Necons Beat the Drums of War, 2011 Edition

Neocons still think that deploying the US Military is like playing Call of Duty:

VAN SUSTEREN: What would you do about Libya?

GINGRICH: Exercise a no-fly zone this evening. … It’s also an ideological problem. The United States doesn’t need anybody’s permission. We don’t need to have NATO, who frankly, won’t bring much to the fight. We don’t need to have the United Nations. All we have to say is that we think that slaughtering your own citizens is unacceptable and that we’re intervening. And we don’t have to send troops. All we have to do is suppress his air force, which we could do in minutes.

And don't forget this dick - who wasn't instrumental in cheerleading the Iraq war in the slightest:

KRISTOL: I think at this point you probably have to do more than a no fly zone. You probably have to tell Qaddafi he has to stop his movement east and that we are going to use assets to stop him from slaughtering people as he moves east across the country. We might take out his ships in the Mediterranean. We might take out tanks and artillery.

It really is amazing to me that we have pundits and politicians - many of the very same that told us all breathlessly at how badly we needed to invade Iraq yesterday, how it would be over in a week and only cost $100 billion and even then it would pay for itself - honestly advocating for some kind of military incursion in Libya after the fucking disasters that have become Iraq and Afghanistan. It's as if we went into both of those conflicts on spot on intelligence and with well-defined goals and concrete exit strategies, the way these assholes talk. And it's even more alarming that people still take them seriously on such matters or that they continue to be paid for their opinions, not to mention the fact that these are the same people that routinely parade themselves around touting how incredibly broke America is and how we have to cut funding for NPR and Planned Parenthood and home heating oil subsidies for the poor in order to make it to our next paycheck, and yet they are more than happy to launch another really fucking expensive military campaign (they don't come cheap, last I checked).

And yes, I understand that a no-fly zone is vastly different than an all-out invasion. But it is still an act of war, and war is not a mundane detail, Michael. And while the situation in Libya is deplorable, I don't see how we can be expected to go barging in militarily on every humanitarian crisis that presents itself. The whole world police thing is getting old.

And in discussing the neocon war fetish, Josh Marshall hits on something that I think is pretty true:

I have to confess that the sanest voice I've heard on this whole matter has been Secretary Gates saying that a "no fly zone" is not a video game. It's not a joke. It begins, necessarily, with a series of debilitating attacks on a country's military installations and anti-aircraft defenses to remove the opposing military's ability to threaten your planes. That's an act of war. Taking over a country's airspace is an act of war.

And I think therein lies the rub. Neocons like Kristol and Gingrich can suspend their Viagra prescription for a few days at the thought of sending the military into action, blowing shit up and saving the world for freedom and democracy and Jesus. It's their own personal video game, because they have no stake in any war, they don't have to pay for it since we just put all our wars on the national credit card, and when it ends badly, they pay no personal price or accountability as presently illustrated by the fact that they're still in the same place cheering on additional wars.

In fairness to neocons and Republicans, the frequent and liberal use of war is about their only idea when it comes to foreign policy, so they are just going with what they know.