I feel the USA does have a responsibility to respond to such actions when democratic reform is at stake, given our stature of our president as leader of the free world, and also when civilians in these countries are clamoring for American intervening, it shows the positive impact our involvement would have.

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mechaphil

Aye, remember when this all started there was a reuters report about Libyans in the streets saying "Bring back the no-fly zone! Bring back Bush!" (referring to George H.W. Bush who maintained the no-fly zone over Iraq).
When it comes to democratic revolutions, the US and France are like the godfathers...who else are you going to turn to?

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Hold my beer and watch this...

I don't know that you're wrong, I don't know that you're right.

Imposing a no-fly zone might not have stopped Kaddafi's retaking of rebel areas, it might have only slowed it. But maybe more importantly, I would hope that maybe we've seen over the past decade that just deposing a government without having a particular plan or infrastructure for their replacement can become extremely dangerous and costly. The "enemy of my enemy is my friend" policy didn't particularly work in Afghanistan, and the same thing could well happen here. Let some ragtag army of untrained young kids take over a country with vast oil resources, and how long before it turns into a failed petrol state with major potential to become a center of drug trade, a center for illegal immigration into Europe, and a potential haven for radical Islamic extremists?

This is not to same that Kaddafi is better just because it's neater and tidier. Just that when we get involved militarily, we do start to take on some sort of responsibility and it becomes more of a "you broke it, you bought it" situation.

Bby imposing a no-fly sone, we're not the ones deposing a government, the libyan people are the ones doing that. We're just making it a fair fight with the added bonus of stopping a few crimes against humanity by a terrorist dictator.

Do you really view this situation in the same light as Iraq? I see 0 similarities.

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Hold my beer and watch this...

I fear that the multinational attack on lybia will cause a lot of victims. bombing the cities is not a good solution.

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HOCKEY IS BACK!

The cities were already being bombed by Gaddafi.
Are you implying France, the US and the UK are bombing civilians?
As far as I've seen reported the only things being attacked by outside forces are military targets, if you know otherwise I'm all ears.

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Hold my beer and watch this...

Kind of douche comments here.

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"Counting all the assholes in the room, I'm definitely not alone!" ~ Michael Poulsen, Volbeat, Still Standing.

Just saw a tweet by Luke Russert referencing a Reuters report that says Obama has signed off on covert US support of the Libyan rebels.

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mechaphil

Not really 'covert' if we're hearing about it from Reuters...

I thought the same thing and laughed.

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mechaphil

Yeah, I read he signed a "secret order" and wondered what the point was of having a secret order everyone knew about.

Ham

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Do you believe yet?

We were 2-3 weeks too late.
The rebels were beaten back and demoralized.
They're now worried because it's a very real possibility Gaddafi isn't going anywhere.

Removing him will now take foreign boots on the ground....grunts, not special ops or CIA and no one has the intestinal fortitude for that.

What could have been a win, is now a muddled and misguided mission with no clear goals, leadership or exit strategy.
The President, Sec. State and Sec. Def all have contradicting opinions and statements.

Amateur hour.

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Hold my beer and watch this...

And yet you're in favor of the same muddled situation in Iraq and afghanistan? Why dont you go ahead and call our previous administration 'amateur hour'? Oh wait, because they're pro's at getting us into wars with no end.

And yeah, this is all because Obama was too late to act. Wheres the emoticon which shows my eyes rolling right the fuck out of my head and across the floor?

Bush negotiated the troop draw down in Iraq to 2014 before he left office and Obama escalated the war in Afghanistan so I'm not sure what you're arguing.
Also I'm not "In favor" of either, but I see all 3 of these military actions in VERY different lights.

It is...go read my very first post...this is exactly what I was railing about.
Success in this situation was always about timing and we were too late.

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Hold my beer and watch this...

Gaddafi has more than enough ground based military personnel and weapons to put down this rebellion, the no fly zone is not going to win it for the rebels, so the timing of it didnt matter. We're either nation builders, or we're watching from the sideline, anything else is ineffectual bullshit that wont solve anything.

And now what about Yemen, and the Ivory Coast? Are we going to go spend billions of our tax dollars doing....'something' over there as well? Do we start two new no fly zones? Do we arm those rebels? Do we even fucking know who it is we're arming?

Oh, well I stand corrected, he 'planned?' this war to be a tidy....ELEVEN FUCKING YEARS?

I remember a previous instance where the United States helped arm rebels to protect our interests against the Soviets.

They became the Taliban.

I already tried that one earlier on in the thread, just didn't make it quite as overt. It didn't sway CC, as don't many arguments I consider reasonable and logical.

And of course I would be entirely remiss if I didn't mention that at this moment there are at least three other humanitarian disasters happening on the continent of Africa as well. The Darfur genocide has been happening for a good ten years now, but somehow, I guess GW and everybody else in the US government doesn't think that one is a threat to our "national interests" (since China lends us all that $ to spend on our war toys and corporate tax breaks, and China has very close ties to the regime in Khartoum because of oil development there). Then you have the Congo, another bleeding sore of a conflict. As well as the renewed atrocities in Cote D'Ivoire.

Why is no one incensed that we have stood by and done NOTHING in these countries for YEARS, much less two weeks? What makes Libya so much more important? Is it because the people there are only partly black? (And no, Cross, I'm not calling you a racist)

Or is it because Libya ranks number ten in the world on the list of countries' supplies of a certain resource? Anyone want to guess what that resource is?