Hi Brendan,

The idea that the coalition is there to create a balanced 'playing field' makes for good headlines but not a sound strategy, but if that is the strategy then we should all start panicking. I don't see the contradiction that you do, sure you can limit some military hardware, as you've listed, but the conflict can still escalate into a full out civil war beyond the coalitions control with causalities in the thousands, which I'm sure is a real possibility. What I'm hoping, and I would suspect the coalition is hoping, is that Kadaffi's support is mostly built on fear. Take away that fear and hopefully Kadaffi’s support vanishes.

We'll know soon enough, weeks I think.

.

I don't see the contradiction that you do, sure you can limit some military hardware, as you've listed, but the conflict can still escalate into a full out civil war beyond the coalitions control with causalities in the thousands, which I'm sure is a real possibility.  (Chris)

Egg Zack Lee.

Brendan,

Either Gaddafi is isolated and is eventually given an "out" or the uprising is successful and there is a democratic revolution.

No chance for giving Gadaffi an "out".  Everyone has crossed the Rubicon.  The opposition knows they can not allow him to remain in any capacity of power, because he will crush them at his first opportunity.  The West knows that he will seek revenge if he remains with any means at his disposal.

Plus, think about this, unlike Egypt, Libya is already pretty much an islamic republic run by a mad man, so I don't think there is much to lose on that front.

I thought the same thing about Iraq and Saddam--disregarding the Islamic Republic aspect, which I don't really think applies here either.  In reality, there was a lot to lose, and we just didn't have the foresight to envision it.

I don't mean to keep arguing this with you.  As Chris acknowledged, only time will tell.  You are optimistic and I am pessimistic about this particular case.  We will see.

WTF!  I go away for a few days, for a little R&R, away from phones, TV, and internet, and come back to find the United Nations is bombing the piss outta some country to steal oil, impose its version of "democracy" on a populace involved in a purely internal disagreement, and establish a UN hegemony!  And the UN is again forcing the US to be the world's policeman.  How the hell did this happen?

Damn, I need to go back to the mountains.

"What I'm hoping, and I would suspect the coalition is hoping, is that Kadaffi's support is mostly built on fear. Take away that fear and hopefully Kadaffi’s support vanishes.

That actually happened weeks ago. Many of his supporters gave up the ghost then and changed sides.  If Daffy was rational he would have high tailed to Venezuela and annoyed Chavez by pitching his tent in the middle of Caracas traffic.

But he's not rational and he embarked on an insane, all guns blazing suicide mission.  it could never have been sustained.  Every one of the cities he "liberated" was still fighting.  There were 1,500 men available to attack Benghazi - a city of of over 700,000.  They would have been eventually anihalated - as the garrison was before.  But not until they had killed an awful lot of people.  That's why I'm coming around to supporting this initiative.  Daffy was going down anyway.  But this way he's taking a few less Libyans with him.

I'm still suspicous about the support of the Gulf dictators though.  What have they been promised in return?

First point, a free hand for all Gulf states to do with their opposition as they please. That’s no massacre then. We must call it fighting terrorism, I guess.

How the hell do you arrive at that conclusion?  It seems as though the message would be the exact opposite:  Form an opposition, protest, provoke the ruling party to take action against the opposition, and the UN will jump in with bombs and missles to protect you.  This does not "give a free hand...to do with their opposition as they please."  It encouages anyone with a bad attitude to rise up against their current government.

Jeez, I swear, everyone on earth could look at a blazing, noon-day sun, and you'd call it midnight.

I musta missed the part where the Bahrainis switched from tear gas and rubber bullets to bombs and shelling cities.  Evidently, the provocation and response needs to be excessive to some degree.

Of course, I'm sure any civilian death would be excessive to you.  Unless it's a fetus.

Branden,

Why is there so much hand wringing by US media and commentators? They are insisting on "defined goals" "defined measures of success" and "a defined mission" "defined objectives".

There is so much anxiety now because Obama punked us.  One day he was only asking for Gadaffi to step down, the next day we launch $200 million worth of missiles at him.  We never had the opportunity to debate this as a nation.  Congress declares war for our country, not the UN.

"Defined goals, measures of success, and mission" are a way of avoiding another Vietnam or Iraq.  It is also a way of avoiding another Lebanon or Somalia, where we have to watch our soldiers get blown up in their barracks or dragged through the streets.  We need any more open-ended commitments in the Muslim world.

...the next day we launch $200 million worth of missiles...

Do we send that bill to the UN?

Brendan,

I really feel it is an awkward turn about that I can find this action appropriate, proportionate and legitimate while you, a onetime fence-sitting hawk, react as though you are chewing tinfoil whenever the word "intervention" and "Arab" come up in the same paragraph.

Actually, it is when the words "Arab", "intervention", and "America" come up in the same paragraph that I get catatonic.  That is the kiss of death as far as I am concerned.  It is just too soon.  There is still propaganda circulating out there that America is "at war with Islam", and to be involved in another conflict with another Muslim nation is more grist for the rumor mill.

I have never been a hawk.  I am an internationalist and always have been.  I supported the removal of Saddam because he was a threat to international order, and set a precedent that the United Nations could be ignored with impunity.  I was surprised when the French put so much effort into blocking his removal, and absolutely shocked when the populations of our supposed Western allies put so much effort into condemning America and championing Saddam--especially from our friends in Canadastan by the way.  It was America that began this process of forcibly democratizing the Middle East, which you didn't support then, but do support now.  Where is your consistency?

The experience of Iraq has taught me that ordinary people have little patience or tolerance for the fight for freedom, and that they especially do not understand the dynamics of the Middle East.  When there is ugliness, they are quick to blame that entity which is perceived to have the most "power", because it is assumed that they have the ability to prevent the ugliness but didn't do so because they were incompetent, or because there was profit in ugliness.

In Libya, there WILL be ugliness.  America is at least intelligent enough to know that they don't want to be around for it, while the Europeans are fighting over who will be seen as the leaders of the Libyan intervention.  These idiots have not been paying attention.  They are so busy primping for a beauty contest of international prestige that they are not paying attention to the lessons of the Iraq war.  This is a game of musical chairs where the rules are reversed.  The last thing you want is to be the winner, where you are still seated and everyone else has left.

I earlier said that it would be good for the world if there was a second great power--the EU--aggressively pursuing a liberal, democratic agenda in the world.  Let the Europeans handle Libya, and when they get their asses kicked by unintended consequences and the concurrent global condemnation, it will help to heal the wounds of Iraq and reunite the Western powers in a common cause.

Lessons of the Iraq War:

#1  This is not going to be easy.

#2  When you remove a longstanding Arab tyrant with foreign intervention, you will unleash an inscrutable anarchy.

#3  The people you are helping will turn on you, as it provides them with political legitimacy and street cred to oppose foreigners.

#4  Despite all of your sacrifices for democracy, you will only be remembered as being responsible for every death in the ensuing civil war.

#5  There are far more "Momos" in the world than you could ever imagine.

#6  Arab pride dictates that they would rather be beaten down for decades by one of their own than ever deign to acknowledge aid from the West.

#7  People who originally supported intervention (such as yourself) will later claim that it was a dumb idea all along, and the civil war will thus spread to your own country.  You will then elect the first politically incompetent pretty boy that comes along promising "change".

#8  You will somehow be labeled as "a threat to global peace", participating only for oil revenues.

#9  It will be claimed that you "lost" the war, even when Gadaffi is gone and Libya is a democracy.

#10  You can't give up.  When you break it, you buy it.

If you think that a UNSC resolution absolves you from the consequences of violating these rules, then sign right here on the dotted line and knock yourself out:

Print:          ____________________________

Signature: ____________________________

Witness:    jayfromtexas                                        

Brendan,

You seem to find yourself continually on the wrong side of that fence, and history.

I could say the same about you.  The objective is obviously regime change, and using the creative arguments of the Europeans of the Iraq war era, this action could be seen as illegal, no.  What makes it ok now?

As far as justification for regime change, there is far less of it than there was for removing Saddam.  Gadaffi has recently renounced terrorism, paid reparations to his victims of it, renounced possession of WMD, and agreed to inspectors to verify it.  If Saddam had done all that, the US would have had no justification to remove him.

Satellite imagery shows that loyalists leveled a mosque used by rebels as a command center in Zawiya, but other than that hard fact we don't have a lot of hard intelligence proving that Gadaffi is indeed involved in large scale execution of war crimes.  I have not seen any trove of photographs of dead women and children, have you?  You are justifying an intervention on heresay.  The US made that mistake a few years ago also.

You seem to think that the Libyans are going to greet you as liberators and always think of you fondly.  You do not understand the situation on the ground, and there are far more loyalists than you could imagine.  Most of them are simply "the silent majority", that don't want to live through an era of chaos.

Don't get me wrong.  I want to see Gadaffi go, and I am perfectly willing to be a little creative in interpreting the rules to make it happen.  The point I am making here is that you are being both naive when it comes to the challenge of a Libyan democracy in the near future, and hypocritical in not understanding that you are following the same path as the American experience in Iraq.  At least America stayed long enough to physically implement and protect a new democracy.  You are just going to unleash a civil war and then leave.  Where is the morality in that?

The UNSC is a country club of the world's rich nations which allows them to rubber stamp their continued global domination.  It has no respect outside the country club, and you shouldn't believe that your cause is just merely because you have UNSC 1973.  Remember that one of the first attacks of the Iraqi "insurgency" was against the UN, which was actually opposed to the US invasion in the first place.  Remember?  The attack that killed Sergio Vieira de Mello?