"Government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem."

Your favorite aphorism?



Here's a take on it:



Yeah, I know. The response to that is obvious to a decently educated person, but this is an effective viral video aimed at... other people. And even if you know what's wrong with the argument in that video, it's about manipulation of opinion at an emotional level.

"[T]he simultaneous attacks are bound to fuel accusations that the administration was eager for a showy victory."

Says the NYT, reporting on the U.S. military operations in Libya and Somalia today.

Officials said the timing of the two raids was coincidental...

But at a moment when President Obama’s popularity is flagging under the weight of his standoff with Congressional Republicans and his leadership criticized for his reversal in Syria, the simultaneous attacks are bound to fuel accusations that the administration was eager for a showy victory.

"It is a very strange moment for Mr. Obama..."

The NYT editorial on Obama's Syrian difficulties. It's against a military strike, I think, but in the most invisible possible way.

Let me paraphrase the 10 paragraphs:

¶1 — Obama is having trouble selling his plan to attack Syria. 

¶2 — We're right to worry that the supposedly narrow attack will turn into another big war.

¶3 — The Pentagon is planning for broader war.

¶4 — The administration has asked the Pentagon to come up with more targets — more than the 50+ targets we already have.

¶5 — Obama has been vague about what these additional targets are (but they can't be the actual chemical stockpiles, because bombing them would unloose the poison).

¶6 — Talk of launching missiles from offshore has given way to reports of sending in bombers.

¶7 — Some members of Congress want to hem Obama in but McCain openly advocates taking the side of the rebels and ousting Assad.

¶8 — Obama is supposed to be the guy that gets us out of wars, and he owes us more assurance that what is planning really is narrow.

¶9 — Putin is staring Obama down.

¶10 — The whole group of foreign leaders gave Obama the cold shoulder.

¶8 is the key paragraph. It's the one with the quote I put in the post title. It's the one where the editors get as close as they are willing to answering the question posed in the headline: "Can Mr. Obama Avoid Mission Creep?" I think their secret answer is "no," but they don't want to say that. Instead, they lay out their worries and challenge him to explain how he's going to avoid a larger war. They say "the public deserves to understand more fully what 'limited' military action actually means" as if maybe it's our comprehension problem or his failure to sufficiently elaborate.

The first paragraph references Obama's planned speech on Tuesday, so maybe the editors thought, let's give him a chance to be specific about these things. Maybe the great speech-maker can explain it all next week. What's strange — if they want to talk about strange — is that Obama hasn't delivered the big explanatory speech yet. The simplest explanation is that he can't explain, and the answer to the question "Can Mr. Obama Avoid Mission Creep?" is just: no.

***

"Mission creep" sounds — to me, anyway — like a term from the Nixon era. (There was CREEP.) But in fact, at least according to Wikipedia's "mission creep" article, the term goes back to Somalia:

The first two articles to use the term in the Washington Post were both by columnist Jim Hoagland ("Prepared for Non-Combat", April 15, 1993 and Beware 'mission creep' In Somalia, July 20, 1993). The New York Times used the term for the first time in an article by correspondent John H. Cushman, Jr. written after the October 4, 1993 firefight in the capital of Somalia, Mogadishu, in which 18 American military personnel were killed.

The U.S. and later UN Mission in Somalia (Restore Hope) would seem to be the classic example of mission creep....

Restore Hope.

***

Whatever makes you happy... whatever you want....

Doctors Without Borders gives up on Somalia.

"We have reached the point where I just don’t see the recognition of the value of impartial humanitarian assistance in Somalia anymore... We’re not therefore able to put our staff in places where they can work. The risks and the compromises that we must make are too high.... I want to reiterate that the kidnapping was simply the latest in a series of incidents since we have been present in Somalia, but yes, it was the last straw."