Goldy writes:
So here’s a question: Assuming Gaddafi has fallen to a popular rebellion, and Libya is now in the hands of presumable democratic (whatever that means in the region) opposition forces… were the NATO air strikes justified? Morally and financially? Was it worth the cost in both dollars and “collateral damage” to first protect the nascent rebellion, and then to support its offensive?
President Obama has been criticized by Republicans and Democrats alike for our military intervention in Libya, but compared to Bush’s wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Gaddafi’s ouster appears to have come relatively fast and relatively cheap in both blood and treasure. So does Obama deserve a little praise for his policy, or was this always none of our business?
I do think Obama deserves some praise for his policy here. I supported the initial intervention back in the spring when a massacre of Benghazi was looming, and I think it was morally justified for NATO to see this through until the regime was completely brought down. If the mandate was to protect the civilians of Libya, the only way to truly do that was to get rid of Gaddafi and those loyal enough to him that they’d try to slaughter their countrymen. Did it cost a lot? Sure. But does it cost less than having the world’s most powerful military while only using it for cynical self-interest. Definitely.
As for that last point, I’m still worried that any goodwill generated by the support for the Libyan people is largely overshadowed by our failure to stand up for the Palestinians. The lack of freedom in Gaza and the West Bank is not much different than what others in the region are rising up against. In fact, the Palestinians in the occupied territories are worse off than their neighbors in Egypt and Syria. And our failure to help them will continue to overshadow the times that we get things right in the region.
There are those on the right who still scream that we failed to finish the job in Viet Nam, but who chastise Obama–and even claim he should be impeached–for his actions in Libya. Try to get your brain around that one.
If you’re not going to use your military, why have one?
These sorts of deals, were we’re part of a coalition & protecting civilians are a worthwhile thing to be doing.
The peace-nick in me hopes that we can’t afford to replace the armaments that were used.
@ 1
Except that in order for such an impeachment to occur, a law must be broken. We signed a treaty with the U.N. to help prevent massacres, genocides and this treaty allows for support of resistance forces when said forces are engaged in dethroning a mass murdering asshole. This was the legal excuse we used for Iraq.
Such treaties are the law of the land. You cannot impeach a President for obeying the law. So any such talk is just wharrrgarble bullshit posturing on the part of the people who aren’t part of the decision making process.
I find it terribly amusing, that the GOP is coming out in support of Ghaddafi, who is a mass-murdering terrorist by anyone standards. He bombed a U.S. Airliner out of the sky for chrissake. The only reason he’s President of Libya, is he killed off anyone who tried to oppose him.
One more tyrant down and many more to go, including the one in the US who is killing our economy. Fortunately, it’s voters who will take him down next year. I just saw this new poll information about Independents attitude towards President Obama: Among those not affiliated with either major party, 13% Strongly Approve and 44% Strongly Disapprove.
That really, really sucks.
The halmark of Republican foreign policy for decades has been hypocracy. They spout lots of platitudes about democracy and freedom, yet support most strong-men who’s sole redeeming virtue (to them) is to keep U.S. corporate profits booming. All a tin-horn dictator had to do was to spin a tale about some communist revolutionary movement threatening U.S. corporate investments and profits, and we would fall all over ourselves shoveling money and military aid to shore up that dictator, and providing military aid so he could take out his internal political enemies.
So we could pretty much expect that Republicans would criticize anything the President did. Heck, Gingrich even took three different positions within a week (or was it four), trying to stay ahead of the President. It didn’t work (“We should have air strikes – no, we should have boots on the ground – no, we shouldn’t have gotten involved in the first place…”
But I guess this is to be expected. Republican politicians these days pretty much utter lies at a rate which makes it almost impossible to refute them all – while you are explaining why the first two statements were a lie, they have gone on to tell five more lies. To live in such a world, it must be awfully difficult for them, eventually, to remember what was the truth and what was a lie.
@1 I’m surprised they don’t blame Vietnam on Obama. Really. For those people “Blame Obama” is merely a blood sport, something to do for fun, and all that.
@4 “One more tyrant down and many more to go, including the one in the US who is killing our economy.”
Oh really. What, exactly, did Obama do — besides save the U.S. (and the world) from a Great Depression that beset us as a result of lame-ass Republican policies?
My friend, what “really, really sucks” is Republicans playing chicken with our national credit to get policies that will drive the economy back into recession. Here’s a few other things that really suck, too:
Raising taxes on the working poor, so the rich don’t have to pay their share;
Trying to cut off unemployment benefits to the long-term unemployed, which not only inflicts hardship on those people, but also knocks another leg out from under the economy;
Incessantly fighting with our president — the man our people elected to lead us out of this morass — and undercutting everything he does, instead of working with him to solve the country’s problems.
And let me tell you what else sucks: You suck.
@2 “If you’re not going to use your military, why have one?”
Considering what militaries are used for — destroying things and killing people — the best use of a military is none. There will be suffering in the world as long as militaries exist and are used; and there’s strong evidence from history that if militaries exist, they will be used.
These are all philosophical ponder points. It seems the U.S. should maintain a strong military to deter adversaries from using theirs — and to defend against aggression when deterrence fails. But what’s more subtle is the problem of whether we can trust our own leaders — and the ignorant, flag-waving, chest-beating mobs that elect some of them — to not misuse our military deterrent for aggressive purposes.
# 8: Most of the career military – those who early in their careers lead platoons/companies and saw people die – believe that they have achieved their mission when the U.S. military is strong and efficient enough so that it’s actual use in combat is unnecessary. Once the military is committed to combat, they are already operating on “Plan B”.
Don’t they have some kind of customer service department we can complain to?
These fucking trolls they send us are idiots.
At least the puddybitch is funny…unintentionally of course, but really hilarious most of the time.
This dumb fuck is just lame.
Lamelamelamelame…LAME!!!! (h/t to “Almost Live“)
# 4, 7: There is a lot more on Republican’s attempts to sabatoge the economic recovery, but I’m going to wait for an open thread for that one.
The mob that calls itself the Republican Party beat the drum for invading Iraq to get rid of Saddam, but finds fault with the much cheaper and less bloody interventions in Kosovo and Libya against equally bloody tyrants. There’s no rhyme or reason to it; these people just like to criticize Democrats. If Obama hadn’t gotten involved, you can bet they would have criticized him for not doing anything!
Of course the intervention in Libya was justified. Apart from Gadhafi’s previous record (see, e.g., the Lockerbie bombing, an act of war against the U.S., and his efforts to acquire WMDs, the GOP’s justification for invading Iraq), this guy unleased jet fighters, helicopter gunships, and tanks against unarmed civilians whose “crime” was to protest against his tyrannical rule. Where’s the morality in letting him, or any tyrant, do that?
What the world really needs is for nation-states to stop thinking strictly in terms of their national interest and start acting in humanity’s interests.
If the 20th century taught us anything at all, it is that letting local problems fester usually results in a bigger blowup that’s costlier to deal with. The best time to get rid of murderous dictators is early, before they construct police states and acquire powerful militaries. Appeasing this people only gets you a bigger war later on.
Our first modern conflict with Libya goes back to the early years of the Reagan administration, when Reagan sent the U.S. fleet into disputed waters in a show of force. Two U.S. fighters shot down two Libyan fighters. What followed thereafter was a series of occassional bombings & air excursions over Libya, gradually escalating until a club in Germany frequented by U.S. soldiers was bombed, to which we responded with air strikes, and then the Pan Am jet was bombed.
So why didn’t Reagan just make friends and prop up Kaddaffi the same way he was propping up the military junta in Guatamalia? Because Kaddaffi didn’t play ball, he had nationalized the oil industry and was pursuing an independent foreign policy (trying to create a pan-African alliance). If he had just cooperated with the oil companies to have them own and profit from Libyan wells, and deferred to the U.S. on foreign policy, the Reagan administraiton would have been happy to make him it’s next best friend.
http://www.rawstory.com/rawrep.....r-the-oil/
As you were saying Rog?
The real reason that Republicans of the “neocon” stripe (as in Project for a New American Clusterfuck) are so upset about what’s happening in Libya is that they see it as a waste of a perfectly good “useful idiot”. Now there’s one less tinhorn dictator being kept in abeyance for them to use as justification for another protracted, wasteful, profiteering-driven war like the one in Iraq.
Why doesn’t the USA use the same resources and might in Sudan?
re 16: I don’t know. What’s your theory?
That’s easy…
…no fucking OIL.
Any other questions?
@18
Same reason your mechanic doesn’t use a scalpel and your doctor doesn’t use a crescent wrench.
Your question is remarkably similar to one posed in a Paris newspaper, reporting Cornwallis’ surrender at Yorktown:
“So here’s a question: Assuming Britain’s colonial administration has fallen to a popular rebellion, and her American colonies is now in the hands of presumable democratic (whatever that means in the region) opposition forces… were the French naval strikes at Savannah, Cheasapeake Bay and Yorktown justified? Morally and financially? Was it worth the cost in both francs and “collateral damage” to first protect the nascent rebellion, and then to support its offensive?
King Louis XVI has been criticized by Spain and Austria alike for our military intervention in North America, but compared to the Seven Years War, King George’s ouster appears to have come relatively fast and relatively cheap in both blood and treasure. So does King Louis deserve a little praise for his policy, or was this always none of our business?”
Woo-hoo! Mission accomplished! We put a good old ‘Merican boot to old Momar’s ass. Who’s next?
# 20: A good effort to put it into historical context. One minor point, Spain was supporting the American effort, although it didn’t want to go so far as France in declaring war. It did, however, cooperate in allowing American shippers to attempt to avoid the British blockade by using Spanish and Spanish-Carribian ports.
Of course, for the French, the American revolution had rather mixed consequences. It caused their traditional enemy some headaches. But the example it set for French citizens caused the ultimate headache for quite a number of the French nobility as well.
Oh yeah, the Sudan has oil.
The Sudan is one gnarly civil war situation – much more complicated than the Arab Spring uprisings.
The Chinese have a huge interest in the oil of the Sudan and their interests have complicated the shaky peace between the north and the south which in turn has stymied much progress in resolving the Darfur conflict.
In other words, there’s no tinpot tyrant with an organized military to lob cruise missiles at. Instead there’s a number of groups/warlords involved. Much more of a Somalia type situation.
@23
It’s South Sudan that has most of the oil.
@14 Trump is an ass, and the whole world knows he’s an ass; even the Tea Partiers know he’s an ass. His statements are for entertainment only.
@16 Damn good question.
@21 “Who’s next?”
Assad.
Just get out of all foreign lands and let them settle their own problems. Just because someone fires a shot on the other side of the world doesn’t mean the US should send in the marines! Enough already!
@23 “The Sudan is one gnarly civil war situation – much more complicated than the Arab Spring uprisings.”
What’s complicated about a thug committing genocide?
Oh, and btw, Sudan does have oil: “Sudan’s oil wealth has played a major part in enabling an otherwise poor government to fund the expensive bombers, helicopters and arms supplies which have allowed the Sudanese government to launch aerial attacks on towns and villages and fund militias to fight its proxy war in Darfur.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Darfur
@23 “In other words, there’s no tinpot tyrant with an organized military to lob cruise missiles at.
Yeah there, this guy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omar_al-Bashir
Of course, he’s not the only bad actor in Sudan, you’ve got a whole herd of ’em there (as in Somalia), but at this point he’s the principal bad actor.
24 – And the north wants to control the revenue from the oil and that’s why at least in part there was a rebellion in the south.
16 – A better question is why hasn’t the U.S. thrown some weight around in Bahrain. The repression there has been at least as disgusting as that in Syria. Well the U.S. Fifth Fleet is there and the Saudi’s support the Bahrain regime and that’s where it ends I suppose.
Bottom line: Gaddafi was a bad partner. Yes he happily sold his oil to Europe and even some to the U.S. But when his own people started getting tired of his autocratic ass and he threatened to start massacring them and force a lot of them to flee for their lives to Europe to swell their welfare rolls – well sorry Moammar nice to have done a little business with you but we can’t afford you any more.
@28 How did that work out for you guys when you tried this policy in the ’30s?
30 – Again U.S. military intervention means undermining the UN’s comprehensive peace agreement between the north and the south and seriously pissing off the Chinese.
Another sucky situation where it is wise to tread very carefully.
@31 “nice to have done a little business with you but we can’t afford you any more”
That’s about the size of it. Hitler would still be in business if his greed had been limited to Russia’s land and oil.
@33 The main complication of killing that guy is he’d be replaced by another just like him.
@32,
So, that gives us carte blanche to get invovled in every little shooting match in the world? How does that idea work out in situations like Viet Nam?
BTW, I wan’t there in the ’30s, and I certainly don’t know who “you guys” are!
“Another sucky situation where it is wise to tread very carefully.”
How about we just get the fuck out of the Middle East and let them solves their own problems?
Well, Muammar’s goose is cooked, anyway. And the Arab Spring rolls on.
@37,
We should do the same with all our troops overseas – bring them all home and stop meddling in other countries’ affairs!
“Well, Muammar’s goose is cooked, anyway. And the Arab Spring rolls on.”
And hopefully Obama will be smart enough to stop and get the hell out of it.
@37 Maybe we should just get the fuck out of Texas and let them solve their own problems, too.
Come to think of it, we should just get the fuck out of eastern Washington and let them solve their own problems …
And then there’s eastern King County, let’s just get the fuck out of eastern King County …
What would this blog be without a resident isolationist?
@41,
Just how much do you want to do to control everything on the planet, rodent? Should the US dictate to other countries as to how those nations should run their affairs? Why are you such an interventionist into the lives of others? Do you have some special mandate from the Supreme Being that makes you special, or are you just being your “I’m-so-much-better than-everone-else” fucking asshole personality that you usually are? You honestly think that your opinions are moral values and that everyone else is beneath you and you should get to direct everyone’s life.
Just hurry up and fucking die, already, so we don’t have to put up with your arrogant shit anymore.
“What would this blog be without a resident isolationist?”
What would this blog be without ar arrogant, self-centered, fucking asshole?
This conflict should now be the model for toppeling dictators. No foreign ground troops, only native rebel forces on the ground. Air support, logistical support, political support, intelligence assistance. Maybe a couple of “plausibly deniable” special operations people.
The shame is that we didn’t do this in 1991 in Iraq. We encouraged the people to rise up against Saddam, then left them to be slaughtered. With sustained air support we could have done this exact same plan. It may have taken longer, but we were only fighting one war back then and had a massive force of support aviation available in theater. So much pain could have been avoided.
As for collatoral damage in Libya…it’s not even a consideration. The suffering Gadaffi would have caused is probably twice what NATO would do in air strikes for a full year. And there still wouldn’t be democracy in Libya.
@45,
Well, now it’s time to piss or get off the pot for the people of Libya. I’m hoping they form a modern democracy and not another theocracy. We saw, through our insane policies with Iran over the decades, what religion can do. It’s our own fault, indirectly, that Muslims all over the world hate our guts. Let’s get out of their affairs.
Hitler regarded slavs as inferior as well – fit only to be peasants.
He ended up killing more of them than Jews.
26 million. How insane was the world back then?
Anyone that insane doesn’t stay in business for long.
@47
He ended up killing more of them than Jews.
really? then how come hollywood only makes movies about hitler killing jews?
Oh my. We may not have “finished the job” but we sure did take our pound of flesh..
Nixon’s bombing was just freaking out of control – and for what??? South Vietnam fell just the same.
Here’s a compelling story from someone who was there:
http://tmcdermott.com/personalhistory.aspx
There’s two stories there. Read the one on the left column.
re 39:
The only way to have a long lasting state is for there to be a certain degree of cohesiveness. It has been noticed by many in politics that when the U.S. has an overseas bogeyman, the cohesiveness of the American people is improved.
This is one very good reason why there will always be little conflicts here and there. Remember the pride many Americans felt over our military ‘victory’ in Grenada?
# 45: Sounds okay, except that we have to avoid it turning into another Bay of Pigs.
One of the real problems in these types of conflicts is knowing how much support there really is for overturning a dictator, how organized the rebel forces are, who is in charge, and whether the rebel authorities can retain the support of the people.
In colonial America, the British relied on reports from Tories and British governors and other officials, who all said the revolutionaries were disorganized rabble-rousers without broad popular support, who could be defeated by a show of force. Obviously, they were wrong.
At the Bay of Pigs, Cuban expatriots convinced the CIA and the military that the Cuban population would rise up to support them once they landed on Cuban soil. They, also, were wrong.
In Vietnam, Americans were convinced (by So. Vietnamese politicians) that they were fighting a war of freedom vs. communism, and as long as we educated the peasants on the value of freedom and protected them, they would support us. Those same politicians then used U.S. weapons and troops to defeat their political rivals and try to consolidate power. What was obscured was that this was largly a civil war between Buddist peasants, who had been oppressed for centuries, against Chinese merchants and Catholic elites who had previously served their French masters.
In Iraq, a number of expatriate Iraqis convinced the Bush administration that they had broad popular support in Iraq, and that advancing U.S. troops would shower American troops with flowers. Instead, the government found that those Iraqi expatriots had absolutely no following in Iraq, and American troops found themselves in the middle of a civil and religious war created by the power vacume from the fall of Saddam’s regime, exacerbated by the Iraqi desire to remove foreign occupiers from their soil.
Anyway, a President has to have a great deal of intelligence, and a firm grasp of the details of history, to understand the differences between the situation in France in 1944, Kuwait in the early 1990’s, and the situation in Iraq, Egypt, or Libya. A different type of policy might be required depending upon the circumstances, no one size fits all.
According to Bush and Duck Cheney one size fits every situation.
Mideast domination.
Obama just another center right administration with more brains than W.
sigh
ok, you’re all so smart, who do you think is planning all these mideast wars. my contention, as you know, is israel. working with american jews, they want to topple mideast regimes for their own safety. however, its seems israel could be less safe, because there is a good possiblility that the toppled regimes could be replaced by radicals (your definition of radicals) like the muslim brotherhood. plus, as is always the case, when you take the lid off of previously stifled expression, minorities, like jews, take the bulk of the newly found freedom to oppress.
i wonder, is obama really a hater of israel, not a leap considering his muslim heritage. and now, seeing that, there is a movement being pushed by jews, to now move him out? liberals are speaking out against him, that doesnt happen without the blessing of the ruling elite. even maxine went off on him. i think its a theory to consider.
in anycase, i cant see how israel can be happy with these now “liberated” throngs of muslims.
So does Obama deserve a little praise for his policy, or was this always none of our business?
Not sure of the logic there, but it is very little of our business, but the Obama administration’s opinion of that is different than mine and put our chips down on regime change.
The regime change bet appears to have been the better bet.
Don’t tell that to wanna be prezdent McCain.
Rick Santorum thinks the Libyan rebels’ objective should be to advance U.S. interests:
“The stated task from the very beginning … was to … influence the direction of the successor government. As we have seen in Egypt, … toppling a dictator does not always result in more security for us and our allies in the region.”
http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com.....less-muted
Roger Rabbit Commentary: Oh, and of course, Obama deserves no credit for helping end Qadhafi’s dictatorship, Santorum says.
@27 “Anyone that insane doesn’t stay in business for long.”
Unfortunately, they can and do — Stalin, probably the most prolific mass murderer in human history, held power for 29 years and in the end it was old age that laid him low.
@55 should be @47 not @27
We’re gonna have to install one of those take-a-ticket machines as GOP candidates line up to take credit for Qadhafi’s fall.
In other news, two Somali pirates involved in the murders of four American yachters were sentenced today by a U.S. court to life in prison. For them, that’s probably a promotion.
http://www.voanews.com/english.....08538.html
55 – Stalin was probably not as insane as Hitler (which isn’t saying much believe me) but all that killing he did in the 30’s must have made him pretty damn stupid.
The non-aggression pact with Hitler was a blunder that almost ended his regime.
The consensus number on the dead at Stalin’s hands is around 20 million.
Been busy for a while so it’s time to read some of Cass Sunstein’s favorite idiot rhp6033’s musings…
You seem to forget (on purpose as always) that under GWBush’s watch Qaddafi gave up his nuclear ambitions.
Really sucks to be this rhp6033 stupid. You are dropping into the arschloch and misogynist rujax theatre now!
ROTFLMBBAO!
Nope try again!
Of course there are no links for proof! Just more hot air blatherings from a libtardo!