragua:

A former Nicaraguan leftist foreign minister who has been a sharp critic of U.S. governments will represent Libya at the United Nations after its delegate was denied a visa, Nicaragua said on Tuesday.

As governments and international bodies agreed to press on with a NATO-led aerial bombardment of Libyan forces, Nicaragua said Miguel D'Escoto Brockmann, who once called former U.S. President Ronald Reagan "the butcher of my people," would replace senior Libyan diplomat Ali Abdussalam Treki.

The government of leftist President Daniel Ortega, a former U.S. Cold War foe who has forged ties with Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, said it had sent a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to inform him of the decision.

The Nicaraguan government said in a statement that D'Escoto has flown to the U.N. headquarters in New York to "support our Libyan brothers in their diplomatic battle to enforce respect for its sovereignty.

Mind you, this D'Escoto is so incredibly steeped in international radicalism that even Reuters found it essential to begin pointing out his background in the lead paragraph of this news report.

As for Ortega, that murderous Fidel Castro wannabe, the last time he was discussed here on the pages of BeldarBlog was during the 2004 election, when I pointed out, as an example of John Kerry's extremely poor judgment, that he had believed, endorsed, and heavily promoted Ortega's false promises to reform his communist government in Nicaragua if only America would stop funding the Contras. Suffice it to say that it was only Ronald Reagan and Nicaragua's lack of massive oil resources that has prevented Ortega from becoming the same kind of tyrant as Kadafi himself.

So that's how I was wrong in my assertion there's no constituency for Kadafi's survival anywhere. How, then, was I simultaneously right? I'm saved by my mental footnote, and this report that "[t]he South American state [i.e., Nicaragua] has been identified as a potential safe haven for Gaddafi should he seek exile from Libya."

Brilliant! Kadafi's political constituency is also his graft constituency! Isn't it great when ideology and commerce work together so closely?

Obviously, however, I still think Obama's assertion ? that our coalition would shatter if we committed to taking out Kadafi by force ? was completely false. Whatever coalition Obama has managed to assemble, it's never included Daniel Ortega anyway, and it certainly ought not.

Full post as published by BeldarBlog on March 30, 2011 (boomark / email).