Kristol & co. send a letter

Via Tom Ricks, I see that a letter has been sent to Pres. Obama urging intervention in Libya and signed by a gaggle of neocons and some others. As Ricks says, the signers alone are enough to ensure that the letter will probably have the opposite of its intended effect. A letter on foreign policy signed by Bill Kristol, Martin Peretz, and Joshua Muravchik, among others, carries a huge warning sign on it before the contents are even examined.

In this case such unavoidable prejudice-before-reading might be too bad, since it looks as if Gaddafi's forces are readying an assault on Benghazi and as Dirk Vandewalle said on the NewsHour tonight, the ragtag rebel forces are not going to be a match for Gaddafi's mercenaries and armor. He suggested that what's needed now is a 'no-drive zone'; the point is past at which a no-fly zone could have helped. Depressing, especially when coupled with the horrible events in Japan.

Update: Text of the letter here. A more skeptical view, e.g., here.