Libya: should anything be done?

[Tigger]

Ballistics derail split and moved as suggested by JOZ. Cheers. New thread is here: http://rationalia.com/forum/viewtopic.p ... 55#p802095

[Coito ergo sum]

Why does America do everything half assed? They bomb Libya with hundreds of missiles, obviously pissing off Ghadaffi, and don't have the sensibility to kill him. Yah know, the moment you rain hundreds of missiles on a country, it doesn't make you any more of an ass if you just kill the leader.

In this case, it's because the US is following the path of the UN, which specializes in half-assed measures.

[Coito ergo sum]

"I don’t know Libya, but my gut tells me that any kind of decent outcome there will require boots on the ground — either as military help for the rebels to oust Qaddafi as we want, or as post-Qaddafi peacekeepers and referees between tribes and factions to help with any transition to democracy. Those boots cannot be ours. We absolutely cannot afford it — whether in terms of money, manpower, energy or attention. But I am deeply dubious that our allies can or will handle it without us, either. And if the fight there turns ugly, or stalemates, people will be calling for our humanitarian help again. You bomb it, you own it.

Which is why, most of all, I hope President Obama is lucky. I hope Qaddafi’s regime collapses like a sand castle, that the Libyan opposition turns out to be decent and united and that they require just a bare minimum of international help to get on their feet. Then U.S. prestige will be enhanced and this humanitarian mission will have both saved lives and helped to lock another Arab state into the democratic camp.

Dear Lord, please make President Obama lucky."

Whole opinion here: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/30/opini ... f=homepage

Why do you hope Qadafi's regime collapses? Who are we in the West to "impose" any form of government on Libya? Is it western business to decide what form of government Libya has?

Lock "another" Arab state into the democratic camp? What other Arab states are locked in the democratic camp?

[Coito ergo sum]

I like this quote from Obama:

“I refused to wait for the images of slaughter and mass graves before taking action.”

He used the concept of preemptive action. In this case, it certainly wasn't self-defense or even preemptive self-defense - it was the preemptive defense of one side in a civil war.

[Coito ergo sum]

"Coalition" forces killing civilians now: http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/-/world/9113 ... -official/

Break out the war crimes tribunal for Obama, Sarkozy and Cameron. They attacked a country which never attacked them, and did not pose an imminent threat to the US, France or the UK. The stated purpose was to prevent a humanitarian crisis, which means that there was not yet a humanitarian crisis - and we all know that intervention is only for oil, because if it wasn't for oil intervention would have taken place in Darfur or in other non-oil possessing places where there were actual, ongoing humanitarian crises. It's not the business of the US, UK and France to "impose" a form of government on Libya or to depose/assassinate its leaders, is it? They've just picked a side in a civil war - on the factual and legal basis supporting Libya, there is not a single country in the world that the US, UK and France can't attack - all they have to do is pick a side in a political struggle or a civil war, and anoint that side the legitimate government over and above the actual government.

[Coito ergo sum]

“Now, let me be clear – I suffer no illusions about Saddam Hussein,” said Obama in his speech. “He is a brutal man. A ruthless man. A man who butchers his own people to secure his own power. He has repeatedly defied U.N. resolutions, thwarted U.N. inspection teams, developed chemical and biological weapons, and coveted nuclear capacity. He's a bad guy. The world, and the Iraqi people, would be better off without him.”

"... After September 11th, after witnessing the carnage and destruction, the dust and the tears, I supported this administration's pledge to hunt down and root out those who would slaughter innocents in the name of intolerance, and I would willingly take up arms myself to prevent such tragedy from happening again," said Obama. "I don't oppose all wars. ... What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war. What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and other armchair, weekend warriors in this administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne."
Obama argued that deposing Saddam militarily was not necessary, because Iraq posed no “direct threat” to the United States. Obama also cited Iraq’s weakened economy and the fact that it was still possible to contain Saddam’s aggression, repudiating the Bush administration’s rationale that Saddam posed too great a threat to American interests and his own people to be left in power.

“But I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors, that the Iraqi economy is in shambles, that the Iraqi military is a fraction of its former strength, and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history,” said Sen. Obama.

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/obama-2 ... tator-dumb

Same goes for Libya and Qadafi, but it's different now, I guess, because Obama is President now, and not just on the sidelines pointing fingers.

[Coito ergo sum]

Qadafi's "blonde daughter" hitting the front lines of war! http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... -line.html

[Gawdzilla Sama]

That's a MiG-17. Three strakes on the wing, not two, a steeper rake on the empennage, and a narrower chord on the vertical stabilizer are the hallmarks. Also, you can see the variable nozzle for the afterburner at the exhaust outlet.

Caption says MiG-19.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Why does America do everything half assed?

Too many Canadians in the country?

[Coito ergo sum]

Why does America do everything half assed?

Too many Canadians in the country?

We need a wall along the Alaska-Canada border to keep the Canucks out.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Why does America do everything half assed?

Too many Canadians in the country?

We need a wall along the Alaska-Canada border to keep the Canucks out.

You'd have to put another around Florida and one around Arizona.

[Coito ergo sum]

Why does America do everything half assed?

Too many Canadians in the country?

We need a wall along the Alaska-Canada border to keep the Canucks out.

You'd have to put another around Florida and one around Arizona.

I heard the Canucks are getting ready to invade. It's no coincidence that they have massed 30 million people right along the Canadian/US border....invasion seems imminent...

See -- proof Canadians are massing at the border, ready to invade:

[Warren Dew]

Same goes for Libya and Qadafi, but it's different now, I guess, because Obama is President now, and not just on the sidelines pointing fingers.

When you're president those military toys become very tempting to play with.

[JimC]

I suppose there are some reasons to be cynical about the intervention, and concerned over the precedent it sets.

However, if it hadn't happened, it seems virtually certain that government forces would have rolled over the rebels fairly quickly. Those that didn't make it over the border to Egypt or Tunisia would have been rounded up and shot, along with their families, and many civilians in towns that went over to the rebellion.

[Warren Dew]

Those that didn't make it over the border to Egypt or Tunisia would have been rounded up and shot, along with their families, and many civilians in towns that went over to the rebellion.

I doubt it. Ringleaders might have been shot or ended up in jail - which would also happen in the U.S. under similar circumstances - but Qadafi hasn't shown any tendency to, say, gas or massacre entire towns of his own people, as Saddam Hussein and the late Assad did.