Obama is losing me…

“No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.”
—James Madison, 1795

Apparently we are supposed to live in a perpetual state of war and like it. I don’t like it.
What is it with the last two guys leading the “free world?” Is President Barack Obama really taking a page out of George W. Bush’s memoir? Did he really not ask members of Congress before heading into a new war in northern Africa? Genius. Is someone infiltrating the water in the White House with a dumb pill? Has one of the most calculated, studious politicians in America not learned from really recent history? Is my head going to explode now or later?
So I heard over the last weekend that “we” started firing missiles into Libya. We essentially are beginning another nebulous war. We have a couple of those going on already. Things are exploding, people are dying and “we” apparently are flexing our military muscle that has brought so much good to the country over the last eight years. Genius. Are you kidding me?
I learned of the news that U.S. planes and Tomahawk missiles were flying into Libya as I watched the local Crested Butte 11 and 12-year-olds battling on the ice on their way to a state hockey championship. Just the idea that Obama may have jumped into a fight that could have those same kids battling in another hellish country rich in oil and sand six or seven years from now makes my stomach turn. Add to the fact that I have two boys older than those Peewee hockey players and Obama’s decision makes me want to puke.
Because “we” spend almost more than the entire rest of the world on military endeavors, does that give us the right or the obligation to use it? That is a philosophical and moral question. If U.S. drones flying missions into Pakistan kill thousands of civilians, as has been estimated, should we invade ourselves? That too is a moral question.

For those who are less bothered by the ethical implications of such action, let’s look at the hard economic costs.
Did we not watch as the Soviet Union spent their way out of the superpower realm by trying to force their ways onto Afghanistan? Now we are doing the same thing? And in Iraq, we are doing the same thing? And now in Libya, we are doing the same thing? Why is it that I think Osama bin Laden is smiling in some forsaken cave as his plan appears to work? It seems that guy has a longer-term view than the politicians running our country the last few years. That is frightening.
On top of the military costs, we apparently choose to send billions of dollars to these countries and their corrupt leaders. Why do “we” think we can just pick a country and start bombing them and then control the people who fill the leadership vacuum?
According to a National Journal report, the cost for the first day of the military operation in Libya “was well over $100 million with the total price tag expected to grow much higher the longer the strikes continue… The initial stages of taking out Libya’s air defenses could ultimately cost U.S.-led coalition forces between $400 million and $800 million, according to a report released by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments earlier this month.”
 The U.S. Pentagon wants $708.3 billion for this year’s budget, including $159.3 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. We will ultimately spend trillions of dollars in these actions. And politicos want to save a few dimes getting rid of Head Start and the tsunami-warning system. What isn’t adding up for people?

If the Arab League is so concerned with the lack of stability in Libya, why don’t they use all the weapons we have sold their countries and all the trained pilots we have schooled and step up themselves? Where is the Arab and Muslim leadership responsibility? Oops. The Arab League, which encouraged the no-fly zone and U.S. intervention before the weekend, came out Tuesday condemning the broad scope of the action and said it will reconsider its support of the Western military intervention. What a shock.
Here’s a good question from Kentucky Senator Rand Paul: “Can somebody anywhere tell me with a surety that the people fighting against Gaddafi are not in favor of radical Islamic government or radical Sharia-type government?”
Well?
Here’s another question: What in the hell is President Obama thinking?
Setting up this country so that our local hockey kids may ultimately have to trade in their sticks and pucks for guns and bombs in yet another country that is a pimple on the world’s ass makes me crazy. Obama is losing me on this one. It seems that “we” are making another big mistake.
As the editor of the paper, I am deeply disappointed in Mr. Obama’s decision. As a citizen and father, I want to puke at the stupidity of it all.