Joan is back, and lives in Washington...

The illustrious pundit, enthralled with American might, the universal panacea to this poor planet’s conundrums, and ever the Francophile (did he not recently refer to King Louis XV in one of his sagacious sorties…?) feels some kinship with Joan of Arc! He is now hearing voices…
Voices around the world, our medium tells us, from Europe to America to Libya, are calling for US intervention to help bring down Moammar Gaddafi..
What voices? Only those in this pithy pundit’s wandering mind, it seems.
No matter, if he hears them, then they must exist, thereby vindicating his hero’s freedom agenda, a perpetual preoccupation…
For the obtuse, this refers to George W. Bush, that great leader no one in Iraq, Afghanistan, or New Orleans for that matter, is about to forget…
US intervention? No one is demanding any such thing, thanks, first and foremost, to the Iraq and Afghanistan precedents…The Libyans, like the Tunisians and Egyptians, would like to conquer their freedom themselves…Yes, alas, they are not keen followers of the George W. Bush freedom agenda, whose enthusiasts will consider bestowing democracy upon the deprived, after weeks of relentless bombing and years of occupation (to misquote Chairman Mao, in the Bush/Cheney world view, it is democracy that flows out of the barrel of a gun), but under certain conditions.
It must be easy (no military opposition, thereby rendering its shock and awe demonstration that much more potent), and there must be dividends….Do Libya’s paltry 2% of the planet’s oil resources qualify?
The Bush and Cheneys of America, the indispensable nation, are much more ambitious…
How dare these people conquer their freedom without George W. Bush in mind?
Yet, that is precisely what the Libyans wish to do. They do not want to be robbed of their revolution!
I think there’s a consensus that no one wants (foreign) troops on the ground. I think everyone-as a compromise-supports air strikes (on Gaddafi) under United Nations cover, a representative of the revolutionary committee of Benghazi, told TIME.
United Nation cover? How very French of them!!! That is exactly what President Chirac demanded in 2003 and that the supporters of the Bush freedom agenda found superfluous when they enthusiastically backed the invasion of Iraq, and thus splendidly ignored as they proceeded to shock and awe the ancient yet proud Mesopotamian civilization…
No matter. Do genuine freedom fighters fret over such bureaucratic details?
It’s time to get tough, the former Republican candidate for President John McCain, declared last week.
Now is the time for action, not statements, his faithful sidekick, Senator Joseph Lieberman, enjoined. I would also provide them with the arms to defend themselves, he added…
The fearless freedom fighters (though intervening, albeit, far from the front lines, as is their wont) were about to open a new chapter in the glorious George W. Bush’s freedom agenda saga…
Yet, something happened on the way to the Bushian liberation of Tripoli…
Two early proponents of military action in Libya, Senators John McCain and Joseph I. Lieberman, muted their comments in joint appearance on Thursday at The Brooking’s Institution.
« We are not advocating military (action) at this time», said McCain, Republican of Arizona. « We are not calling for military assistance to a provisional government at this time», the NYT reported. Surely, our intrepid Senators have not been consulting Jacques Chirac? Perhaps, quite simply, the Senators discovered that there was no provisional government to speak of, and that the issue is not one of weapons per se, but of transporting those weapons and the revolutionaries who wield them from Benghazi in the east, to Tripoli in the west?
Even our Bushian freedom fighters have to contend with the vexatious demands of geography, alas…
Should the West impose a no-fly zone?
So far, the Libyan Air Force has proved singularly inept, and done little damage…
Alternatively, perhaps, the pilots have deliberately missed their targets to spare their compatriots…
In any case, should a representative revolutionary Libyan entity make such a request, then we should seriously entertain it.
Let’s call a spade a spade, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said. A no-fly zone begins with an attack on Libya to destroy the air defenses and then you can fly planes around the country and not worry about our guys being shot down…
Surely, our prolific pundit has no qualms about attacking Libya. War is a sign of vitality and of America’s resolve to defend its noble and superior principles.
The more wars it wages, the stronger and more virtuous it becomes…
This revolution belongs to the Libyans as the preceding uprisings belonged to the Tunisians and Egyptians…Hopefully, the Algerians, Saudis, Yemenis, Syrians, Jordanians, etc will follow suit…
We, in the West, should provide whatever assistance we can, upon request, and in accordance with international law, the exact opposite, thus, of what the Bush Doctrine stipulates…
Facebook and Twitter have surely mediated this pan-Arab (and Iranian) reach for dignity and freedom. But the Bush doctrine set the premise, our poetic pundit concluded…
The premise? The man single handedly responsible for Guantanamo, Bagram, Abu Ghraib, Falluja, extraordinary renditions, secret prisons, ghost detainees, military commissions, indefinite detention, torture (what our delicate pundit and his like-minded colleagues could not bear to call anything else but enhanced interrogation techniques, unless inflicted by foreigners, then it definitely qualifies as torture), warrantless wiretapping,  yes, the list is a distressingly long one, is it not?
What revolutionary worthy of the name and seeking to overthrow a dictatorship in order to establish a democratic regime would seek inspiration there?
The Libyans know what to do, and have nobly begun to conquer their fundamental rights.
They need no one's advice, and certainly  not the Bushian freedom fighters' bellicose nonsense...
(the painting of Joan hearing voices was found here)