112 Cruise missiles - What a mistake

[Wild Cobra]

First wave of allied assault: 112 cruise missiles (http://www.thestate.com/2011/03/19/1743153/us-readies-for-assault-against.html)

Why are we defending those trying to take over an established government when we do it in the name of humanity, then kill so many ourselves?

What's wrong here...

[Wild Cobra]

Are you liberals happy that we just declared war on Libya?

[MannyIsGod]

If you'd paid attention to the other thread you would know the answer to your question. Fucking moron.

[PublicOption]

http://www.airforce-technology.com/projects/f16/images/falcon12.jpg

[Yonivore]

If you'd paid attention to the other thread you would know the answer to your question. Fucking moron.
Do you think he should box up and send back his Nobel, Manny?

[Yonivore]

If you'd paid attention to the other thread you would know the answer to your question. Fucking moron.
It must really gall you to see him following Sarah Palin's advice on Libya.

[Lonny]

fucking racists

[admiralsnackbar]

It must really gall you to see him following Sarah Palin's advice on Libya.

Right... I'm sure he consulted with her. :lol

Two individuals choosing a course of action hardly means either is following the other, does it?

[Marcus Bryant]

Come home, America.

[ElNono]

As long as we don't get involved in ground missions, I really have no problem with a no-fly zone... same as Bush Sr did in Iraq.

[Marcus Bryant]

War #3. So much for "change" and all that other trendy bullshit from a couple years back.

[ElNono]

War #3. So much for "change" and all that other trendy bullshit from a couple years back.

No surprises there...

[Wild Cobra]

As long as we don't get involved in ground missions, I really have no problem with a no-fly zone... same as Bush Sr did in Iraq.
Kadafi is definitely not a kind leader. however, the US and UN are now interfering with a sovereign nations rights to defend itself against enemies, foreign and domestic.

I'll give 5:1 odd that if Kadafi is overthrown, we will have a worse government in the aftermath to deal with than under his leadership.

[ManuBalboa]

at least the old empires would pillage after a conquest. What is our broke ass country doing.

brb bomb country
brb help shitty replacement
brb arm shitty replacement
brb fight shitty replacement 20 years from now
brb Ron Paul 2012

[Wild Cobra]

I tell you all...

Now that we are involved, I sure hope I am wrong.

[ElNono]

Kadafi is definitely not a kind leader. however, the US and UN are now interfering with a sovereign nations rights to defend itself against enemies, foreign and domestic.

I'll give 5:1 odd that if Kadafi is overthrown, we will have a worse government in the aftermath to deal with than under his leadership.

I don't care what comes out of it. I really don't give two flying fucks about Lybia. However, I like the fact that the US is acting under the umbrella of a UN decision, much like Bush Sr did back in the Kuwait intervention and no-fly zone afterwards.

[Wild Cobra]

I don't care what comes out of it. I really don't give two flying fucks about Lybia. However, I like the fact that the US is acting under the umbrella of a UN decision, much like Bush Sr did back in the Kuwait intervention and no-fly zone afterwards.
I wonder what the UN vote was. How many of the nations voting yes are already the more radical of Muslim nations?

Just wondering... Anyone know?

[Parker2112]

country being irreparably broken as we speak

future generations fucked royally

busted and broke republic

our morally bankrupt leadership is using our military to kill innocents tonight

pray for this corrupt country

[Wild Cobra]

OK, did a quick look. The Security Council voted 10 yes, 0 no, 5 abstained.

Permanent members:

A-China
Y-France
A-Russian Federation
Y-United Kingdom
Y-United States

Non-permenant members:

Y-Bosnia and Herzegovina
A-Germany
Y-Portugal
A-Brazil
A-India
Y-South Africa
Y-Colombia
Y-Lebanon
Y-Gabon
Y-Nigeria

[DMX7]

Kadafi is definitely not a kind leader. however, the US and UN are now interfering with a sovereign nations rights to defend itself against enemies, foreign and domestic.

I'll give 5:1 odd that if Kadafi is overthrown, we will have a worse government in the aftermath to deal with than under his leadership.

Is that what your dumb ass was saying about Iraq?

NO!

Difference here is that just about everyone agrees this needs to be done which is why the U.N. approved it UNLIKE Iraq.

[Wild Cobra]

Is that what your dumb ass was saying about Iraq?

NO!

Difference here is that just about everyone agrees this needs to be done which is why the U.N. approved it UNLIKE Iraq.
You're right. Iraq was a different war for a different reason.

Please don't be so dumb as to confuse the two.

As for believing it needed to be done? The same belief lead to the overthrow of the Iranian government in 1979. Look what we have there now. I see Libya as another Iran.

[Marcus Bryant]

Continuity, not change.

[Wild Cobra]

Continuity, not change.
Whatever...

Remember. I did say I hope I'm wrong.

[DMX7]

Saddam is definitely not a kind leader. however, the US and the U.S. alone is now interfering with a sovereign nations rights to defend itself against enemies, foreign and domestic.


Were we on a liberation mission, seaching for WMDs, killing the people who helped Al-Qaeda or what in Iraq.... I always forget what the latest story is. All I know now is its Operation Clean The Fuck Up.

[Wild Cobra]

Were we on a liberation mission, seaching for WMDs, killing the people who helped Al-Qaeda or what in Iraq.... I always forget what the latest story is. All I know now is its Operation Clean The Fuck Up.
Do those apples taste like oranges to you?

[DMX7]

You are the reason this country is so dumb. You are a waste of oxygen.

[Wild Cobra]

You are the reason this country is so dumb. You are a waste of oxygen.
I would say because of the likes of you. However, I served in the Army for 11 years and would fight for your right to be ignorant and stupid if necessary.

[ElNono]

I would say because of the likes of you. However, I served in the Army for 11 years and would fight for your right to be ignorant and stupid if necessary.

So you're gonna pull the Army card every time somebody calls you dumb?
It's a strawman, btw. Serving was your choice and has nothing to do with how you're perceived.

[greyforest]

WC didn't say anything terribly inflammable like in other threads.

[MannyIsGod]

His reputation precedes him.

[LnGrrrR]

First wave of allied assault: 112 cruise missiles (http://www.thestate.com/2011/03/19/1743153/us-readies-for-assault-against.html)

Why are we defending those trying to take over an established government when we do it in the name of humanity, then kill so many ourselves?

What's wrong here...

You're against interventionism now?

[LnGrrrR]

Kadafi is definitely not a kind leader. however, the US and UN are now interfering with a sovereign nations rights to defend itself against enemies, foreign and domestic.

I'll give 5:1 odd that if Kadafi is overthrown, we will have a worse government in the aftermath to deal with than under his leadership.

Are you sure you're not talking about Iraq? :lol

[mingus]

who the fuck are these rebels that we're supporting anyway? it appears we know nothing about them other than the fact that they like firing bullets into the air.

[ChumpDumper]

You're right. Iraq was a different war for a different reason.

Please don't be so dumb as to confuse the two.

As for believing it needed to be done? The same belief lead to the overthrow of the Iranian government in 1979. Look what we have there now. I see Libya as another Iran.Yeah, Carter's no-fly zone over Iran really did the Shah in. :rolleyes

[rascal]

Whatever...

Remember. I did say I hope I'm wrong.

Don't worry you're wrong most of the time.

[AFBlue]

I'm disturbed by how this became a personal attack on one poster rather than a discussion about whether the UN should be "defensively" engaging in an internal conflict. Does anyone in this thread other than the OP have an actual position, or are you just content to criticize him on this position based on ones he's had in the past?

I invite you to not be so negative and condescending.

[Wild Cobra]

I'm disturbed by how this became a personal attack on one poster rather than a discussion about whether the UN should be "defensively" engaging in an internal conflict. Does anyone in this thread other than the OP have an actual position, or are you just content to criticize him on this position based on ones he's had in the past?

I invite you to not be so negative and condescending.
You shouldn't expect much from them. They don't have any good responses, so they can only criticize.

[greyforest]

You shouldn't expect much from them. They don't have any good responses, so they can only criticize.

Hey I had your back.

The reason to post on a political forum is to meld others viewpoints with your own...if you see someone doing that you probably shouldn't shit all over them when they're being sensible :toast

[FuzzyLumpkins]

There are two ways to see this.

The first is from an ethical standpoint. Wilddumbass tends towards this idea but as usual he misses the point.

Its not about how military force is brought to bear but rather is the use of force ethical. Complaining about death in war is like complaining about sex at an orgy.

I understand the ethical dilemma of interference in another countries internal politics.

I personally believe that this notion is at best naive. Every nation state in history does it and does it all the time.

This brings me to the second approach which is the utilitarian.

If we want any sort of credibility in the region or with our Allies for that matter, we had to get involved.

For other Mediterranean states Libya has been analagous to Chavez as is to us. France, Spain and Italy absolutely have to be salivating at the idea of an African coast without Khadafi.

The Arab League asked us to intervene.

That bears repeating.

The Arab League asked us to interfere.

For them to ask us to help clean up is huge from a diplomatic standpoint and that has ripple effects throughout the region. Their stance certainly did not come lightly. They last did when they asked us to get involved in Kuwait.

then there is this whole populist movement going on in Mediterranean muslim states.

To not seize this opportunity to be unerringly viewed on the side of good in this culture wide phenomenon would have been a blunder of epic proportion.

[Cry Havoc]

lol Kadafi

[Cry Havoc]

As long as we don't get involved in ground missions, I really have no problem with a no-fly zone... same as Bush Sr did in Iraq.

This x 100000

If we start moving in with any heavy troops, it's going to be a massive mistake. Better not happen.


There are two ways to see this.

The first is from an ethical standpoint. Wilddumbass tends towards this idea but as usual he misses the point.

Its not about how military force is brought to bear but rather is the use of force ethical. Complaining about death in war is like complaining about sex at an orgy.

I understand the ethical dilemma of interference in another countries internal politics.

I personally believe that this notion is at best naive. Every nation state in history does it and does it all the time.

This brings me to the second approach which is the utilitarian.

If we want any sort of credibility in the region or with our Allies for that matter, we had to get involved.

For other Mediterranean states Libya has been analagous to Chavez as is to us. France, Spain and Italy absolutely have to be salivating at the idea of an African coast without Khadafi.

The Arab League asked us to intervene.

That bears repeating.

The Arab League asked us to interfere.

For them to ask us to help clean up is huge from a diplomatic standpoint and that has ripple effects throughout the region. Their stance certainly did not come lightly. They last did when they asked us to get involved in Kuwait.

then there is this whole populist movement going on in Mediterranean muslim states.

To not seize this opportunity to be unerringly viewed on the side of good in this culture wide phenomenon would have been a blunder of epic proportion.

:tu Astonishingly well-put.

[admiralsnackbar]

This x 100000

If we start moving in with any heavy troops, it's going to be a massive mistake. Better not happen.



:tu Astonishingly well-put.

I'm gonna go ahead and +1 that. Thanks for the insight, FL.

[MannyIsGod]

The Arab League played us.

The Arab League didn't ask us to intervene, they signed on and then promptly decided to criticize the action publicly yesterday. Let me know when the Arab League wants us to intervene in places like Bahrain, Jordan, Syria, and Saudi Arabia.

These attacks are bad for so many fucking reasons and Obama has yet to explain to us or congress just what the hell we're doing.

Say what you want about the Bushes, at least they made the case for war in the public and not behind closed doors before rushing off. Transparency my ass.

[lefty]

Each missile costs 1 million $

112 Millions that could have been put to better use, I'm sure

[nkdlunch]

Each missile costs 1 million $

112 Millions that could have been put to better use, I'm sure

that's chump change bro

[boutons_deux]

"at least they made the case for war in the public"

Yes, the Repugs LIED in public about invading Iraq.

[nkdlunch]

U.S. Casualties of Iraq War: 5,000 dead 32,000 wounded

U.S. Casualties of Lybian War: 0 dead 0 wounded

I think it's fair to say the jury is still out on Lybia being a worst decision than Iraq.

I'm gonna go ahead and bet Lybia won't even be close to the fuckup called Iraq.

[Sportcamper]

Props to Obama for using the French to soften them up…:lol

[nkdlunch]

R5WJAu3G0wU

[boutons_deux]

Gates: U.S. expects to hand off Libya lead in 'days'

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2011-03-20-gates-libya_N.htm


IBIWISI

[CosmicCowboy]

*moved

[RandomGuy]

I'm disturbed by how this became a personal attack on one poster rather than a discussion about whether the UN should be "defensively" engaging in an internal conflict. Does anyone in this thread other than the OP have an actual position, or are you just content to criticize him on this position based on ones he's had in the past?

I invite you to not be so negative and condescending.


Are you liberals happy that we just declared war on Libya?

He tends to sink to that level himself fairly quickly and invite the kinds of pissy exchanges that ensues.

Personally I think that we should provide some support, but if anyone wants some boots on the ground, they had better be from Europe. No US combat formations. Cruise missles, bombing runs, sure.

I don't doubt that we have some special forces on the ground now though. I can live with that.

[Josepatches_]

Each missile costs 1 million $

112 Millions that could have been put to better use, I'm sure



Those 112 millions aren't lost. That's money for the arms industry.

You have to use missiles to build new ones.

[MannyIsGod]

Oh, well now thats a relief!

[boutons_deux]

$1M per cruise is at least 50% profit.

[Agloco]

Complaining about death in war is like complaining about sex at an orgy.

/thread

[greyforest]

Those 112 millions aren't lost. That's money for the arms industry.

You have to use missiles to build new ones.

These 14 billions aren't lost. That's money for the transportation industry.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_dig

[FuzzyLumpkins]

The Arab League played us.

The Arab League didn't ask us to intervene, they signed on and then promptly decided to criticize the action publicly yesterday. Let me know when the Arab League wants us to intervene in places like Bahrain, Jordan, Syria, and Saudi Arabia.

These attacks are bad for so many fucking reasons and Obama has yet to explain to us or congress just what the hell we're doing.

Say what you want about the Bushes, at least they made the case for war in the public and not behind closed doors before rushing off. Transparency my ass.

Do you pay attention to how foreign policy works with autocratic regimes in the middle east? Whats been going on with Pakistan for the last decade?

And who really cares what the autocrats think? I am more interested in that HUGE demographic of dispossessed male middle easterners aged 16-34 cheering on their Libyan brothers who we are helping win.

How do you think people in Egypt, Bahrain and Iran think about this? How it effects our regional credibility if we help those rebels actually win?

[MannyIsGod]

Do you pay attention to how foreign policy works with autocratic regimes in the middle east? Whats been going on with Pakistan for the last decade?

And who really cares what the autocrats think? I am more interested in that HUGE demographic of dispossessed male middle easterners aged 16-34 cheering on their Libyan brothers who we are helping win.

How do you think people in Egypt, Bahrain and Iran think about this? How it effects our regional credibility if we help those rebels actually win?

This is not going to help us anymore than Iraq helped us. You guys don't seem to understand that we can't bomb our way to achieving goodwill among the people of the middle east and we especially can't do it when we're training and supporting the people who keep the boots on their necks.

What about the past 50 years of foreign policy makes you think its possible to achieve good will with military action in the middle east? Just what exactly? Its mind boggling how we repeat the same mistakes over and over and over again.

[Cry Havoc]

The Arab League played us.

The Arab League didn't ask us to intervene, they signed on and then promptly decided to criticize the action publicly yesterday. Let me know when the Arab League wants us to intervene in places like Bahrain, Jordan, Syria, and Saudi Arabia.

Welcome to Middle-Eastern politics.


These attacks are bad for so many fucking reasons and Obama has yet to explain to us or congress just what the hell we're doing.

Protecting civilian lives. Not saying I agree or disagree with this assessment, but they've said exactly what they're doing, protecting a populated city from being shelled by heavy ordinance.


Say what you want about the Bushes, at least they made the case for war in the public and not behind closed doors before rushing off. Transparency my ass.

They openly lied in public. I don't see how that's better. We aren't going to full-scale war in Libya. We aren't going to have a campaign there, to say nothing of an extended campaign. They are completely different operations.

[MannyIsGod]

Obviously its not going to be an invasion (yet - I didn't think we'd even attack so yeah) but the bullshit reason that its to protect civilians is so old I'm shocked anyone even accepts it as anything but bullshit. Protect civilians in Libya but ignore civilians elsewhere in the exact same region that are crack down upon? Ignore sub sahara Africa once again where worse atrocities are being comited but we're ready to rain down the cruise missiles in a country with an oil supply?

I'll never buy into the protecting civilians argument again from this nation because its a total crock of shit. Complain all you want about Bush but this is the same fucking thing.

As for the Arab League, you guys can't sit there and tout them asking us to come in (which is wrong to begin with because they didn't) and then write off their bullshit as "middle east politics". Hilary Clinton was all over giving interviews over how great it was to have their support and how it was the deciding factor in going to war but we're just supposed to ignore it when they come out on the first day of operations and pull that sought after legitimacy right back? Sorry, no.

[MannyIsGod]

Obama will regret not explaining himself to the people a great deal. Support for this shit is incredibly low for the start of a military campaign and that support will erode away the longer we're involved. This country is sick of its two current wars and certainly didn't want to see us involved in yet another attack in the middle east no matter how short the duration.

Between these actions and gas prices going up Obama sees the possibility of being a one term president increase each and every day.

[Cry Havoc]

Obviously its not going to be an invasion (yet - I didn't think we'd even attack so yeah) but the bullshit reason that its to protect civilians is so old I'm shocked anyone even accepts it as anything but bullshit. Protect civilians in Libya but ignore civilians elsewhere in the exact same region that are crack down upon? Ignore sub sahara Africa once again where worse atrocities are being comited but we're ready to rain down the cruise missiles in a country with an oil supply?

I'll never buy into the protecting civilians argument again from this nation because its a total crock of shit. Complain all you want about Bush but this is the same fucking thing.

As for the Arab League, you guys can't sit there and tout them asking us to come in (which is wrong to begin with because they didn't) and then write off their bullshit as "middle east politics". Hilary Clinton was all over giving interviews over how great it was to have their support and how it was the deciding factor in going to war but we're just supposed to ignore it when they come out on the first day of operations and pull that sought after legitimacy right back? Sorry, no.

At least Obama had the U.N. mandate with these actions, is all I'm saying. That's a HUGE fucking step, and nearly a first for recent American conflicts/politics. The fact that we aren't charging into this region Duke Nukem style, guns blazing, with middle finger extended to the rest of the countries we call our allies is a step up for me. It's still not ideal, and I don't like the situation at all, but at least we're on the same page as several other nations.

Obama has greatly disappointed me as a President, but at least he knows how to be a diplomat and cooperate with the body of the United Nations. Something most front-running GOP candidates couldn't care less about, especially recently. If McCain was in office, missiles would have been fired the day those tanks rolled toward Benghazi, whether Congress, the UN, or the American people wanted it. If nothing else, he's somewhat building back the reputation of the United States working in concert with other people to achieve goals, and there's something to be said for that.

[boutons_deux]

"Obama had the U.N. mandate ... a first for recent American conflicts/politics"

in 2002, Powell LIED to the UN to get the mandate for UCA to invade Iraq.

[Cry Havoc]

"Obama had the U.N. mandate ... a first for recent American conflicts/politics"

in 2002, Powell LIED to the UN to get the mandate for UCA to invade Iraq.

Lying to get someone's approval doesn't really count, IMO. That situation soured fairly quickly on us due to those lies. This mandate was obtained by the UN with what seems to be minimal pressure from the US. We didn't bully them into this resolution or into the No Fly Zone.

[Wild Cobra]

Obama will regret not explaining himself to the people a great deal. Support for this shit is incredibly low for the start of a military campaign and that support will erode away the longer we're involved. This country is sick of its two current wars and certainly didn't want to see us involved in yet another attack in the middle east no matter how short the duration.

Between these actions and gas prices going up Obama sees the possibility of being a one term president increase each and every day.
He doesn't have to explain anything. His media friends lie for him rather well.

[vy65]

US jet crashes in Libya; fighting rages in cities

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/af_libya;_ylt=Al4K9Sv_j1XwRQZHJrBQ6vOs0NUE;_ylu=X3 oDMTM4YW9lNnBkBGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMTEwMzIyL2FmX2xpYnlh BGNjb2RlA21vc3Rwb3B1bGFyBGNwb3MDMQRwb3MDMgRwdANob2 1lX2Nva2UEc2VjA3luX3RvcF9zdG9yeQRzbGsDdXNqZXRjcmFz aGVz

[Oh, Gee!!]

Those 112 millions aren't lost. That's money for the arms industry.

You have to use missiles to build new ones.

is it true that if you don't use them, you lose them?

[MannyIsGod]

http://www.nationaljournal.com/nationalsecurity/costs-of-libya-operation-already-piling-up-20110321?print=true

Meanwhile I'm sure there will be a lot of bullshit about how we need to cut costs and programs here at home. We always find money to give to the MIC but fuck NPR!

[MannyIsGod]

With U.N. coalition forces bombarding Libyan leader Muammar el-Qaddafi from the sea and air, the United States’ part in the operation could ultimately hit several billion dollars -- and require the Pentagon to request emergency funding from Congress to pay for it.

SO fucking infuriating.

[MannyIsGod]

http://thehill.com/news-by-subject/defense-homeland-security/151147-cost-of-libya-campaign-could-wipe-out-gop-budget-cuts

[Yonivore]

SO fucking infuriating.
Well, there's one shovel-ready job, I can get behind.

[MannyIsGod]

7:25pm
Channel 4 News is reporting that six villagers in a field on the outskirts of Benghazi were shot and injured when a US helicopter landed to rescue a crew membr from the US fighter jet that crashed late on Monday.

It said the local Libyans who were injured in the rescue mission are currently in hospital and that one young boy is expected to have his leg amputated due to a bullet wound.

Sweet. This is the kind of stuff that really gets people behind you.

http://blogs.aljazeera.net/live/africa/live-blog-libya-march-22

[vy65]

Obviously its not going to be an invasion (yet - I didn't think we'd even attack so yeah) but the bullshit reason that its to protect civilians is so old I'm shocked anyone even accepts it as anything but bullshit. Protect civilians in Libya but ignore civilians elsewhere in the exact same region that are crack down upon? Ignore sub sahara Africa once again where worse atrocities are being comited but we're ready to rain down the cruise missiles in a country with an oil supply?

I'll never buy into the protecting civilians argument again from this nation because its a total crock of shit. Complain all you want about Bush but this is the same fucking thing.

I'll give you that oil plays a large part in this - but - what's your alternative? Should we not intervene in Libya because we can't intervene everywhere?

My understanding is that the European countries - France in particular - are spearheading this operation because they consider Libya to be "in their backyard." That might have as much to do with the intervention as the oil.

[MannyIsGod]

Then let them fucking do it. Why must we be involved? Yes, we should not intervene in Libya for a variety of reasons not the least of which is its expensive as all fucking hell, its counterproductive as hell, and it is exactly what Obama said he wasn't going to do.

To spin this as if we had non choice or that somehow France and the rest of Europe gets to tell us who to attack is fucking infuriating.

[Cry Havoc]

SO fucking infuriating.

Totally agreed. :pctoss

[vy65]

Then let them fucking do it. Why must we be involved? Yes, we should not intervene in Libya for a variety of reasons not the least of which is its expensive as all fucking hell, its counterproductive as hell, and it is exactly what Obama said he wasn't going to do.

To spin this as if we had non choice or that somehow France and the rest of Europe gets to tell us who to attack is fucking infuriating.

We should because we should take the humanitarian intervention doctrine seriously.

That said, I don't think its being spun currently as "we have no choice." And there's a lot of validity to the cost argument as well. And we're probably doing it in no small part becasue the East, where all the rebels are, is oil-rich. But if we don't get involved in nation-building, then it seems a pretty productive mission.

You think that US participation in a multi-national military operation - condoned by the UN - to ensure a tyranical maniac doesn't continue to bomb the shit out of his own citizens sends the wrong message? It seems like this is the exact type of military intervention that we should be doing - assuming that we don't get involved in nation-building/"installing" a democratic state.

[coyotes_geek]

Then let them fucking do it. Why must we be involved? Yes, we should not intervene in Libya for a variety of reasons not the least of which is its expensive as all fucking hell, its counterproductive as hell, and it is exactly what Obama said he wasn't going to do.

To spin this as if we had non choice or that somehow France and the rest of Europe gets to tell us who to attack is fucking infuriating.

+1

We need to get out of the "spreading democracy" business.

[MannyIsGod]

I'll give you that oil plays a large part in this - but - what's your alternative? Should we not intervene in Libya because we can't intervene everywhere?

My understanding is that the European countries - France in particular - are spearheading this operation because they consider Libya to be "in their backyard." That might have as much to do with the intervention as the oil.


We should because we should take the humanitarian intervention doctrine seriously.

That said, I don't think its being spun currently as "we have no choice." And there's a lot of validity to the cost argument as well. And we're probably doing it in no small part becasue the East, where all the rebels are, is oil-rich. But if we don't get involved in nation-building, then it seems a pretty productive mission.

You think that US participation in a multi-national military operation - condoned by the UN - to ensure a tyranical maniac doesn't continue to bomb the shit out of his own citizens sends the wrong message? It seems like this is the exact type of military intervention that we should be doing - assuming that we don't get involved in nation-building/"installing" a democratic state.


LOL @ the bolded.

Its like you've missed the past 50 years of history. What is with the inherent hubris that leads to the conclusion that so often amounts to we're bombing you for your own good?

What is it about the people you want to make a good impression on that you think they'll see this as a good thing but completely ignore our support of the governments cracking down elsewhere in the same region and that they'll somehow forget we also support Israel.

You think this is the type of intervention we should be doing but I think we shouldn't be doing any more intervening at all. American's just can't help themselves though. As long as we have this pretty toy in the military we just HAVE to use it.

[MannyIsGod]

+1

We need to get out of the "spreading democracy" business.

Exactly. Same shit different day.

[vy65]

LOL @ the bolded.

Its like you've missed the past 50 years of history. What is with the inherent hubris that leads to the conclusion that so often amounts to we're bombing you for your own good?

What is it about the people you want to make a good impression on that you think they'll see this as a good thing but completely ignore our support of the governments cracking down elsewhere in the same region and that they'll somehow forget we also support Israel.

You think this is the type of intervention we should be doing but I think we shouldn't be doing any more intervening at all. American's just can't help themselves though. As long as we have this pretty toy in the military we just HAVE to use it.

What. The. Fuck. Are. You. On?

What the fuck does hubris have to do with the fact that Qaddafi is a maniacal tyrant who terrorizes his people?

What the fuck does Israel have to do with Libya?

Why does this operation have to be covered with the veneer of Iraq or Afghanistan? Or, more importantly, why does all US military action from here on out have to be tainted because of those debacles? Are you so short-sighted and unimaginative that you think the world's largest military power couldn't possibly be used for productive uses?

This isn't about nation-building or blood for oil or any other inane, rehashed bullshit excuse you'll come up with. You basically said fuck helping people. But I get it - retreat back into your cave, ignore the rest of the world, and let those fuckers rot, right? Out of sight, out of mind - who the fuck cares? We don't want our hubris to get in the way of helping people.

[vy65]

Oh and one other thing - plz explain how military action to enforce a UN mandated cease-fire is tantamount to the "we're helping you for your own good/stupid local savages don't know what's best for themselves" psuedo-evangalical bullshit of the past "50 years of history" that I've apparently missed?

[CosmicCowboy]

Oh and one other thing - plz explain how military action to enforce a UN mandated cease-fire is tantamount to the "we're helping you for your own good/stupid local savages don't know what's best for themselves" psuedo-evangalical bullshit of the past "50 years of history" that I've apparently missed?

uhhhh...in three days we have gone from "protecting innocent civilians from the Libyan military offensive" to our goal being a "regime change". If there was ever any legitimacy to the UN no fly mandate we have now vastly exceeded it's scope.

[vy65]

uhhhh...in three days we have gone from "protecting innocent civilians from the Libyan military offensive" to our goal being a "regime change". If there was ever any legitimacy to the UN no fly mandate we have now vastly exceeded it's scope.

I saw that article - and I don't know how much to belive in it. I think that US led regime change is probably not a good idea.

That said, I'm responding to the claim that intervention justified by "protecting innocent civilians" = bullshit is, in fact, retarded.

[MannyIsGod]

What. The. Fuck. Are. You. On?

What the fuck does hubris have to do with the fact that Qaddafi is a maniacal tyrant who terrorizes his people?


Nothing. The Hubris comes in from the fact that you think it can be fixed with bombs even though history keeps trying to tell you otherwise




What the fuck does Israel have to do with Libya?



You're trying to win the hearts and minds of the people in the middle east with this action as if they're going to ignore all others. You want people to see what you want them to see but you don't want to take into account what they actually see.



Why does this operation have to be covered with the veneer of Iraq or Afghanistan? Or, more importantly, why does all US military action from here on out have to be tainted because of those debacles? Are you so short-sighted and unimaginative that you think the world's largest military power couldn't possibly be used for productive uses?


Hubris and see above




This isn't about nation-building or blood for oil or any other inane, rehashed bullshit excuse you'll come up with. You basically said fuck helping people. But I get it - retreat back into your cave, ignore the rest of the world, and let those fuckers rot, right? Out of sight, out of mind - who the fuck cares? We don't want our hubris to get in the way of helping people.

It is about oil. You said so above. You go on ahead thinking you can save the world with bombs even though history says otherwise. Actually you can go on ahead and believe that its ABOUT saving the world when its obviously not.

Its so sad that you sit there and act like you've doned a fucking cape with Obama and are saving the world. Let the people in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Ivory Coast, The Congo, Tibet, Iran, Sudan, (Fuck I might as well just say sub Sahara Africa and save some time), etc etc that you feel good about saving Libya because your government is all about saving the world but they should get some oil first so that we'll care.

[MannyIsGod]

I saw that article - and I don't know how much to belive in it. I think that US led regime change is probably not a good idea.

That said, I'm responding to the claim that intervention justified by "protecting innocent civilians" = bullshit is, in fact, retarded.

Yes, because our history of intervention in the Middle East in order to "protect civilians" has a grand history of doing just that. How many innocent civilians in Iraq died due to our actions again?

I get it though - this time its different.

[MannyIsGod]

What happens when actions like this embolden rebellions because they think we're going to help and then we don't? I'll tell you what happens: Massacres. See the aftermath of the 1st Persian Gulf War.

But yeah, we'e out to save the world. Give yourself a gold star.

[MannyIsGod]

I'm sure glad we're training the Saudi military that is the same military that is helping Bahrain crackdown on civilians. That means we're out to save the civilians!

[MannyIsGod]

Oh and one other thing - plz explain how military action to enforce a UN mandated cease-fire is tantamount to the "we're helping you for your own good/stupid local savages don't know what's best for themselves" psuedo-evangalical bullshit of the past "50 years of history" that I've apparently missed?

I missed the Libyans that asked us to bomb their own country. The UN made the decision for the Libyans and got itself involved in a CIVIL WAR for economic reasons and is selling them (you're obviously willfully buying even though you know better) as a humanitarian issue and you're asking how this relates to the history of the past 50 years? Amazing.

[CosmicCowboy]

I'm sure glad we're training the Saudi military that is the same military that is helping Bahrain crackdown on civilians. That means we're out to save the civilians!

Aw C'mon Manny. I'm sure we are training them in non-lethal ways to shoot their civilians.

[MannyIsGod]

Yeah I'm sure we'll be issuing rubber bullets as parting gifts.

[vy65]

Nothing. The Hubris comes in from the fact that you think it can be fixed with bombs even though history keeps trying to tell you otherwise

So you've already conceded that this bombing campaign: a) has nothing to do with "hubris" and b) is intended to stop someone from butchering his own people.

As it stands now, this campaign isn't about "fixing" Libya - it's about stopping violence. That seemed to work in the Balkans - didn't it?

And please point out where I said we should feel good about ourselves for helping the Libyans out? You've just assumed something that I've never said - and don't believe - to help your facile position out.


You're trying to win the hearts and minds of the people in the middle east with this action as if they're going to ignore all others. You want people to see what you want them to see but you don't want to take into account what they actually see.

Where the fuck are you getting this hearts/minds bullshit? Especially given that this seems to be a European led mission?

Also, what am I not seeing? Are the rebels in the east telling the US, or its European allies, to stop?



It is about oil. You said so above. You go on ahead thinking you can save the world with bombs even though history says otherwise. Actually you can go on ahead and believe that its ABOUT saving the world when its obviously not.

Its so sad that you sit there and act like you've doned a fucking cape with Obama and are saving the world. Let the people in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Ivory Coast, The Congo, Tibet, Iran, Sudan, (Fuck I might as well just say sub Sahara Africa and save some time), etc etc that you feel good about saving Libya because your government is all about saving the world but they should get some oil first so that we'll care.

You're as closed minded, unimaginative, and fucking dumb as the conservatives you yell at. Sure, it can be about oil and helping innocent civilians. Why can't it be both? What's wrong with it being both?

You still haven't given me a reason why the world's largest military power doesn't have an obligation to help others out. You still haven't explained why a country premised on democracy and human rights doesn't have an obligation to stop tyrants. You haven't explained why a country that enjoys one of the most expensive standards of living - a standard facilitated by exploiting those in countries like Libya - does not have an obligation to help those countries when they get fucked in the ass by their leaders.

Instead, you recite a fucking hackneyed list of countries we don't care about. Sure, intervention is selective. And sure, we don't help those people out. I never condoned those actions. I never said we should feel good by helping country A while ignoring country B. If anything, I'd be in favor of more intervention in those places.

You're close-minded beyond belief. Maybe our intervention in Libya should remind us of the suffering in those other places you've listed. You content to put all those countries out of sight and out of mind. Who the fuck cares about Libya - I'll sit on my couch, playing ps3, and get fat. Ironically, you're deliberate ignorance and refusal to get involved in other countries' affairs is exactly what enables Darfur, Rwanda, etc... Out of sight, out of mind ... right?

[vy65]

And before you make any other retarded assumptions - no - I don't think we should be involved in nation building, installing a (puppet) regime, etc...

I just don't see the problem in stopping someone from killing his own people.

[TeyshaBlue]

And before you make any other retarded assumptions - no - I don't think we should be involved in nation building, installing a (puppet) regime, etc...

I just don't see the problem in stopping someone from killing his own people.

The problem is the, thus far, 100% chance of mission creep into regime change. Our track record aint to great in that regard.

[MannyIsGod]

So you've already conceded that this bombing campaign: a) has nothing to do with "hubris" and b) is intended to stop someone from butchering his own people.

As it stands now, this campaign isn't about "fixing" Libya - it's about stopping violence. That seemed to work in the Balkans - didn't it?



You obviously missed the part where ground troops went in through the Balkans and how long it took. You don't fix shit from the air, but of course you ignore the history of interventions such as this.

I literally loled at "stopping violence". I hear bombing a place is the best way to "stop violence".

You don't seem to understand that hubris is exactly what leads you to believe that you can stop violence from the air with violence. The Hubris of people like you and our leaders is exactly what leads to these events. Its a trademark of Neoconservative thinking.




Where the fuck are you getting this hearts/minds bullshit? Especially given that this seems to be a European led mission?

Also, what am I not seeing? Are the rebels in the east telling the US, or its European allies, to stop?



Do the rebels make up all of the people in Libya? Does Quadafi have any supporters or is his military made up of robots? Where the rebels elected representatives of all of Libya?

You can't even keep your own thoughts straight. You brought up the message this sends and how it couldn't possibly be a bad one and now you ask why we're talking about the perceptions of "the message"?



You're as closed minded, unimaginative, and fucking dumb as the conservatives you yell at. Sure, it can be about oil and helping innocent civilians. Why can't it be both? What's wrong with it being both?


Why can't it be about both? Because only one governs the decision. It should be fucking obvious which that is. We don't do shit to help civilians that involves action like this unless oil is around. You don't seem to understand that simple fact.



You still haven't given me a reason why the world's largest military power doesn't have an obligation to help others out.


Because its counter productive and expensive. Thats why. I had already explained that to you but you fail to understand it because you choose to ignore the ramifications of these actions in the past.



You still haven't explained why a country premised on democracy and human rights doesn't have an obligation to stop tyrants. You haven't explained why a country that enjoys one of the most expensive standards of living - a standard facilitated by exploiting those in countries like Libya - does not have an obligation to help those countries when they get fucked in the ass by their leaders.


Hubris to the max.



Instead, you recite a fucking hackneyed list of countries we don't care about. Sure, intervention is selective. And sure, we don't help those people out. I never condoned those actions. I never said we should feel good by helping country A while ignoring country B. If anything, I'd be in favor of more intervention in those places.



Of course you would. Hubris



You're close-minded beyond belief. Maybe our intervention in Libya should remind us of the suffering in those other places you've listed. You content to put all those countries out of sight and out of mind. Who the fuck cares about Libya - I'll sit on my couch, playing ps3, and get fat. Ironically, you're deliberate ignorance and refusal to get involved in other countries' affairs is exactly what enables Darfur, Rwanda, etc... Out of sight, out of mind ... right?

You're delusional as hell. Apparently my refusal to support wars is the reason genocide between tribes in Africa happens. Thats some amazing logic.

[MannyIsGod]

And before you make any other retarded assumptions - no - I don't think we should be involved in nation building, installing a (puppet) regime, etc...

I just don't see the problem in stopping someone from killing his own people.

I think its amazing that you've managed to try to insult me as close minded and have the gal to make statements such as this. You really have no grasp on history.

[MannyIsGod]

I also love how the burden of proof on intervention is placed on those wanting to avoid it according to VY. No, he doesn't need to prove how action in Libya is going to result in a favorable situation. No, I have to prove why we shouldn't use our military to intervene.

The fuck?

[Blake]

You still haven't given me a reason why the world's largest military power doesn't have an obligation to help others out. You still haven't explained why a country premised on democracy and human rights doesn't have an obligation to stop tyrants.

+1 million trillion

might makes right.

so does democracy.

next up: North Korea

[CosmicCowboy]

And before you make any other retarded assumptions - no - I don't think we should be involved in nation building, installing a (puppet) regime, etc...

I just don't see the problem in stopping someone from killing his own people.

I presume you realize that this is absolutely impossible to accomplish just using airplanes, bombs, and cruise missiles...it takes boots on the ground...and we have seen how good THAT worked in Iraq and Afghanistan...

[vy65]

You obviously missed the part where ground troops went in through the Balkans and how long it took. You don't fix shit from the air, but of course you ignore the history of interventions such as this.

Because this is exactly like the Balkans - from a military/tactical standpoint. In fact, pretty much all humanitarian campaigns are pretty much the same, right? Wouldn't you say so from you're apparently enlightened historical perspective?


I literally loled at "stopping violence". I hear bombing a place is the best way to "stop violence".

Still waiting on your alternative. Are you sticking to "sit on my ass and play ps3 while people die?"


You don't seem to understand that hubris is exactly what leads you to believe that you can stop violence from the air with violence. The Hubris of people like you and our leaders is exactly what leads to these events. Its a trademark of Neoconservative thinking.

Still waiting for that alternative.


Do the rebels make up all of the people in Libya? Does Quadafi have any supporters or is his military made up of robots? Where the rebels elected representatives of all of Libya?

Were the rebels indiscrimately killing Quadafi supporters? You're argument essentially boils down to: "we shouldn't stop the janjaweed because they have Sudanese supporters." Enjoy your moral relativism.


You can't even keep your own thoughts straight. You brought up the message this sends and how it couldn't possibly be a bad one and now you ask why we're talking about the perceptions of "the message"?

The message this sends is that a tyrant shouldn't kill his own people. What's wrong with that?



Why can't it be about both? Because only one governs the decision. It should be fucking obvious which that is. We don't do shit to help civilians that involves action like this unless oil is around. You don't seem to understand that simple fact.

So you're solution is to do nothing because any action we take would be "tainted," right? In other words, we literally should let innocent people die because Libya has oil.

And even if one governs the other - why is that bad if it ends up saving lives. You agree that we're not talking about a nation-building program here - so if some bombs 1) stop the murder of innocents and 2) protect valuable natural resources, what's the problem?



Because its counter productive and expensive. Thats why. I had already explained that to you but you fail to understand it because you choose to ignore the ramifications of these actions in the past.

Do you have statistics on the relative cost of this operation is compared to the overal DoD budget?

Also, what's your alternative?




Hubris to the max.

Of course you would. Hubris

No, it's not. And what's your alternative?


You're delusional as hell. Apparently my refusal to support wars is the reason genocide between tribes in Africa happens. Thats some amazing logic.

No, your facile non-violence position is what enables genocide.

[vy65]

I presume you realize that this is absolutely impossible to accomplish just using airplanes, bombs, and cruise missiles...it takes boots on the ground...and we have seen how good THAT worked in Iraq and Afghanistan...

Seems to be working so far.

[vy65]

I also love how the burden of proof on intervention is placed on those wanting to avoid it according to VY. No, he doesn't need to prove how action in Libya is going to result in a favorable situation. No, I have to prove why we shouldn't use our military to intervene.

The fuck?

The burden is all yours - you initially said that we shouldn't intervene to stop genocide.

[vy65]

I think its amazing that you've managed to try to insult me as close minded and have the gal to make statements such as this. You really have no grasp on history.

You're closed minded because you presume that military intervention can only work in a particular way - i.e., Iraq and Afghanistan.

My point is that military intervention is not inherently as fucked as the operations in those two countries would make it seem. That, intervention can sometimes work, and work for good.

[MannyIsGod]

Because this is exactly like the Balkans - from a military/tactical standpoint. In fact, pretty much all humanitarian campaigns are pretty much the same, right? Wouldn't you say so from you're apparently enlightened historical perspective?

Of course they're different but they've also got characteristics that are the same. For one, they all require an intervention using ground forces which always leads to more problems.



Still waiting on your alternative. Are you sticking to "sit on my ass and play ps3 while people die?"


Am I willing to play my PS3 while people die?

YES


It is neither my responsibility nor is it possible for American intervention to save the world. I don't feel the least guilty about it. What I feel more guilty about is our active action that leads to death. 100,000 dead in Iraq due directly to our invasion.



Still waiting for that alternative.


The alternative is to do nothing. Its acceptable.



Were the rebels indiscrimately killing Quadafi supporters? You're argument essentially boils down to: "we shouldn't stop the janjaweed because they have Sudanese supporters." Enjoy your moral relativism.


LOL I'm the one with moral relativism? LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL




The message this sends is that a tyrant shouldn't kill his own people. What's wrong with that?

Thats not the message it sends. Thats the message you WANT it to send.





So you're solution is to do nothing because any action we take would be "tainted," right? In other words, we literally should let innocent people die because Libya has oil.


Innocent people will die as the result of our actions. You can't prevent innocent people from dying around the world. I don't bear the cross of having to save everyone in it. Thats your issue, not mine and it leads you to believe its actually possible.



And even if one governs the other - why is that bad if it ends up saving lives. You agree that we're not talking about a nation-building program here - so if some bombs 1) stop the murder of innocents and 2) protect valuable natural resources, what's the problem?



The problem is that it doesn't have the intended consequences you want it to and its not free. The billions used in this action could be used to save lives right here at home, yet you don't acknowledge that. You somehow think that we should save the world but what about the budget cuts here at home that will cost lives here? You are ok with that?




Do you have statistics on the relative cost of this operation is compared to the overal DoD budget?

Also, what's your alternative?


I've told you my alternative. The expenses relative to the entire DOD budget is about as red as herring gets. The point is that we're spending money in Libya while cutting programs here at home.

Why are Libyan lives more important to you than those here at home?





No, it's not. And what's your alternative?



No, your facile non-violence position is what enables genocide.[/QUOTE]

[MannyIsGod]

The burden is all yours - you initially said that we shouldn't intervene to stop genocide.

:lol

Oh ok.

[MannyIsGod]

Seems to be working so far.

:lol !!!

Really? People aren't dying in Libya anymore?

[vy65]

I also find it ironic that the one who is citing "history" is able to lump literally every military intervention ever, homogenize them, and say they all ended up the same.

Score a point for nuance and attention to detail :tu

[vy65]

:lol !!!

Really? People aren't dying in Libya anymore?

Yes. They're not.

Do you understand the stupid shit you say is stupid, when you say it?

[MannyIsGod]

I never said they ended up the same.

:lol @ you talking about nuance and details while making that statement.

[MannyIsGod]

Yes. They're not.

Do you understand the stupid shit you say is stupid, when you say it?

:depressed:depressed:depressed:depressed

VY thinks I'm stupid.

[MannyIsGod]

http://blogs.aljazeera.net/live/africa/live-blog-libya-march-22

Seems to me people are still dying in Libya.

[MannyIsGod]

Personally I'd like someone - anyone - to explain to me how this is successful in the long run or for that matter what defines successful.

[vy65]

Of course they're different but they've also got characteristics that are the same. For one, they all require an intervention using ground forces which always leads to more problems.

Explain then why Libya will require a ground invasion like the others



Am I willing to play my PS3 while people die?

YES


It is neither my responsibility nor is it possible for American intervention to save the world. I don't feel the least guilty about it. What I feel more guilty about is our active action that leads to death. 100,000 dead in Iraq due directly to our invasion.



The alternative is to do nothing. Its acceptable.

Weren't you complaining about Rwanda, Tibet, all of sub-saharan Africa earlier? And now your position is to let them rot because they ain't my problem? And you were accusing me of hubris before?

You also realize that you directly benefit from the suffering people in those countries endure, right? But you'd rather play ps3, right?

You're a good liberal.




LOL I'm the one with moral relativism? LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL

Lol is an argument now?




Thats not the message it sends. Thats the message you WANT it to send.

nope, that's the message you think it sends.



Innocent people will die as the result of our actions. You can't prevent innocent people from dying around the world. I don't bear the cross of having to save everyone in it. Thats your issue, not mine and it leads you to believe its actually possible.

I get it. 1 American = 5 Libyans.


The problem is that it doesn't have the intended consequences you want it to and its not free. The billions used in this action could be used to save lives right here at home, yet you don't acknowledge that. You somehow think that we should save the world but what about the budget cuts here at home that will cost lives here? You are ok with that?

Do you have any proof that had the US not acted, money instead would have been diverted to "save lives here at home?"



I've told you my alternative. The expenses relative to the entire DOD budget is about as red as herring gets. The point is that we're spending money in Libya while cutting programs here at home.

Why are Libyan lives more important to you than those here at home?

Libyan lives aren't more important - but you seem think American ones are more important than theres. Also, please give me some proof that the money spent on the Libyan action was going to be diverted to something else?

[MannyIsGod]

Explain then why Libya will require a ground invasion like the others


Never has an air campaign alone been successful in stopping the killing of civilians. Never. What about Libya is supposed to give me a new found belief that this will be the first case?

For one, its an active civil war and the rebels aren't going to stop fighting. There will still be an active civil war which will lead to more civilian deaths. Furthermore when do you stop the no fly zone? Never? If and when you stop it and there is still a civil war then you'll see a resumption of what happened prior to the no fly zone. How do you stop the civil war with simple air action? Qadafi isn't going anywhere and he's not alone.




Weren't you complaining about Rwanda, Tibet, all of sub-saharan Africa earlier? And now your position is to let them rot because they ain't my problem? And you were accusing me of hubris before?

You also realize that you directly benefit from the suffering people in those countries endure, right? But you'd rather play ps3, right?

You're a good liberal.


Complaining? No, I was pointing out how selective our intervention is. I'm not sure why you think me enjoying my PS3 is somehow a knock on me but you're free to continue to bring it up.

I don't directly benefit from the suffering of those in Rwanda but I'm beginning to get used to you making pretty outlandish claims. If you would love to explain that one I'm all ears.

Is my position to let them rot? No, my position is that we can't save the world.





Lol is an argument now?



LOL is what I use when the arguments you pose are too stupid for an actual response. To be quite honest, most of your arguments deserve nothing more but I'm bored.




nope, that's the message you think it sends.



Ok. If you'd care to show me some proof that this conflict is being perceived the way you believe it to be then I'm all ears.




I get it. 1 American = 5 Libyans.


Ok



Do you have any proof that had the US not acted, money instead would have been diverted to "save lives here at home?"


Why do I need proof of that? My stance is that the money can be spent in a more productive manner here at home.




Libyan lives aren't more important - but you seem think American ones are more important than theres. Also, please give me some proof that the money spent on the Libyan action was going to be diverted to something else?

Yes, I believe that American lives should be more important in the eyes of the American government.

I don't see the need to prove that. I can be upset at my government spending money in a poor fashion when they do so without proving that they would have spent it differently.

Your logic is extremely odd.

[coyotes_geek]

And what's your alternative?

Just for discussion's sake, an alternative.

We support the no-fly zone. We provide use of our bases, we provide intel, we provide humanitarian aid, but we don't get involved in the bombing. We tell the international community that given our current situation we don't think it's appropriate for us to get actively involved in another armed conflict at this time. We tell France, England and whomever else that we're fine with them taking out Gaddafi if that's what they want, but we're sitting this one out.

Thoughts/comments/concerns?

Honest question.

[vy65]

Never has an air campaign alone been successful in stopping the killing of civilians. Never. What about Libya is supposed to give me a new found belief that this will be the first case?

For one, its an active civil war and the rebels aren't going to stop fighting. There will still be an active civil war which will lead to more civilian deaths. Furthermore when do you stop the no fly zone? Never? If and when you stop it and there is still a civil war then you'll see a resumption of what happened prior to the no fly zone. How do you stop the civil war with simple air action? Qadafi isn't going anywhere and he's not alone.

I'm pretty sure the NATO air bombing campaign is what led Milosevic to abandon power. Yes, KFOR was sent in to maintain the peace - but Milosevic capitulated prior to the infantry being sent in.

You stop the no fly zone when Quadafi stops killing his own citizens. Or is removed from power. And you're conflating the no-fly zone with ending the civil war, which was never the case. The no-fly zone was imposed to force cooperation with the cease fire.




Complaining? No, I was pointing out how selective our intervention is. I'm not sure why you think me enjoying my PS3 is somehow a knock on me but you're free to continue to bring it up.

I don't directly benefit from the suffering of those in Rwanda but I'm beginning to get used to you making pretty outlandish claims. If you would love to explain that one I'm all ears.

Is my position to let them rot? No, my position is that we can't save the world.

No, your position is to let them rot. You're claim that "we can't save the world" is just the excuse you use to make yourself feel better. Plus, you still haven't explained why selective intervention is worse than no intervention at all.

Most importantly, the whole "not my responsibility" mentality is exactly what facilitates genocide, mass atrocity, tyranny, etc... in the first place. It's what happened in Armenia and Cambodia. It's what happened in Rwanda and Burundi, and it's what happaned in Sudan. But what the fuck do you care, right? Not your responsibility.

I never said you directly benefit from the people of Rwanda. However, you do directly benefit from the intentional destablization of Angola - which oil companies use to thier benefit in extracting oil for US consumption and to the detriment of Angolan citizens. And you do directly benefit from the children in South East Asian sweatshops who make shit for you at bargain basement prices. There are more examples...



LOL is what I use when the arguments you pose are too stupid for an actual response. To be quite honest, most of your arguments deserve nothing more but I'm bored.

You do realize that calling an argument stupid doesn't make it stupid, right? But I'm glad to see that you're infatuated with yourself ... I guess all fat people really are narcissists, huh?



Ok. If you'd care to show me some proof that this conflict is being perceived the way you believe it to be then I'm all ears.

You're the one saying that it will only be perceived in one way, so you tell me.



Why do I need proof of that? My stance is that the money can be spent in a more productive manner here at home.

You need proof of that because that's the argument your making, but I understand that this concept is novel to you.

You're absolutely right, that money can be spent in a more productive matter. That's wholly irrelevant. You have to prove that it was going to be spent in a more productive manner?



Yes, I believe that American lives should be more important in the eyes of the American government.

I don't see the need to prove that. I can be upset at my government spending money in a poor fashion when they do so without proving that they would have spent it differently.

Your logic is extremely odd.

How many Americans have been killed so far?

[vy65]

Just for discussion's sake, an alternative.

We support the no-fly zone. We provide use of our bases, we provide intel, we provide humanitarian aid, but we don't get involved in the bombing. We tell the international community that given our current situation we don't think it's appropriate for us to get actively involved in another armed conflict at this time. We tell France, England and whomever else that we're fine with them taking out Gaddafi if that's what they want, but we're sitting this one out.

Thoughts/comments/concerns?

Honest question.

That sounds totally reasonable.

[MannyIsGod]

Just for discussion's sake, an alternative.

We support the no-fly zone. We provide use of our bases, we provide intel, we provide humanitarian aid, but we don't get involved in the bombing. We tell the international community that given our current situation we don't think it's appropriate for us to get actively involved in another armed conflict at this time. We tell France, England and whomever else that we're fine with them taking out Gaddafi if that's what they want, but we're sitting this one out.

Thoughts/comments/concerns?

Honest question.

:tu

[MannyIsGod]

I'm pretty sure the NATO air bombing campaign is what led Milosevic to abandon power. Yes, KFOR was sent in to maintain the peace - but Milosevic capitulated prior to the infantry being sent in.

You stop the no fly zone when Quadafi stops killing his own citizens. Or is removed from power. And you're conflating the no-fly zone with ending the civil war, which was never the case. The no-fly zone was imposed to force cooperation with the cease fire.



Ground troops were involved with your first and only example rendering it completely moot. In the history of 20th and 21st century intervention you can only think of one example and its not even applicable? That doesn't bode well for your viewpoint.

How do you remove Quadafi from power with just air attacks? The rebels aren't going to be able to do it. No military analyst that I've read has said there's anything more than the slimmest hopes of Quadafi being defeated via air attacks but perhaps you have other information?






No, your position is to let them rot. You're claim that "we can't save the world" is just the excuse you use to make yourself feel better. Plus, you still haven't explained why selective intervention is worse than no intervention at all.

Most importantly, the whole "not my responsibility" mentality is exactly what facilitates genocide, mass atrocity, tyranny, etc... in the first place. It's what happened in Armenia and Cambodia. It's what happened in Rwanda and Burundi, and it's what happaned in Sudan. But what the fuck do you care, right? Not your responsibility.


This is fucking rich. If you're so god damn invested why are you posting on a message board instead of fighting those atrocities? Somehow I'm now responsible for the entire world but you get to sit here and post because you"care"? You've done so much projecting in this thread its amazing. I don't need to feel better because I don't have anything to feel bad about. Yeah, what happens to those people is absolutely atrocious but I don't take it upon myself to save the world as you apparently do.

If you want to make it your life's mission to rid the world of these atrocities then by all means grab that bull by the horns and go to town. But your lectures on a message board are beyond hypocritical.



I never said you directly benefit from the people of Rwanda. However, you do directly benefit from the intentional destablization of Angola - which oil companies use to thier benefit in extracting oil for US consumption and to the detriment of Angolan citizens. And you do directly benefit from the children in South East Asian sweatshops who make shit for you at bargain basement prices. There are more examples...


I promise you my oil consumption is lower than yours. I absolutely guarantee it. I also don't buy clothes made in sweatshops and I promise you that I was avoiding purchasing such clothes long before you even knew about the issue. But please, continue to tell me how I am holding people down. Its amusing.




You do realize that calling an argument stupid doesn't make it stupid, right? But I'm glad to see that you're infatuated with yourself ... I guess all fat people really are narcissists, huh?


http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/showpost.php?p=5071720&postcount=108

More projecting. Just how fat are you?



You're the one saying that it will only be perceived in one way, so you tell me.



I grow tired of your circular arguments but just do some searching on arab public opinion of the united states and I'm sure you'll have the proof if you really want it.





You need proof of that because that's the argument your making, but I understand that this concept is novel to you.

You're absolutely right, that money can be spent in a more productive matter. That's wholly irrelevant. You have to prove that it was going to be spent in a more productive manner?


My position was never that it was going to be spent in a better manner. You're asking me to claim something I never claimed. Have fun with that.




How many Americans have been killed so far?

How many Libyans have died so far?

[AFBlue]

I laugh that MIG and VY separately came to consensus on a reasonable alternative.

[vy65]

Ground troops were involved with your first and only example rendering it completely moot. In the history of 20th and 21st century intervention you can only think of one example and its not even applicable? That doesn't bode well for your viewpoint.

How do you remove Quadafi from power with just air attacks? The rebels aren't going to be able to do it. No military analyst that I've read has said there's anything more than the slimmest hopes of Quadafi being defeated via air attacks but perhaps you have other information?

So let me get this straight. Milosevic capitulated as a result of the NATO bombing campaign - and - without a single ground troop being sent in. And you think this is badprecedent for me? When the goal of the current campaign is to oust Quadafi from control? What are you not getting?



This is fucking rich. If you're so god damn invested why are you posting on a message board instead of fighting those atrocities? Somehow I'm now responsible for the entire world but you get to sit here and post because you"care"? You've done so much projecting in this thread its amazing. I don't need to feel better because I don't have anything to feel bad about. Yeah, what happens to those people is absolutely atrocious but I don't take it upon myself to save the world as you apparently do.

If you want to make it your life's mission to rid the world of these atrocities then by all means grab that bull by the horns and go to town. But your lectures on a message board are beyond hypocritical.

I never said I was invested. My point has only been that the United States government has an obligation to intervene. But instead of addressing this point, you went off on some wholly irrelevant tangent about message boards and oil consumption. And in doing so, you've conceded

1. The fact that American society -- not just you -- directly profits from the destruction of third world nations

2. The logic of "I don't care, its not my responsibility" is literally the exact logic that facilitates genocide - beginning in Armenia, 1915 and running through present day Darfur.

My life's mission, and what I or you do on a personal basis is irrelevant to this debate. Moving goal posts because you're original position makes you seem like a selfish, narcissistic, self-absorbed prick won't work.

You have yet to come up with a reason why, given the above, the US doesn't have an obligation to engage in humanitarian intervention. I'm waiting.


I promise you my oil consumption is lower than yours. I absolutely guarantee it. I also don't buy clothes made in sweatshops and I promise you that I was avoiding purchasing such clothes long before you even knew about the issue. But please, continue to tell me how I am holding people down. Its amusing.

Fascinating. We're all really proud that you're a hippy. Now explain the relevance of this to your position that the American government shouldn't intervene to stop genocide and that we American's should instead play ps3 all day


More projecting. Just how fat are you?

What the fuck is this projecting shit? Instead of using the three brain cells lodged between the fat in your skull, you just say shit is stupid. Just because you say something is stupid doesn't make it so.

I'm also in pretty good shape - I'd guess much better than your ps3 playing fat ass is.




I grow tired of your circular arguments but just do some searching on arab public opinion of the united states and I'm sure you'll have the proof if you really want it.

lol ok. This coming from the guy complaining about the burden of proof.



My position was never that it was going to be spent in a better manner. You're asking me to claim something I never claimed. Have fun with that.

lol x3. So you have no proof, huh? Keep moving those goal posts.



How many Libyans have died so far?

So no Americans have died yet, right? Keep moving those posts.

[vy65]

I laugh that MIG and VY separately came to consensus on a reasonable alternative.

That is pretty lulz. TBH, I dunno how a guy who says we shouldn't be invovled in the conflict can support being directly involved in the conflict tbh

[MannyIsGod]

So let me get this straight. Milosevic capitulated as a result of the NATO bombing campaign - and - without a single ground troop being sent in. And you think this is badprecedent for me? When the goal of the current campaign is to oust Quadafi from control? What are you not getting?




I never said I was invested. My point has only been that the United States government has an obligation to intervene. But instead of addressing this point, you went off on some wholly irrelevant tangent about message boards and oil consumption. And in doing so, you've conceded

1. The fact that American society -- not just you -- directly profits from the destruction of third world nations

2. The logic of "I don't care, its not my responsibility" is literally the exact logic that facilitates genocide - beginning in Armenia, 1915 and running through present day Darfur.

My life's mission, and what I or you do on a personal basis is irrelevant to this debate. Moving goal posts because you're original position makes you seem like a selfish, narcissistic, self-absorbed prick won't work.

You have yet to come up with a reason why, given the above, the US doesn't have an obligation to engage in humanitarian intervention. I'm waiting.



Fascinating. We're all really proud that you're a hippy. Now explain the relevance of this to your position that the American government shouldn't intervene to stop genocide and that we American's should instead play ps3 all day



What the fuck is this projecting shit? Instead of using the three brain cells lodged between the fat in your skull, you just say shit is stupid. Just because you say something is stupid doesn't make it so.

I'm also in pretty good shape - I'd guess much better than your ps3 playing fat ass is.





lol ok. This coming from the guy complaining about the burden of proof.




lol x3. So you have no proof, huh? Keep moving those goal posts.




So no Americans have died yet, right? Keep moving those posts.

:lol

[vy65]

:lol

Run back to your video games you stupid fat fuck.

[MannyIsGod]

:lmao

[MannyIsGod]

The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.
As Commander-in-Chief, the President does have a duty to protect and defend the United States. In instances of self-defense, the President would be within his constitutional authority to act before advising Congress or seeking its consent. History has shown us time and again, however, that military action is most successful when it is authorized and supported by the Legislative branch. It is always preferable to have the informed consent of Congress prior to any military action.

[Winehole23]

Can't Obama just send Congress a postcard? Oh wait, he already did.

[vy65]

Reread Article II.

[Winehole23]

(should have blued it)

[FuzzyLumpkins]

If you are going to be a staunch isolationist then there is really no point in us having a discussion.

Once you agree that there is a time to act militarily in foreign policy then the becomes at what point do you act militarily.

Again, the Arab league asked for our help. Our NATO allies asked for help. Public sentiment in the region is HUGELY in favor of our assistance with al-Jazeera leading the charge.

You keep mentioning history but i seems you are willfully ignoring what is going on in the middle east. the culture is changing rapidly and the the most important sociopolitical event in the last decade has easily been the deposition of Hussein 8 years ago.

With the Sunni Awakening a few years back, the country is stable and the political process does move forward.

Are you going to argue that we should not have invaded Afghanistan? Should we have not intervened in Kuwait? These are the historical references you have.

In the last two years we have seen popular uprisings in more than a half dozen middle eastern states with the central theme of rejection of autocratic rule.

Do you realize how much political pressure from their populace the Arab League states must be feeling to actually have signed off on this? Sure they are bitching now but I guarantee you that their generals explained to them what a no fly zone means.

Given the Arab League nations as well as multiple allies being involved, the only way we could have declined is if we essentially are going to say that we are never going to involve ourselves in middle eastern politics ever again.

Like i said, if you want to be a staunch isolationist then I respect that but failing that, this was a situation where we had to act. Gnash your teeth about costs if you must.

[mingus]

i would like a clearer idea of what the rebels stand for, i wish our intelligence could provide that information. in my mind though you can't just sit back and wait for these people to be slaughtered. they want freedom and i believe we should help them acheive that. how can you not watch what's on t.v. and not sympathize w/ these people? bomb the living fuck out of this bizzare dictator. i don't think we should send in ground troops because we're already overextended, but why not air attacks? becuase it costs a lot of money? so the fuck what, people are getting blown the fuck up over there for a cause that unites all Americans.

[MannyIsGod]

Reread Article II.

Tell that to the commander in chief. Those are his words not mine. :lol:lol:lol:lol

[vy65]

http://politics4all.com/users/mikedavis/blog/12500-obama-president-does-not-have-power-under-constitution-to-unilaterally-authorize-a-military-attack

Sounds like he changed his mind.

Also, where in Article II is this "imminent attack" business?

[vy65]

"It is in America's national interests to participate ... because no one has a bigger stake in making sure that there are basic rules of the road that are observed, that there is some semblance of order and justice, particularly in a volatile region that's going through great changes," Obama said.

[MannyIsGod]

http://politics4all.com/users/mikedavis/blog/12500-obama-president-does-not-have-power-under-constitution-to-unilaterally-authorize-a-military-attack

Sounds like he changed his mind.

Also, where in Article II is this "imminent attack" business?

Ask the constitutional lawyer who is now commander in chief. As I said, his words, not mine.

[vy65]

White House officials and Democratic insiders are pushing back. Officials have released dates and times that President Obama met with a bipartisan group of lawmakers in recent weeks, including one widely reported discussion in the Situation Room last Friday attended by more than 15 congressional leaders. (Speaker John Boehner has responded that those sessions were designed mostly as courtesy briefings rather than actual requests for input.) “It’s not exactly valid criticism,” says Democratic strategist Steve McMahon. “Lots of people have been calling on the president to [set up a no-fly zone], and when the U.N. did it, the White House said America’s in as part of a coalition. It’s the most responsible walk-up to military action that I’ve seen from a president in a long time.”

[vy65]

Ask the constitutional lawyer who is now commander in chief. As I said, his words, not mine.

So its not in the Constitution. Thx.

[MannyIsGod]

I never said it was. You're great at making straw men. The point had nothing to do with what was in the constitution and everything to do with Obama's weakness.

[MannyIsGod]

White House officials and Democratic insiders are pushing back. Officials have released dates and times that President Obama met with a bipartisan group of lawmakers in recent weeks, including one widely reported discussion in the Situation Room last Friday attended by more than 15 congressional leaders. (Speaker John Boehner has responded that those sessions were designed mostly as courtesy briefings rather than actual requests for input.) “It’s not exactly valid criticism,” says Democratic strategist Steve McMahon. “Lots of people have been calling on the president to [set up a no-fly zone], and when the U.N. did it, the White House said America’s in as part of a coalition. It’s the most responsible walk-up to military action that I’ve seen from a president in a long time.”

Democratic insider believes Obama to be better than Bush. Stop the presses. The main problem with that is the campaign Obama made to get elected.

[vy65]

I never said it was. You're great at making straw men. The point had nothing to do with what was in the constitution and everything to do with Obama's weakness.


The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.
As Commander-in-Chief, the President does have a duty to protect and defend the United States. In instances of self-defense, the President would be within his constitutional authority to act before advising Congress or seeking its consent. History has shown us time and again, however, that military action is most successful when it is authorized and supported by the Legislative branch. It is always preferable to have the informed consent of Congress prior to any military action.


The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States; he may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices, and he shall have Power to Grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.

He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.

The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session.

lol using campaign promises

lol backtracking

[vy65]

Democratic insider believes Obama to be better than Bush. Stop the presses. The main problem with that is the campaign Obama made to get elected.

Authority about as persuasive as using a campaign speech from 2007 tbh

[MannyIsGod]

That wasn't a campaign promise. It was a statement made when questioned about how the President can use force without congressional authorization - in other words this very situation.

That was his answer and he has now done something completely contrary to that answer. You can view that as irrelevant if you want simply because it coincides with what you happen to want here. I see it as extremely relevant.

[MannyIsGod]

Authority about as persuasive as using a campaign speech from 2007 tbh

It wasn't a campaign speech. But in other words, we're not allowed to hold presidents accountable to what they say. Interesting viewpoint.

[vy65]

That wasn't a campaign promise. It was a statement made when questioned about how the President can use force without congressional authorization - in other words this very situation.

That was his answer and he has now done something completely contrary to that answer. You can view that as irrelevant if you want simply because it coincides with what you happen to want here. I see it as extremely relevant.

Ok. It wasn't a campaign promise. It still was posturing used to criticize the Bush administration. It was also incorrect.

He's made a complete 180. What's your point?

[MannyIsGod]

Ok. It wasn't a campaign promise. It still was posturing used to criticize the Bush administration. It was also incorrect.

He's made a complete 180. What's your point?


:lol

[vy65]

It wasn't a campaign speech. But in other words, we're not allowed to hold presidents accountable to what they say. Interesting viewpoint.

Ok, he's not allowed to change his stance.

Go hold him accountable.

[MannyIsGod]

Have you heard a persuasive case that Mr Qaddafi's ouster is necessary to achieve our humanitarian aim? I haven't. In order to make this case, one would have to take seriously the goals of reducing death and suffering, and it is by no means clear that these goals would be better met by deposing Mr Qaddafi than by, say, achieving and enforcing an immediate ceasefire that leaves Mr Qaddafi in power.

That none of us can peer through a magical window and witness the counterfactual world in which there is no attempt to topple Qaddafi, or in which there is no allied intervention in Libya, is to the decided advantage of those arguing the humanitarian necessity of our present course of action. Had we done nothing, we would have seen carnage and we would have been told that we could have prevented it. If we see carnage now and in the near future, we will be told that had we done nothing, it would have been even worse. Our cognitive clumsiness with counterfactual scenarios combined with our patriotic wish to see our state as a force for good leaves us ready to believe that yes, surely it would have been even worse had we not acted, or had we acted differently. And this buys interventionists a good deal of time to catch and capitalise on a break that creates the perception of success. The force of the "it would have been even worse" argument will dissipate only if Libya's civil war drags on and the public comes to see our intervention as having helped it drag on. But if the peace is restored before that day, and it probably will, most of us will judge our involvement a humanitarian success, even if, as a matter of perception-independent fact, it turns out not to have been. In that unhappy event, we'll be glad not to know that had we pursued a different policy, fewer people would have needlessly died.

Nevertheless, despite our natural biases, it remains both possible and necessary to intelligently estimate how much suffering and death we can expect intervention to avoid. When opponents of intervention ask us to consider, for example, how many lives could be saved were we to spend the cost of a military mission on anti-malarial bed nets, I understand them to be insisting that we take the stated humanitarian justification for this intervention seriously. If our foreign policy aims to prevent suffering and death with finite resources, it makes sense to ask whether this war makes sense on those grounds. I grasp the tiresome point that the choice on the table was not a choice between taking out Libya's air defences and buying bed nets. The choice was between taking out Libya's air defences or not. But the question nagging some of us is why this was the choice on the table. Why did this come up as a matter requiring urgent attention and immediate decision? Why is it that the choice to express our humanitarian benevolence through the use of missiles and jets gets on the table—to the top of the agenda, even—again and again, but the choice to express it less truculently so rarely does? If our humanitarian values really set the agenda, how likely is that that the prospect of urgent military intervention would come up so often?

An excellent write up.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2011/03/intervention_libya

[MannyIsGod]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/gates-underlines-the-dangers-in-the-middle-east/2011/03/22/ABYhTMDB_story.html

[vy65]

Decision, an ethical or political responsibility, is absolutely heterogenous to knowledge. Nevertheless, we have to know as much as possible in order to ground our decision. But even if it is grounded in knowledge, the moment I take a decision it is a leap. I enter a heterogenous space and that is the condition of responsibility. This is not only a problem but the aporia we have to face constantly. For me, however, the aporia is not simply paralysis, but the aporia or the non-way is the condition of walking: if there was no aporia we wouldn't walk, we wouldn't find our way; path breaking implies aporia. This impossibility to find one's way is the condition of ethics.

[MannyIsGod]

On the eve of the start of military intervention in Libya by the U.S. and its allies, the American public by a wide margin expressed the view that the United States did not have a responsibility to do something about the fighting between government forces and anti-government groups in Libya. A survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, conducted March 10-13, found that 63% said the U.S. had no responsibility to act in Libya; fewer than half as many (27%) said the U.S. had this responsibility. Reflecting the public's reluctance about U.S. involvement in Libya, barely half (51%) favored increasing economic and diplomatic sanctions against Libya. The public was divided over the possibility of enforcing a no-fly zone -- 44% favored this action while 45% were opposed. Yet just 16% favored bombing Libyan air defenses, while 77% opposed such bombing. And large majorities rejected providing arms to anti-government groups (69%) and sending troops into Libya (82%). Thinking about the Middle East more generally, Americans see regional stability as more important than increasing democracy. In a separate survey conducted March 8-13, 52% say it is more important to have stable governments in the Middle East even if there is less democracy; 38% say it is more important to have democratic governments in the region, even if there is less stability. Read more

http://pewresearch.org/databank/dailynumber/?NumberID=1218

[vy65]

http://pewresearch.org/databank/dailynumber/?NumberID=1218

:lol

[vy65]

Polls show American's don't think US should be involved in Rwanda.

http://chapmanspolitics.blogspot.com/2005/04/rwanda-genocide-and-poll-numbers.html

That turned out well, didn't it?

[MannyIsGod]

Polls show American's don't think US should be involved in Rwanda.

http://chapmanspolitics.blogspot.com/2005/04/rwanda-genocide-and-poll-numbers.html

That turned out well, didn't it?

http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/showpost.php?p=5077437&postcount=147

[vy65]

http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/showpost.php?p=5077437&postcount=147

lol not getting it

[MannyIsGod]

First, support for military interventions tend to be highest at the outset — the so-called rally-around-the-flag-effect — before declining until and unless some concrete objective is achieved. An important caveat is that the Libyan situation has evolved so quickly that we may still be midway through the rally phase. But if 50 percent approval is as good as the numbers get for Mr. Obama at the peak, overall support may turn negative unless Mr. el-Qaddafi is ousted fairly quickly.

Second, and this is a bit of an educated guess, but I suspect that Mr. Obama is more susceptible to a decline in support from liberals and Democrats on this question than he is likely to benefit from an increase in support among Republicans and conservatives. Reactions from prominent left-leaning bloggers and editors, like Josh Marshall, have been cautious — but generally skeptical and pessimistic. Some liberals, also, are not opposed to the action in Libya per se, but dislike the fact that Mr. Obama did not consult Congress before agreeing to participate in the allied action. (Some conservatives, undoubtedly, are in this camp as well.)

Finally, some of the scholarship suggests that support for military actions tends to be more tentative when the public is fatigued by other foreign entanglements, as they may be on Iraq and Afghanistan. Although they haven’t received much attention, recent polls suggest that Americans are growing continually more skeptical of the war effort in Afghanistan, with as much as a 2:1 majority concluding that the war is no longer worth fighting.

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/21/poll-finds-tentative-support-potential-risks-for-obama-on-libya/

[vy65]

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/21/poll-finds-tentative-support-potential-risks-for-obama-on-libya/

lol still not getting it.

Then there's this little gem:


Marcus I'm not going to argue that the majority of people out there don't think for themselves. I agree with that 100%. I'm just happy to have access to some decent viewpoints via blogs. I gotta take what I can get at this point.

I hope your youtube prediction is wrong.

That's from a thread criticizing mainstream news for misleading the majority of Americans.

[MannyIsGod]

Ok, he's not allowed to change his stance.

Go hold him accountable.


lol still not getting it.

Then there's this little gem:



That's from a thread criticizing mainstream news for misleading the majority of Americans.

[MannyIsGod]

Just to spell it out for you because you've made it clear you're "lol not getting it", public opinion does not justify any given position but it is an important variable in the decisions of public officials for obvious reasons.

lol needs hand held.

[ChumpDumper]

The public was divided over the possibility of enforcing a no-fly zone -- 44% favored this action while 45% were opposed. Yet just 16% favored bombing Libyan air defenses, while 77% opposed such bombing.http://pewresearch.org/databank/dailynumber/?NumberID=1218

Sorry, public. You can't have the former without the latter.

[vy65]

lol still not getting it . . .

Your articles criticized the position that intervention saved lives by stating that it was impossible to know whether intervention, in fact, did save lives. Hence, the mention of counter-factual scenarios, anti-malarial nets, etc...

This is what you're not getting. My quote criticizes your "impossible to know" so don't intervene position. It does so by saying lack of knowledge, uncertainty, etc... are preconditions for ethical action.

What's laughable is that you then quote poll data dealing with "responsibility" because my quote used that word. That data has no relevance to a discussion of whether the US should or should not be involved in Libya. But good job focusing on one word and confusing it with an entirely separate issue.

You still tirelessly mock the "majority of Americans" for being ignorant hicks who watch Fox News and refuse to educate themselves. Then, when it's convenient for you, you rely on the opinion of said ignorant hicks as support for an "important variable in American politics." Which way is it?

lol public poll data. I kind find polls that say that the US should kill fags - should public policy factor in that sentiment too?

[MannyIsGod]

lol still not getting it . . .

Your articles criticized the position that intervention saved lives by stating that it was impossible to know whether intervention, in fact, did save lives. Hence, the mention of counter-factual scenarios, anti-malarial nets, etc...

This is what you're not getting. My quote criticizes your "impossible to know" so don't intervene position. It does so by saying lack of knowledge, uncertainty, etc... are preconditions for ethical action.

What's laughable is that you then quote poll data dealing with "responsibility" because my quote used that word. That data has no relevance to a discussion of whether the US should or should not be involved in Libya. But good job focusing on one word and confusing it with an entirely separate issue.

You still tirelessly mock the "majority of Americans" for being ignorant hicks who watch Fox News and refuse to educate themselves. Then, when it's convenient for you, you rely on the opinion of said ignorant hicks as support for an "important variable in American politics." Which way is it?

lol public poll data. I kind find polls that say that the US should kill fags - should public policy factor in that sentiment too?

:lmao !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wow man, you've got some delusions of grandeur. I didn't post the poll data because of your quote. I read your quote once and didn't give it a second thought. I posted the poll data because its relevant to the decisions made by a public official. I even explained it right before you posted this.

LOL but yeah, its all about you. Thats awesome.

As to the rest of your point, its irrelevant because governing in a democracy means that public opinion matters.

You're like the gift that keeps on giving. Thats golden right there.

[vy65]

:lmao !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wow man, you've got some delusions of grandeur. I didn't post the poll data because of your quote. I read your quote once and didn't give it a second thought. I posted the poll data because its relevant to the decisions made by a public official. I even explained it right before you posted this.

LOL but yeah, its all about you. Thats awesome.

As to the rest of your point, its irrelevant because governing in a democracy means that public opinion matters.

You're like the gift that keeps on giving. Thats golden right there.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Histrionic_personality_disorder

Congrats on finding the exclamation button on your keyboard btw . . .

[MannyIsGod]

:lol

That post might as well have been you waving a white flat.

I call you out on your self centered assumption and you try to diagnose me. Brilliant.

In any event, I don't need to make this about you or me so if you feel like actually adding to the discussion feel free. Otherwise, I'll just privately laugh my ass off at your ridiculousness so that you don't feel butt hurt. :toast

[vy65]

:lol

That post might as well have been you waving a white flat.

I call you out on your self centered assumption and you try to diagnose me. Brilliant.

In any event, I don't need to make this about you or me so if you feel like actually adding to the discussion feel free. Otherwise, I'll just privately laugh my ass off at your ridiculousness so that you don't feel butt hurt. :toast

Additional symptoms include:

Exhibitionist behavior.

Constant seeking of reassurance or approval.

Excessive dramatics with exaggerated displays of emotions, such as hugging someone they have just met or crying uncontrollably during a sad movie (Svrakie & Cloninger, 2005).

Excessive sensitivity to criticism or disapproval.

A need to be the center of attention.

[vy65]

Lol white flag. This coming from the guy who's been moving the goal posts from day one.

What self centered assumption? You said something stupid, I called you out on it, and you threw a coniption fit about somethiing both inane and irrelevant per the usual/par the course.

lol taking wiki diagnosis seriously

lol proving wiki diagnosis by taking it seriously

lol acting like a histrionic fainting Victorian woman

[MannyIsGod]

A long time since I posted anything I really agreed with from Cato but this is spot on.


Glenn Greenwald observes that we're hearing a familiar false dilemma from advocates of intervention in Libya—the same one that was trotted out so frequently in the run-up to the war in Iraq: Either you support American military action, or you must be indifferent to the suffering of civilians under Qadaffi. Bracket for a moment the obvious empirical questions about the general efficacy of bombs as reliable means of alleviating suffering. What I find striking is the background assumption that whether the United States military has a role to play here is taken to be a simple function of how much we care about other people's suffering. One obvious answer is that caring or not caring simply doesn't come into it: That the function of the U.S. military is to protect the vital interests of the United States, and that it is for this specific purpose that billions of tax dollars are extracted from American citizens, and for which young men and women have volunteered to risk their lives. It is not a general-purpose pool of resources to be drawn on for promoting desirable outcomes around the world.

A parallel argument is quite familiar on the domestic front, however. Pick any morally unattractive outcome or situation, and you will find someone ready to argue that if the federal government plausibly could do something to remedy it, then anyone who denies the federal government should act must simply be indifferent to the problem. My sense is that many more people tend to find this sort of argument convincing in domestic affairs precisely because we seem to have effectively abandoned the conception of the federal government as an entity with clear and defined powers and purposes. We debate whether a particular program will be effective or worth the cost, but over the course of the 20th century, the notion that such debates should be limited to enumerated government functions largely fell out of fashion. Most people—or at least most public intellectuals and policy advocates—now seem to think of Congress as a kind of all-purpose problem solving committee. And I can't help but suspect that the two are linked. Duties and obligations may be specific, but morality is universal: Other things equal, the suffering of a person in Lebanon counts just as much as that of a person in Lebanon, Pennsylvania. Once we abandon the idea of a limited government with defined powers—justified by reference to a narrow set of functions specified in advance—and instead see it as imbued with a general mandate to do good, it's much harder for a moral cosmopolitan to resist making the scope of that mandate global, at least in principle.

http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/libya-limited-government-and-imperfect-duties/

Bolded is a home run, IMO.

[Chomag]

I'm loving how they are refusing to call this a war so that congress is not needed. We are bombing the fuck out of another country , what the hell is war then?

[ChumpDumper]

A long time since I posted anything I really agreed with from Cato but this is spot on.



http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/libya-limited-government-and-imperfect-duties/

Bolded is a home run, IMO.You did say there was oil there.

[hehateme]

Jumping off the subject a little bit but I had a simple question.

I believe it was Gadhafi who stated a nice quote a week back pretty much asking what would the US do if it had rebels trying to take over the nation by force.

I find it to be a good statement though because I definitely believe (and this is an opinion from someone who is currently Active Duty in the military) that the acting government would label them terrorists (to sway the public view) and use force to eradicate the uprising swiftly without even trying diplomatic reasoning.

With that in mind how is it we find fault in a sovereign nation doing the same to protect it's entity?

Also, I cannot find a link to the exact quote but will continue searching just for reference sake.

[Winehole23]

I'm loving how they are refusing to call this a war so that congress is not needed. We are bombing the fuck out of another country , what the hell is war then?http://www.lawfareblog.com/2011/03/the-legal-reason-why-the-obama-administration-won%E2%80%99t-call-the-libya-action-%E2%80%9Cwar%E2%80%9D/

[Winehole23]

Finally, we should remember that anything done to Qaddafi is being done to someone who had given up terrorism. Much has been said about what lessons other authoritarian regimes in the region will draw if the Libyan ruler is allowed to use force to stay in power. We also should think about the lessons that will be drawn if someone who gave up not only terrorism but also his unconventional weapons programs in return for normal relations and acceptance in the international community is made a target for regime change [bold mine-DL]. The lesson that the mullahs in Tehran and others will draw is that it would be useless to reach any agreement with the West about terrorism or nuclear weapons because the West is really interested above all in regime change and, regardless of any agreements that may have been reached, will seize the first opportunity that comes along to try to realize that goal. ~Paul Pillar (http://nationalinterest.org/blog/paul-pillar/the-terrorist-consequences-the-libyan-intervention-5064)
Prior to the start of the Libyan war, I frequently said that the U.S. had nothing at stake in Libya, and I still think that’s basically correct. However, Pillar correctly points out that turning against Gaddafi will have some significant security costs for the United States that could have been avoided. This isn’t just a matter of direct blowback from the Libyan war in the form of Gaddafi-sponsored attacks or attacks by jihadists inspired to strike by the intervention in Libya. The costs also come in the form of all the opportunities for anti-terrorist and non-proliferation efforts that have been squandered by targeting the chief example of a rehabilitated proliferator and terrorist sponsor with military action and eventually regime change.



Gaddafi’s example will not only give authoritarian rulers every incentive to seek a nuclear deterrent, but it will convince those that have active nuclear programs that they should not bargain away their ability to create one. The attack on Libya will also encourage authoritarian rulers that cannot afford to build a functioning nuclear program to pretend that they are for the sake of strategic ambiguity, so we can expect many more regimes to engage in elaborate bluffs to create the fear among Western governments that they are developing unconventional weapons to deter attack. Hard-liners in every regime will cite Libya as an example of why Western governments cannot be trusted, and why their governments should not engage in appeasement of the West. They will reckon that negotiating disarmament or the repudiation of nuclear weapons opens their countries up to outside attack (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/25/world/asia/25korea.html) that will be justified on ideological grounds. The Libyan war will have significant, negative consequences for U.S. policies elsewhere whether or not the war is a success.



Update: Dr. Jeffrey Lewis at ArmsControlWonk has noted (http://lewis.armscontrolwonk.com/archive/3723/libyas-lessons-for-north-korea) the North Korean reaction to the Libyan war.
http://www.amconmag.com/larison/2011/03/24/the-libyan-wars-damage-to-u-s-security-interests/

[Winehole23]

(double posted)

[MannyIsGod]

http://www.amconmag.com/larison/2011/03/24/the-libyan-wars-damage-to-u-s-security-interests/

Thats a really good point.

[MannyIsGod]

You did say there was oil there.

Then it obviously comes down to how you define vital interests but I don't define that as the oil supply coming from Libya.

[vy65]

WASHINGTON – The four-day air assault in Libya will soon achieve the objectives of establishing a no-fly zone and averting a massacre of civilians by Moammar Gadhafi's troops, President Barack Obama said Tuesday, adding that despite squabbling among allies, the United States will hand off control of the operation to other countries within days.

"When this transition takes place, it is not going to be our planes that are maintaining the no-fly zone," the president said at a news conference in El Salvador as he neared the end of a Latin American trip overshadowed by events in Libya. "It is not going to be our ships that are necessarily enforcing the arms embargo. That's precisely what the other nations are going to do."

Obama said he has "absolutely no doubt" that a non-U.S. command entity can run the operation, although perhaps the most obvious candidate — the NATO military alliance — has yet to sort out a political agreement to do so. The president said NATO was meeting to "work out some of the mechanisms."

Despite the cost — not only in effort, resources and potential casualties, but also in taxpayer dollars — Obama said he believes the American public is supportive of such a mission.

"This is something that we can build into our budget. And we're confident that not only can the goals be achieved, but at the end of the day the American people are going to feel satisfied that lives were saved and people were helped," he said.
Obama spoke as one senior American military official said the Persian Gulf nation of Qatar was expected to start flying air patrols over Libya by this weekend, becoming the first member of the Arab League to participate directly in the military mission. Obama and NATO had insisted from the start on Arab support.

The president also suggested the administration would not need to request funding from Congress for the air operations but would pay for them out of money already approved.
Administration officials briefed lawmakers during the day about costs and other details to date.

Domestic criticism of the operation has been muted so far, with the president out of the country, but is likely to increase once he flies home on Wednesday — a few hours earlier than had been scheduled.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, meanwhile, said the administration is getting reports — of questionable credibility — that some in Gadhafi's inner circle may be looking for a way out of the crisis. She said some of them, allegedly acting on the Libyan leader's behalf, have reached out to people in Europe and elsewhere to ask, in effect, "How do we get out of this?"

"Some of it is theater," Clinton said in an interview with ABC's Diane Sawyer. "Some of it is, you know, kind of, shall we say game playing." She added: "A lot of it is just the way he behaves. It's somewhat unpredictable. But some of it we think is exploring. You know, `What are my options? Where could I go? What could I do?' And we would encourage that."

The Pentagon said two dozen more Tomahawk cruise missiles were launched from U.S. and British submarines late Monday and early Tuesday against Libyan targets, raising the total to 161 aimed at disabling Gadhafi's air defenses.

Adm. Samuel J. Locklear III said Libyan ground troops will be more vulnerable as the coalition grows in size and capability, but he declined to provide details of future targeting. He spoke to reporters at the Pentagon from aboard his command ship in the Mediterranean Sea.

The president and Pentagon officials have stressed since the military campaign began that America would quickly give other countries the lead.

"I think fairly shortly we are going to be able to say that we've achieved the objective of a no-fly zone. We will also be able to say that we have averted immediate tragedy," Obama said.

He told reporters he had spoken earlier with British Prime Minister David Cameron and French President Nicolas Sarkozy in hopes of quickly resolving a dispute over the transition of the military mission.

With congressional critics growing more vocal, the president defended the wisdom of the operation so far.

"It is in America's national interests to participate ... because no one has a bigger stake in making sure that there are basic rules of the road that are observed, that there is some semblance of order and justice, particularly in a volatile region that's going through great changes," Obama said

With longtime autocratic governments under pressure elsewhere in the Arab world, the president made clear his decision to dispatch U.S. planes and ships did not automatically signal he would do so everywhere.

"That doesn't mean we can solve every problem in the world," he said.

Several members of Congress, including a number from Obama's own party, were increasingly questioning the wisdom of U.S. involvement.

"We began a military action at the same time that we don't have a clear diplomatic policy, or a clear foreign policy when it comes to what's going on in Libya," said Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., adding that the Obama administration lacks a clear understanding of rebel forces trying to oust Gadhafi, who has ruled for 42 years.

"Do we know what their intentions would be? Would they be able to govern if they were to succeed? And the answer is we don't really know," Webb said.

Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, said he would offer an amendment to the next budget resolution that would prohibit taxpayer dollars from being used to fund U.S. military operations in Libya.

The Marine Corps, meanwhile, offered fresh details of its role in the rescue of an Air Force F-15E pilot who ejected over eastern Libya on Monday. The plane's weapons system officer, who also ejected and made it safely back to U.S. control, was recovered in a separate operation not involving the Marines.

Unconfirmed reports from Libya said a number of civilians were wounded, apparently during the pilot rescue, but the circumstances were murky.

A senior Marine Corps officer at the Pentagon, speaking on condition of anonymity because the F-15E's crash was still under investigation, said that during the course of the rescue two 500-pound bombs were dropped by Marine AV-8B Harrier jets.

The officer said the bombs were requested by the downed pilot, who reported concern that possibly hostile forces were approaching. The officer said it was unclear what the two bombs hit.

The pilot was picked up by an MV-22 Osprey aircraft that flew — along with a second Osprey, two CH-53E helicopters and two Harriers — from aboard the USS Kearsarge.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110323/ap_on_re_us/us_us_libya_27

[vy65]

Another Iraq/Afghanistan tbh

http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2011/03/24/libya-live-blog-coalition-airstrikes-continue-in-tripoli/?hpt=T1&iref=BN1

[MannyIsGod]

If this is the rally around the flag effect, Obama better finish this up in a matter of weeks if not days because he's going to get some serious flak for it.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/146738/Americans-Approve-Military-Action-Against-Libya.aspx


The 47% of Americans approving of the action against Libya is lower than what Gallup has found when asking about approval of other U.S. military campaigns in the past four decades.

[MannyIsGod]

HOLY SHIT if this is an accurate article. 1000 men? Our fucking carriers have 1000 men by themselves.


BENGHAZI, Libya — After the uprising, the rebels stumbled as they tried to organize. They did a poor job of defining themselves when Libyans and the outside world tried to figure out what they stood for. And now, as they try to defeat Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s armed forces and militias, they will have to rely on allied airstrikes and young men with guns because the army that rebel military leaders bragged about consists of only about 1,000 trained men.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/24/world/africa/24minister.html?_r=2&partner=rss&emc=rss

[Winehole23]

Absent clear, acheivable strategic goals, temporary action to avert slaughter can easily turn into a decade long mission to promote regime change and conversion to democracy.

[vy65]

I also get a kick of out of this:

Gaddafi's Rats and Cockroaches


There have been plenty of madmen taking over their countries and exercising pitch dark rule over them. You do not have to go back to ancient history or even early recorded history to know of these characters. In our own times we have experienced the likes of Idi Amin, the Duvaliers and Jean Bedel Bokassa. There was Hitler, along with Goebbels and an entire gang, to terrorise Europe between the early 1930s and mid 1940s. And now we have Muammar Gaddafi of Libya.

It is not for nothing that Ronald Reagan once called him a mad dog. We ridiculed Reagan for that comment because we thought it was uncalled for. And it was. Today, when you see an ageing Gaddafi, threatened by a popular revolt against his long authoritarian rule, describe his own fellow Libyans as rats and cockroaches, you realise the degree of hate with which Gaddafi has treated his people.

http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details.php?nid=175613

[Winehole23]

Looks like we just put our foot in it, again.

[MannyIsGod]

Can or almost always does? What was the last military engagement that ended quickly? Somalia? Haiti?

[MannyIsGod]

Looks like we just put our foot in it, again.

If that article is accurate - and considering the source of the information I'm not sure who would know more about the situation - then all I can say is it looks like we fucked up even more than I initially feared. Absent complete outside intervention over the course of years I don't see how a force of 1000 trained men wins even with air support. You will have a stalemate at best.

[clambake]

don't forget the epic battle for granada

[Stringer_Bell]

don't forget the epic battle for granada

Ah yes, the nutmeg conflict. A personal favorite of mine.

[boutons_deux]

Who Sold Libya Its Supermissiles

Russia has shown a willingness to sell Libya other sophisticated air defense systems in the recent past. In 2010, Moscow announced a deal to sell Tripoli a $1.8 billion package of arms that included two batteries of its big, bleeding-edge S-300 air defense missiles, in addition to Sukhoi fighter jets and T-90 tanks

Russia has sold Venezuela a shoulder-fired version of the SA-24, which is a bit different from the truck-mounted model found by Aviation Week. In classified cables released by WikiLeaks, American diplomats expressed alarm at Russia’s deal with Venezuela, writing that the missile, “considered one of the most lethal portable air defense systems ever made,”

Gadhafi is reportedly close to Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, who has blasted the coalition attacks on Libya.

The two are so close that, at one point last month, many speculated the Libyan dictator had sought exile in Venezuela

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/03/who-sold-libya-its-super-missiles/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wired%2Findex+%28Wired%3A+Ind ex+3+%28Top+Stories+2%29%29

[Winehole23]

CBS News National Security correspondent David Martin reported the missions, announced in an oh-by-the-way fashion by the Pentagon, have involved a handful of F-16s that have dropped a half-dozen bombs. While officials may claim American is taking a back seat in the campaign, U.S. jets have attacked Libyan targets three times in the last 10 days. Add in aerial refueling, reconnaissance and electronic jamming missions and the U.S. is flying 35 percent of all the NATO missions.


Separately, the U.S. has said that since the Libyan mission was turned over to NATO last week, special requests must be made for American fighters to conduct airstrikes to protect civilians. Lapan said there have been no requests for that kind of help.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/04/13/501364/main20053556.shtml

[Winehole23]

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s early warning that Libya (http://topics.bloomberg.com/libya/) may become a failed state risks turning into reality as three weeks of Western military intervention have failed to stem the chaos that’s split the country in half.



Clinton on March 2 said Libya may become a “giant Somalia.” NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen on April 11 raised the possibility of a Libyan “failed state.” Moussa Koussa, Muammar Qaddafi (http://topics.bloomberg.com/muammar-qaddafi/)’s lieutenant who defected last month, warned also that day of a Somalia-like collapse.



“It looks like a very untenable situation,” Geoff Porter, an analyst at North African Risk Consulting, said in an interview from New York (http://topics.bloomberg.com/new-york/). “Where we are heading is a de facto partition, between Tripolitania and Cyrenaica,” the historic names for western and eastern Libya.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-12/clinton-s-failed-state-warning-hangs-over-libya-as-nato-can-t-stem-chaos.html

[Winehole23]

NATO (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/n/north_atlantic_treaty_organization/index.html?inline=nyt-org), Arab and African ministers agreed Wednesday “to work urgently” with the Libyan rebel leadership to set up a mechanism by which some frozen assets belonging to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/q/muammar_el_qaddafi/index.html?inline=nyt-per) and his family might be transferred to the rebel cause. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/14/world/africa/14libya.html?_r=1

[Winehole23]

A team led by a Libyan-American telecom executive has helped rebels hijack Col. Moammar Gadhafi's cellphone network and re-establish their own communications.
The new network, first plotted on an airplane napkin and assembled with the help of oil-rich Arab nations, is giving more than two million Libyans their first connections to each other and the outside world after Col. Gadhafi cut off their telephone and Internet service about a month ago.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703841904576256512991215284.html

[MannyIsGod]

What a cluster fuck.

[Wild Cobra]

This seems to be an issue most of us agree on.

[lazerelmo]

http://i56.tinypic.com/142hhfb.jpg





It may be, for example, the head injury survivor used to be easy going, energetic, and thoughtful and now seems easily angered, self-absorbed, and unable to show enthusiasm for anything. Nonetheless, try not to criticize or make fun of the impaired person’s deficits. This is sure to make the person feel frustrated, angry, or embarrassed.

[LnGrrrR]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703841904576256512991215284.html

Go comm! :lol

[Cant_Be_Faded]

Total clusterfuck.

But a clusterfuck by design.

If there was ANY DOUBT IN A THINKING PERSONS HEAD that the globalists are destroying America by design, look at the Libyan War of 2011.

There is no logic, the logic is that there is no logic. Destruction by design, never been more convinced, even when I was in college listening to Alex Jones every day.

[Nbadan]

It's about money, the tonnes of gold sitting in Libyan vaults, oil and to some extent water..


One seldom mentioned fact by western politicians and media pundits: the Central Bank of Libya is 100% State Owned ... Currently, the Libyan government creates its own money, the Libyan Dinar, through the facilities of its own central bank. Few can argue that Libya is a sovereign nation with its own great resources, able to sustain its own economic destiny. One major problem for globalist banking cartels is that in order to do business with Libya, they must go through the Libyan Central Bank and its national currency, a place where they have absolutely zero dominion or power-broking ability. Hence, taking down the Central Bank of Libya (CBL) may not appear in the speeches of Obama, Cameron and Sarkozy but this is certainly at the top of the globalist agenda for absorbing Libya into its hive of compliant nations.

Atimes (http://atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MD14Ak02.html)

These fuckers set up their own banking system..

[Nbadan]

The U.S. bombs Lybia..


The US launched an aerial blitz on Libya in supposed retaliation for terrorist attacks on US civilians in Europe over the preceding two weeks. Over 100 Libyans were killed in the bombing raids on Tripoli and Benghazi, among them perhaps two dozens civilians, including Gaddafi’s adopted infant daughter. Hundreds of civilians were wounded. Two US pilots died after their F-111 was shot down by Libyan air defenses.

Meant to undermine the regime of Muammar Gaddafi and perhaps kill him, the operation also demonstrated the isolation of the US. Italy refused the use of its military bases or airspace, and it was later documented that Italian Prime Minister Bettino Craxi had alerted Gaddafi of the attack two days before it took place. France—which had itself bombed a Libyan airport in Chad months earlier—refused US aircraft permission to use its airspace, forcing a considerable extension of the route for jets flying from the UK. (The French embassy in Tripoli was “accidentally” bombed in the campaign, dubbed Operation El Dorado Canyon.)

Reagan justified the attack on Libya as retaliation for the bombing of a West Berlin disco in which two US soldiers were killed, making the operation the first US attack on an Arab country justified explicitly as a response to terrorism. “When our citizens are attacked or abused anywhere in the world on the direct orders of hostile regimes, we will respond so long as I’m in this office,” Reagan said in a nationally televised address hours after the patently illegal attack took place. Simultaneously, 3,000 miles away in Afghanistan, Washington was arming and training Islamist terrorists fighting against the Soviet-backed regime. These would later produce Al Qaeda.

Not Reagan...

[Winehole23]

The EU has drawn up a "concept of operations" for the deployment of military (http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/military) forces in Libya (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/libya), but needs UN approval for what would be the riskiest and most controversial mission undertaken by Brussels.
The armed forces, numbering no more than 1,000, would be deployed to secure the delivery of aid supplies, would not be engaged in a combat role but would be authorised to fight if they or their humanitarian wards were threatened. "It would be to secure sea and land corridors inside the country," said an EU official.


The decision to prepare the mission, dubbed Eufor Libya, was taken by the 27 governments at the beginning of April. In recent days, diplomats from the member states have signed a 61-page document on the concept of operations, which rehearses various scenarios for the mission in and around Libya, such as securing port areas, aid delivery corridors, loading and unloading ships, providing naval escorts, and discussing the military assets that would be required.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/18/libya-conflict-eu-deployment-ground-troops

[LnGrrrR]

Mission creep...

[coyotes_geek]

Mission creep...

Yep.

A question..............


The armed forces, numbering no more than 1,000, would be deployed to secure the delivery of aid supplies, would not be engaged in a combat role but would be authorised to fight if they or their humanitarian wards were threatened.

..........do our "humanitarian wards" include the rebels?

[Wild Cobra]

Wwiii...

[coyotes_geek]

Wwiii...

http://www.audioandanarchy.com/images/smilies/fack.png

[TeyshaBlue]

lol I read it as Ww Wii. What? A Wii game my grandkids don't have?:lol

[Wild Cobra]

http://www.audioandanarchy.com/images/smilies/fack.png
What...

You don't think it will become a video game? I couldn't get all caps... so.... Wii...

Who will a group of nations attack next, and when will a coalition of other respond back?

This attack on Libya was never right. It could become a world war.

[coyotes_geek]

I'm in no way excited or happy about what's going on in Libya, but it's not the coming of WW3.

[Wild Cobra]

I'm in no way excited or happy about what's going on in Libya, but it's not the coming of WW3.
I'm only pointing out it could. I am very uncomfortable that our president and the UN are so anxious to do this to Libya. There are so many other nations that as bad to their people. Why now, and will they stop at Libya? If this is the standard, then how soon before we start policing the world?

[LnGrrrR]

I'm only pointing out it could. I am very uncomfortable that our president and the UN are so anxious to do this to Libya. There are so many other nations that as bad to their people. Why now, and will they stop at Libya? If this is the standard, then how soon before we start policing the world?

Did Gadhafi (sp) violate UN Sanctions? I forget.

[MannyIsGod]

Who didn't see land forces as inevitable? 1000 then next you know 20,000 boots are on the ground.

Clusterfuck Clusterfuck Clusterfuck.

[Winehole23]

A senior U.N. official warns conditions in Libya are continuing to deteriorate and life-saving assistance is urgently needed.



In launching the appeal, U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator for Libya, Panos Moumtzis, says his main concern is for the western part of Libya where 80 percent of the population lives. “Our concern for the west is that the situation in the west due to the sanctions, with the low availability of medical supplies, of food supplies, the fuel embargo, the cash flow shortages-it is really like a time bomb ticking where the longer the crisis lasts, the more grave the humanitarian situation is,” said Moumtzis. ~Voice of America (http://www.voanews.com/english/news/UN-Says-Libya-is-a-Ticking-Time-Bomb-122164944.html)
As usual, a heavy-handed sanctions regime that was supposed to pressure the regime to capitulate to outside demands is hitting the civilian population first and doing far more damage to the population than to the regime. We now have a spectacle of a policy aimed at averting humanitarian disaster in one part of the country helping contribute to the worsening of a humanitarian crisis for the entire country. As long as hostilities continue, large-scale relief and evacuation efforts are essentially impossible, which means that the continuation of the Libyan war is harming the civilian population of the entire country for the sake of achieving the political success of one faction in a civil war.
http://www.amconmag.com/larison/2011/05/18/making-things-worse/

[Winehole23]

When President Obama ordered the U.S. military to wage war in Libya without Congressional approval (even though, to use his words, it did "not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation"), the administration and its defenders claimed he had legal authority to do so for two reasons: (1) the War Powers Resolution of 1973 (WPR) authorizes the President to wage war for 60 days without Congress, and (2) the "time-limited, well defined and discrete" nature of the mission meant that it was not really a "war" under the Constitution (Deputy NSA Adviser Ben Rhodes (http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/03/22/obama-face-legal-limits-libyan-intervention-drags/) and the Obama OLC (http://www.lawfareblog.com/2011/04/a-point-by-point-summary-of-olcs-libya-memo/)). Those claims were specious from the start, but are unquestionably inapplicable now.

From the start, the WPR provided no such authority. Section 1541(c) explicitly states (http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/50/usc_sec_50_00001541----000-.html) that the war-making rights conferred by the statute apply only to "a national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces." That's why Yale Law Professor Bruce Ackerman -- in an article in Foreign Policy (http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/03/24/obama_s_unconstitutional_war) entitled "Obama's Unconstitutional War" -- wrote when the war started that the "The War Powers Resolution doesn't authorize a single day of Libyan bombing" and that "in taking the country into a war with Libya, Barack Obama's administration is breaking new ground in its construction of an imperial presidency."



Ackerman detailed why Obama's sweeping claims of war powers exceeded that even of past controversial precedents, such as Clinton's 1999 bombing of Kosovo, which at least had the excuse that Congress authorized funding for it: "but Obama can't even take advantage of this same desperate expedient, since Congress has appropriated no funds for the Libyan war." The Nation's John Nichols explained (http://www.thenation.com/blog/160051/war-powers-challenge-obamas-libya-project) that Obama's unilateral decision "was a violation of the provision in the founding document that requires the executive to attain authorization from Congress before launching military adventures abroad." Put simply, as Daniel Larison concluded in an excellent analysis last week (http://www.amconmag.com/larison/2011/05/12/yes-the-libyan-war-is-illegal/), "the war was illegal from the start."


But even for those who chose to cling to the fiction that the presidential war in Libya was authorized by the WPR, that fiction is now coming to a crashing end. Friday will mark the 60th day of the war without Congress (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/05/18/977183/-Libya-Triggers-War-Powers-Act-Deadline-This-Friday), and there are no plans for authorization to be provided. By all appearances, the White House isn't even bothering to pretend to seek one. A handful of GOP Senators (http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2011/05/18/republican-senators-press-president-on-war-powers-deadline/) -- ones who of course showed no interest whatsoever during the Bush years in demanding presidential adherence to the law -- are now demanding a vote on Libya, but it's highly likely that the Democrats who control the Senate won't allow one. Instead, the law will simply be ignored by the President who declared, when bashing George Bush on the campaign trail to throngs of cheering progressives: "No more ignoring the law when it's inconvenient. That is not who we are."
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/05/19/libya/index.html

[Wild Cobra]

Did Gadhafi (sp) violate UN Sanctions? I forget.
Not that I know of. Maybe he did, but were any as grievous as those Saddam violated? How long was Saddam given before we attacked? How long was Gadhifi given?

Let me remind you all. I don't like him at all. I just find it appalling that we would act as we did under the circumstances.

[TeyshaBlue]

Man, Larison is on a roll.

[RandomGuy]

A handful of GOP Senators -- ones who of course showed no interest whatsoever during the Bush years in demanding presidential adherence to the law -- are now demanding a vote on Libya, but it's highly likely that the Democrats who control the Senate won't allow one. Instead, the law will simply be ignored by the President who declared, when bashing George Bush on the campaign trail to throngs of cheering progressives: "No more ignoring the law when it's inconvenient. That is not who we are."

I find the whole thing worrysome for this reason. It is a worrysome precedent to set.

[LnGrrrR]

Not that I know of. Maybe he did, but were any as grievous as those Saddam violated? How long was Saddam given before we attacked? How long was Gadhifi given?

I don't know. Gadhafi was supposedly threatening genocide, which seems pretty grievous. And if those claims were valid, I doubt that the US would just let him sit there and kill a sufficient number of civilians in order to justify moving in.

[LnGrrrR]

Cmon people! We're at war with Eurasia!

I mean, Oceania! And we've ALWAYS been at war with Oceania!

[MannyIsGod]

:lol

[Wild Cobra]

I don't know. Gadhafi was supposedly threatening genocide, which seems pretty grievous. And if those claims were valid, I doubt that the US would just let him sit there and kill a sufficient number of civilians in order to justify moving in.
That's right, be a good liberal and believe what they told you too.

Genocide...

Do you really believe that?

[MannyIsGod]

I don't know. Gadhafi was supposedly threatening genocide, which seems pretty grievous. And if those claims were valid, I doubt that the US would just let him sit there and kill a sufficient number of civilians in order to justify moving in.

Gadhafi was never threatening genocide. People killed in a civil war are not necessarily victims of genocide.

[LnGrrrR]

That's right, be a good liberal and believe what they told you too.

:lol I didn't say I supported it, did I? I'm just trying to tease out what you think the essential difference was between Libya and Iraq.


Genocide...

Do you really believe that?

First off, the fact that I said "supposedly" after that should be a pretty key indicator that I'm skeptical. The further sentence that said "AND IF" should have made it damn near obvious.

Second, did you believe the administration's claims about why it was vital to attack Iraq?

Or do you just think that going against UN sanctions is justification to go to war with a country, whether or not it poses a threat to us?

[LnGrrrR]

Gadhafi was never threatening genocide. People killed in a civil war are not necessarily victims of genocide.

Disregarding the question of whether or not Gadhafi had the means/motivation/etc to kill all those people, if Gadhafi is the leader of a country, and allows/enables the murdering of hundreds/thousands/etc of people, I think that could be termed a genocide. I guess it all depends on how much power that the person in power has to stop it.

[Winehole23]

I find the whole thing worrysome for this reason. It is a worrysome precedent to set.The precedent has already been set. Obama is making it customary.

[Winehole23]

Though, as Greenwald has pointed out many times, in some respects Obama goes far beyond the arrogance of Bush.

Viz., state secrets, prosecuting whistleblowers, reserving the right to assassinate American citizens without any due process.

[Wild Cobra]

Anyone have a count on the US GPS guided cruise missiles used to date?

[vy65]

lol

http://news.yahoo.com/libyan-rebels-claim-control-most-tripoli-112856862.html

[cheguevara]

Obama's to do list:
Kill Bin Laden - check
Take out Ghadafi - check

Dubya's list:
Win war in Iraq - fail
Eat a pretzel without ending up in the ER - fail

:lmao

[vy65]

lol ground invasion
lol another iraq/afghanistan

[ElNono]

Anyone have a count on the US GPS guided cruise missiles used to date?

lol trying to spin that shit

[BlackSwordsMan]

Obama's to do list:
Kill Bin Laden - check
Take out Ghadafi - check

Dubya's list:
Win war in Iraq - fail
Eat a pretzel without ending up in the ER - fail

:lmao

Get 2nd term. - No check. =[

[ChumpDumper]

If thousands of American servicemen and women didn't die, it didn't happen and wasn't worth it.

[CosmicCowboy]

"Humanitarian intervention"

:lmao

The shit will really hit the fan now.

The real killing has just started.

[George Gervin's Afro]

What's our mission?

We're leading from behind

Obama's in over his head

[Viva Las Espuelas]

I'm guessing this wll be another headwind.

[George Gervin's Afro]

I'm guessing this wll be another headwind.

" The winds of freedom are flowing through the Middle East"

[SnakeBoy]

"Humanitarian intervention"

:lmao

The shit will really hit the fan now.

The real killing has just started.

No shit. The libs are just giddy thinking this is a win for Obama. I guess they want their own mission accomplished moment.

[clambake]

No shit. The libs are just giddy thinking this is a win for Obama. I guess they want their own mission accomplished moment.

you think they'll throw a dumbass bush clown and pony show?

[CosmicCowboy]

Funny, although Gadhafi was certainly no friend to the West, as dictators go he was actually pretty benevolent. He recycled a lot of oil income into subsidies for the general population to keep them happy...housing subsidies, free healthcare, subsidized food, etc. and a fairly modern infrastructure and educated population.

It's going to be very interesting to see what happens if the religious fanatics get control and the social safety net starts to unravel.

[ElNono]

Wait... no troops on the ground needed, no unnecessary American deaths, no 'rebuilding plan' needed, backing from the UN and a genocide like Ghadafi removed is a failure now?

[ChumpDumper]

lol CC championing his good friend Ghadafi

[CosmicCowboy]

Most of y'all are too young to remember when the shit hit the fan in Iran.

[ElNono]

Funny, although Gadhafi was certainly no friend to the West, as dictators go he was actually pretty benevolent. He recycled a lot of oil income into subsidies for the general population to keep them happy...housing subsidies, free healthcare, subsidized food, etc. and a fairly modern infrastructure and educated population.

I'm sure the Lybian people are rebelling because they were all peachy. :rolleyes


It's going to be very interesting to see what happens if the religious fanatics get control and the social safety net starts to unravel.

Not our problem, tbh.

[Wild Cobra]

" The winds of freedom are flowing through the Middle East"
Really now?

Do you know what "Conservative Muslim" means? They will now be in power!

[Wild Cobra]

Wait... no troops on the ground needed, no unnecessary American deaths, no 'rebuilding plan' needed, backing from the UN and a genocide like Ghadafi removed is a failure now?

Yes, but we let the enemy win.

[clambake]

Most of y'all are too young to remember when the shit hit the fan in Iran.

i remember. bet you have some stories about ronnie saving the day.

[ChumpDumper]

Most of y'all are too young to remember when the shit hit the fan in Iran.Uh, we backed the dictator after overthrowing the democratically elected government in Iran.

Bad example.

[CosmicCowboy]

lol CC championing his good friend Ghadafi

LOL @ Chump defending "mission accomplished" in Libya.

[clambake]

the shah was a swell guy.

[ChumpDumper]

LOL @ Chump defending "mission accomplished" in Libya.Where did I do that?

Show me a quote.

[ElNono]

Yes, but we let the enemy win.

What enemy? The UN? crofl

[vy65]

Wait... no troops on the ground needed, no unnecessary American deaths, no 'rebuilding plan' needed, backing from the UN and a genocide like Ghadafi removed is a failure now?

+1.

At first, people were bitching about this as Iraq/Afghanistan part 2, especially when the rebels initially seemed weak/disorganized. Now, after what was essentially an air-mission/missle campaign removed a dictator of some 40+ years to give space for the Libyan people to democratically choose which form of government they want, the complaint now becomes Ghadafi wasn't such a bad guy?

[Wild Cobra]

What enemy? The UN? crofl
The rebels are worse than Gaddafi. Mark my words for future reference.