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Post by Lonnie on Mar 20, 2011 9:53:32 GMT -5
I say they get a couple of deep wet work operatives, team up with MI5 and go in and simply off Quadaffi. There are probably rules against that, but what the hell.
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Post by omaha on Mar 20, 2011 10:03:24 GMT -5
Regarding Iran, I don't know what "conservatives" wanted, but it was a fundamentally different situation than Libya.
First, the US actually has a strategic interest inIran. Second, Obama was unwilling to even offer a verbal statement of support for the demonstrators. Why? Why now does he express support for demonstrators in Egypt and Libya, but wouldn't do the same for Iran. And now he goes to war over Libya? It makes no sense. I'm not saying we should have gone to war with Iran. No way. But we should have done everything else to support their revolution. Why is obama willing to explicitly state that the government in Libya must go but not Iran?
Meanwhile, WTF are we doing in Libya? Bombs for peace? Bomb the place until it looks better? Bomb them until today's bad guy is dead, and then bomb them some more when we find out the new guy is just as bad? Sorry to say, but in a lot of ways these are ugly cultures in an ugly part of the world. Bombing them won't make them any prettier...it just reshuffles the ugly. We're dreaming if we think were getting a better hand out of the new deck.
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Post by millring on Mar 20, 2011 10:14:23 GMT -5
At least we aren't likely to get terribly entrenched with an internal war as we did with Iraq. As long as this doesn't drag on into a (very doubtful anyway) Republican administration with an adversarial press, we are likely going to be able to stay on mission. As long as we continue to have a Democratic administration, we won't end up in yet another war on two fronts -- home and abroad. It's one of the reasons I feel safer with a Democrat in office during times of international upheaval.
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Post by Fingerplucked on Mar 20, 2011 10:21:09 GMT -5
If we stick to what we said: no ground troops, and a limited engagement of "days," not "weeks," I don't think this can go too wrong. It's when we try to "win" and rebuild that months turn into years with no end in sight.
Bomb and shoot what we can without firing on urban areas, then leave and let the Arabs sort it out on a presumably more equal footing.
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Post by brucemacneill on Mar 20, 2011 10:23:06 GMT -5
"Obama was unwilling to even offer a verbal statement of support for the demonstrators. Why?"
Maybe he's a Shite?
That's a joke, son, a joke, a bad one granted. Just don't want any death threats for it.
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Post by sidheguitarmichael on Mar 20, 2011 11:03:03 GMT -5
My track record of predictions when it comes to political threads has been pretty good over the years, if I do say so myself.
But I'm just lost on this one. Let's do a betting pool: how many here think that we will still be throwing ordnance and money around in Libya six months from now? How about a year?
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Post by millring on Mar 20, 2011 11:08:29 GMT -5
Well, I feel much less confident of a short engagement after watching Meet The Press.
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Post by Doug on Mar 20, 2011 11:08:41 GMT -5
My track record of predictions when it comes to political threads has been pretty good over the years, if I do say so myself. But I'm just lost on this one. Let's do a betting pool: how many here think that we will still be throwing ordnance and money around in Libya six months from now? How about a year? I got a dollar that we are still in all three wars six months from now. Wars are good for politicians.
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Post by Fingerplucked on Mar 20, 2011 11:14:55 GMT -5
NPR has a pretty good opinion piece on it: Foreign Policy: The U.N. Takes A Gamble In Libyaby MARC LYNCH Marc Lynch is associate professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University. Yesterday's U.N. Security Council vote authorizing a no-fly zone and more against Libya has brought the United States and its allies into another Middle Eastern war. The charge leveled by advocates of the war that Obama has been "dithering" is as silly as is the counter-argument that the West has been itching for an excuse to invade Libya to seize its oil. The administration clearly understands that military intervention in Libya is a terrible idea, and hoped for as long as possible that the Libyan opposition could prevail without outside military assistance. It only signed on to the intervention when it became clear that, as DNI James Clapper testified to great public abuse, Gadhafi had tipped the balance and was likely to win. The prospect of Gadhafi surviving and taking his revenge on his people and the region is what forced the hand of the United States and the Security Council. I'm conflicted about the intervention, torn between the anguished appeals from Libyans and Arabs desperate for support against Gadhafi and concerns about the many deep, unanswered and at this point largely unasked questions about what comes next — whether Gadhafi survives or falls. Now, the hope has to be that the U.N.'s resolution will quickly lead Gadhafi's regime to crumble and create the conditions for a rapid political process to change that regime without the actual use of military force. The intervention is a high-stakes gamble. If it succeeds quickly, and Gadhafi's regime crumbles as key figures jump ship in the face of its certain demise, then it could reverse the flagging fortunes of the Arab uprisings. Like the first Security Council resolution on Libya, it could send a powerful message that the use of brutal repression makes regime survival less rather than more likely. It would put real meat on the bones of the "Responsibility to Protect" and help create a new international norm. And it could align the U.S. and the international community with Al-Jazeera and the aspirations of the Arab protest movement. I have heard from many protest leaders from other Arab countries that success in Libya would galvanize their efforts, and failure might crush their hopes. But if it does not succeed quickly, and the intervention degenerates into a long quagmire of air strikes, grinding street battles, and growing pressure for the introduction of outside ground forces, then the impact could be quite different. Despite the bracing scenes of Benghazi erupting into cheers at the news of the Resolution, Arab support for the intervention is not nearly as deep as it seems and will not likely survive an extended war. If Libyan civilians are killed in airstrikes, and especially if foreign troops enter Libyan territory, and images of Arabs killed by U.S. forces replace images of brave protestors battered by Gadhafi's forces on Al-Jazeera, the narrative could change quickly into an Iraq-like rage against Western imperialism. What began as an indigenous peaceful Arab uprising against authoritarian rule could collapse into a spectacle of war and intervention. The Libya intervention is also complicated by the trends in the rest of the region. There is currently a bloody crackdown going on in U.S.-backed Bahrain, with the support of Saudi Arabia and the GCC. The Yemeni regime of Ali Abdullah Saleh is currently carrying out some of its bloodiest repression yet. Will the Responsibility to Protect extend to Bahrain and Yemen? This is not a tangential point. One of the strongest reasons to intervene in Libya is the argument that the course of events there will influence the decisions of other despots about the use of force. If they realize that the international community will not allow the brutalization of their own people, and a robust new norm created, then intervention in Libya will pay off far beyond its borders. But will ignoring Bahrain and Yemen strangle that new norm in its crib? On my flight to Beirut earlier this month, I read the new book by Foreign Affairs editor Gideon Rose, How Wars End. Rose warns that leaders should never go into a military intervention without thinking through the political endgame. Again and again, he warns, the United States has gone into wars focused on the urgency of the need for action without thinking through where it really wants and needs to go. War advocates prefer to focus on the urgency of action, usually minimizing the likely risks and costs of war, exaggerating the likely benefits, and discounting the viability of all non-military courses of action — exactly the script on Libya the last few weeks. Thinking about the messy endgame would only complicate such advocacy, and so it gets set aside. One might think that the disastrous post-war trajectories of Iraq and Afghanistan would have forever ended such an approach to military interventions, but here we are. Has anyone really seriously thought through the role the U.S. or international community might be expected to play should Gadhafi fall? Or what steps will follow should the no-fly zone and indirect intervention not succeed in driving Gadhafi from power? No, there's no time for that... there never is. For now, I will be hoping, deeply and fervently, that the Libyan regime quickly crumbles in the face of the international community's actions. Reports that it has accepted the resolution and a ceasefire could provide the space for the kind of political settlement many of us have been advocating. Let's hope. www.npr.org/2011/03/18/134661724/foreign-policy-the-u-n-takes-a-gamble-in-libya
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Post by Supertramp78 on Mar 20, 2011 11:17:02 GMT -5
At least we aren't likely to get terribly entrenched with an internal war as we did with Iraq. As long as this doesn't drag on into a (very doubtful anyway) Republican administration with an adversarial press, we are likely going to be able to stay on mission. As long as we continue to have a Democratic administration, we won't end up in yet another war on two fronts -- home and abroad. It's one of the reasons I feel safer with a Democrat in office during times of international upheaval. John, your insistance on seeing everything as 'the world vs. conservatives" is getting old. There are quite a few diofferences between Itaq and Libya. Not the least is the fact that the Arab League supports this one. And the fact that other nations are actually doing some of the fighting and it isn't just 85% us. You did notice those differences, didn't you?
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Post by millring on Mar 20, 2011 11:19:32 GMT -5
I'm not seeing it as 'the world vs. conservatives' (and your presumptions about what I think and constant barbs are at least as tiresome to me as you claim what you read into my posts is to you)
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Post by Doug on Mar 20, 2011 12:32:14 GMT -5
I don't see any difference. Dead people for political gain is dead people.
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Post by sekhmet on Mar 20, 2011 12:39:23 GMT -5
Those of you who read French might be interested in a European point of view. Remarkably different than an American point of view. www.lemonde.fr/
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Post by brucemacneill on Mar 20, 2011 13:08:53 GMT -5
Guess the Arab League's support is dwindling. www.cnbc.com/id/42176367Maybe if we could do a war without hurting anyone...
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Post by Doug on Mar 20, 2011 13:38:23 GMT -5
And if you ever get a war without blood and gore Well I'll be the first to go -Phil Ochs
Remember Ochs he's the guy that killed himself because their was nothing left to protest. If he had just waited.
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Post by brucemacneill on Mar 20, 2011 13:48:52 GMT -5
And if you ever get a war without blood and gore Well I'll be the first to go -Phil Ochs Remember Ochs he's the guy that killed himself because their was nothing left to protest. If he had just waited. Yeah, he may not be marchin' anymore but the parade's still goin' by.
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Post by epaul on Mar 20, 2011 13:52:20 GMT -5
Guess the Arab League's support is dwindling. www.cnbc.com/id/42176367Maybe if we could do a war without hurting anyone... Two-faced bastards.
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Post by brucemacneill on Mar 20, 2011 13:54:01 GMT -5
Guess the Arab League's support is dwindling. www.cnbc.com/id/42176367Maybe if we could do a war without hurting anyone... Two-faced bastards. They want to get rid of Qadaffi as much as anyone but they don't want to take any heat for it since they're just as likely to massacre their people as Qadaffi is.
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Post by Doug on Mar 20, 2011 13:55:08 GMT -5
I just don't understand how anyone who lived through VN either here or over there could support any war where we weren't attacked. We learned then that all non defensive wars are just for political gain and have nothing to do with Dems or Repubs because all the political critters are for war because it keeps the people down.
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Post by Chesapeake on Mar 20, 2011 14:10:59 GMT -5
As long as we continue to have a Democratic administration, we won't end up in yet another war on two fronts -- home and abroad. It's one of the reasons I feel safer with a Democrat in office during times of international upheaval. Double heh. Bob Dole used to crack people up by saying that in the 20th century it was always Democrat [sic] presidents that got us into wars. But it was true - up until Gulf War I. Wilson led us into WWI, Roosevelt into WWII, Truman into Korea (which Eisenhower got us out of) and Kennedy/Johnson into Vietnam (which Nixon got us out of). The prevailing wisdom is that Democrats are so afraid of being tagged as weak on defense that they tend to be overagressive. We may be seeing a bit of that here as well as in Afghanistan.
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