American Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has announced that the U.S. now recognizes the rebels as the official government of Libya. This means that they now consider Gaddafi a rebel. I don’t know if they still consider Tripoli the capital or not. It also means that the $30 billion or so of
Laying Down the Law
Libya’s (Gaddafi’s) money which was frozen in American bank accounts can now go directly to the rebels. In effect, she is saying to Gadaffi “Neener neener neener, we don’t like you any more, we’re going to take all your money and give it to your enemies, hahahaha!,” which I don’t really object to at all, because remember Lockerbie?
It is a bit of a turn of events. In March, they were protesters, then they were rebels, now they are the government. Actually, I guess it’s not such an amazing turn of events. Egypt and Tunisia managed to pull it off without that troublesome intermediate rebel phase, which involves lots of shooting and getting blown up and stuff.
But I do think the policy of officially declaring your side the winner is an efficient one. It worked for George Bush in Florida in 2000. Never underestimate the power of positive thinking.
In fact, it’s similar to what I think we should do in Afghanistan. Take some random NATO military base and declare it the capital of the country. Forget Kaboom Kabul. That way, you start with high security. You pick somebody you can trust, like some blind 90 year old shepherd, and name him president because, really, Karzai is just a corrupt old stooge and everybody knows it. You funnel in massive aid, build a few schools, especially a few schools for women, the best hospital for amputees and prosthetics in all of central asia, some hotels and restaurants and a few other little services to get the job machine running and wait for the flood of refugees to arrive.
Use the influx to maintain security and gradually expand the perimeter. Starve the Taliban of a population. Win without fighting.
That’s what I’d like to see.
www.gurukalehuru.com 
Sounds familiar, like I’ve heard that somewhere before. Viet-something… That ring a bell?
I wish you were a foreign policy advisor for the US.