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When Sarah Palin booked a flight to Europe, the French immediately surrendered.

calendar   Saturday - March 19, 2011

dueling conservatives?  keyboards at the ready?  two takes on this newest war

I found the editorial page of today’s Telegraph particularly interesting.

Here are two two arch conservatives, (Simon Heffer – Charles Moore) both very honorable men, both above reproach as to their personal lives. I’ve been reading these two for a very long time.
They do generally fall on the same side of most issues.

Simon Heffer, who I think has referred to the PM as Conservative Lite, is like others, very upset at the cuts made to the military recently. The carrier Ark Royal for example, has been decommissioned and is being scrapped and there is another being mothballed. Forgot it’s name. Cuts across the board in the military.

His reference to the town of Wootton Bassett is telling. It’s where the coffins of Brit soldiers pass through the streets lined with the townspeople paying last respects. It’s very moving and very sad and made worse by muslim scum who tried to march there (I believe they were turned away) but had signs calling the dead, muslim killers and burn in hell etc.  Really considerate and merciful folks these members of the ROP.
Heffer is a current editor at the Telegraph.

(PC in this case is Police Constable)

PC Dave can’t police the world

Just five months ago, the Prime Minister chose to shut down much of our defence capacity

By Simon Heffer

Just five months ago, the Prime Minister chose to shut down much of our defence capacity. He has now decided he wants to act as a world policeman, and help the Libyan rebels before Benghazi is flattened. However, he has absolutely no means of carrying out this intention, except in the most marginal way, or with the help of others, such as the French, who have not made the idiotic decisions about defence that he has.

That, though, is not the end of it. Having persuaded the UN to sanction everything short of an invasion, Dave and his colleagues do not appear to have paused to consider the consequences.  If we are going to assist (with our nearly non-existent RAF, and without the aircraft carrier we are just scrapping) in the relief of Benghazi, what about the civilians that YouTube videos show being attacked by the security forces in Bahrain? What about measures that may be taken against civilians by our main ally in the region, Saudi Arabia? Or shall we choose to ignore those?

But, indeed, if we start to feel that outrages perpetrated in other countries compel us not to ignore them, how should we find the means to register a protest against them, since we do not even have the capacity to be of much use in Libya? In short, do we understand what we might be getting into, thanks to Dave’s cavalier determination to pretend he leads a country that still has influence? Do we understand that Wootton Bassett could find itself permanently on parade if we do not get a grip, and think of the realities of our predicament and our place in the world? What if the no-fly zone isn’t enough?

As I wrote last Wednesday, there is one exigency that should compel us to intervene in the Middle East: the threat to our economy and way of life that would be posed by a severe depletion of the supply of oil. Unless that happens we are on the sidelines, our withdrawal from the world signalled by running down our Armed Forces and by deciding, instead, to be a lavishly funded welfare state. However, even if we do have an oil crisis, the defence review has denuded us of the capacity to do anything.

There’s a bit more HERE

The other comment is from Charles Moore, A former editor of The Spectator (1984-90), the Sunday Telegraph (1992-5) and The Daily Telegraph (1995-2003); he resigned from the last post to spend more time writing Margaret Thatcher’s authorised biography, which will be published after her death.
Here’s his take on the subject.


Libya: A good intervention is hard to pull off – but we should still try


Where would the West stand if it let Gaddafi murder his way back to control of Libya?

By Charles Moore

We all want to “protect innocent civilians”, but when Susan Rice, the US Ambassador to the United Nations, said that this was the main purpose of the no-fly resolution on Libya, she was surely mistaken.

These civilians are certainly deserving of sympathy, but they are not passive victims of the elements, like the Japanese people in the tsunami. They have risen up and tried to overthrow their own government. They seem to feel that violence is necessary to do so. Such people normally attract the disapproval of what is ambitiously described as “the international community”.

So in supporting the rebels, the backers of the UN resolution are taking a bold political view. Unless they want a partition of Libya – and the resolution says they don’t – they are trying to bring about regime change. I am glad to say that David Cameron admitted this in the House of Commons yesterday, not quite in so many words, but without embarrassment. True, the resolution is not about regime change. True – and very important – it all has a legal basis. But still, the message is clear: let’s get Gaddafi out, using force if necessary.

For poor President Obama, it is all very difficult. The last American president to bomb Gaddafi was Ronald Reagan.
The last American president to fight for regime change in the Arab world was George W Bush.

These men have never been Mr Obama’s role models. He hates the idea of going down their path, so first he delays, and then he pretends he isn’t. As late as this Tuesday, America was resisting involvement. But now at last – thank goodness – he is on board. As the first black president, he may naturally not want to assume what Kipling called “the White Man’s burden” – “the blame of those ye better / The hate of those ye guard”. But if you are President of the United States, you must.

The reason it is right to declare the no-fly zone is that it will bring about the fall of Gaddafi, end the violence and allow the Libyan people to find their own government. This is in their interest, the interest of the wider world, and our national interest. If it weren’t, we shouldn’t do it. It is a moral question but, as Mr Cameron himself explains, a moral question firmly within the context of real politics.

The contradiction of the Obama world-view is that his “look at me” sort of morality has the effect of leaving the nastiest people unmolested. Because he wanted to show that he understood Muslims, he did (and does) nothing to encourage the genuine popular revolt against the oppressive Islamist government of Iran.

Because he is so nervous of being thought imperialist, he wanted to leave Gaddafi alone, even though he also wanted him to go. Mr Obama’s quietist Defence Secretary, Robert Gates, publicly rebuked Mr Cameron for “loose talk” of a no-fly zone less than three weeks ago. Now it is his talk which looks loose.

What changed, then? One element, perhaps, was the case pressed well by Mr Cameron, William Hague, and by the French. The normal role of dawdling Europeans and active Americans was reversed. But a bigger factor was the cover for action given by the Arab League and the Gulf Cooperation Council. If Gaddafi’s neighbours were finally fed up with their region’s noisiest resident, Mr Obama could behave more like a community policeman answering a 999 call than a shoot-to-kill freebooter.

CHARLES MOORE

there’s a bit more at the link


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Posted by peiper   United Kingdom  on 03/19/2011 at 04:26 PM   
Filed Under: • Editorials •  
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