Libya is a civil war. Why are we there?

because "the one" wants a conflict that's somebody else's fault. It's deflection from the US & Europes very real economic problems.

There is another possible motivation - the rapidly-growing concept of "the right to protect" (R2P).

To quote from a post at Theo Spark's blog "Put simply, the R2P doctrine widens the legal limits that allow a third party to intervene in a conflict to include circumstances where significant numbers of civilians are put in harm’s way. If your mind has immediately jumped to Gaza, southern Lebanon and the West Bank, give yourself a hand. All three are chockfull of terrorists without uniforms living side-by-side among civilians by design."

And of course Zero and HRC and others in this Administration are blatantly anti-Israel, so ginning up a precedent or two for UN action in "protecting" the Arabs among whom Hamas and Hezbollah hide seems a reasonable take on the situation.

For more discussion of this idea, see here:
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/03/the_rise_of_samantha_power_and.html

The one conclusion which Ghaddafi will draw is, indeed, that he needs nuclear weapons. In fact, most states will come to this conclusion.

Yep, it's definitely more complicated than our blockhead "Global Community" politicians seem to understand.

There's an old parable from the Middle East (KJV?): "When the demon is expelled from the house and the house is swept and clean; seven demons worse than him will come to occupy the clean empty house.

Nobody has a clue who these "rebels" are in any of the countries undergoing upheavel and how they organized in order to replace these despots with something better. You better believe that Al Quada, Ajmadinijad, and a whole slew of other interests are just salivating at the opportunity to get control of Libya's oil after Daffy is gone, if Libyans aren't properly organized right away for something at least "democracy friendly".

So far the only thing the rebels have demonstrated is that the are good at yelling and jumping around in the street a lot. What's their political leadership?

Quite right, grok. Why indeed are we there?

This is no peaceful demonstration in Libya. It's an armed insurrection. The right to protect does not apply. The rebels played the game of armed revolution and they're losing. Why should we bail them out? Why is it that we are intervening in Libya's civil war but not intervening in Bahrain, where government forces are indeed shooting at unarmed demonstrators? Ah yes, the Saudis said, get lost.

What do you think the US would have thought if Britain had staged an armed intervention supporting the South in 1862? Invariably interventions in civil wars go badly, as the disasters in Russia in 1920 illustrate.

John is right. The lesson taught here is that you are only safe from foreign intervention if you have nuclear weapons. There are only two kinds of countries in this world. Those with nuclear weapons and those without. The first have to be taken seriously, the second, never. Ghaddafi's appeasement strategy didn't work. After this, what do you think the chances are of Iran or North Korea agreeing to forgo any nuclear weapons and admit full international inspections? Zilch sounds about right.

George Jonas penned a column several years back that I agree(d) with.

It went something like this.

Let them fight among themselves. If they attack us or our allies, or pose an imminent serious threat to us or our allies, go in and kick the s**t out of them, then pack up, leave your business card, and go home.

We are being used as fools often are, the Arab League of Nations could of liberated Libya instead they demanded the west do the dirty work thus if things go south they can blame the filthy imperalistic infidel. Frankly we should ignore the ME and North Africa and let the people decide their destiney. I've no desire to watch western blood ooze across the ME because they hate us no matter what we do good bad or ugly.

I am not convinced either that it is a good thing. Gadaffi is a thug and needs to be done away with, but as ricardo suggests the seven demons that take possession of Libya could well be worse.

I also suspect that this little action could have economic undertones as compared to intervention in Bahrain. Not to side with lefties, but $120 or $140 oil would not be healthy for a continuation of recovery from the 2008 recession.

“*Canadian CF-18s bomb Libyan ammunition depot in first attack of campaign”

Meanwhile, Liberal Count Ignatieff attacks:

“Ignatieff said Harper’s priorities are to spend billions on F-35 fighter planes, corporate tax cuts and prisons. He said those were the wrong priorities for Canadians.

“This is where you come to choice time,” Ignatieff said. “We will fight on the economy and we will win.”

http://www.torontosun.com/news/canada/2011/03/23/17725271.html

…-

“*Canadian CF-18s bomb Libyan ammunition depot in first attack of campaign”

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/canada/breakingnews/canadian-cf-18s-bomb-libyan-depot-in-first-attack-of-campaign-118515804.html

How many Canadian lives is it worth to install a jihadi muslim government in Libya?

Why are we there?

Cause it's not;
bahrain
yemen
tunisia
eqypt
morocco
ivory coast

because;
major oil supply to europe>EURO$>NATO

All of our allies are confused-
anyone wonder ?why.

Now the Germans are withdrawing,
accusing the French of oil contract motivations.

Pray they don't withdraw their troops and turn left into Poland.

The Italians really don't give a Shiite-
"make love not war."

A week from now everyone will think it was a bad French war movie.

I also suspect that this little action could have economic undertones as compared to intervention in Bahrain. Not to side with lefties, but $120 or $140 oil would not be healthy for a continuation of recovery from the 2008 recession.
~Ken (Kulak)

This is all happening because the International MSM gave the French government the impression that the Islamic rebels had the upper hand in Libya and the French governmnet prematurely recognized these rebels as the de facto government of Libya.

The French government burned their bridges with K-Daffy and now we are fighting for French energy interests.
If the French had not missed their opportunity to SHUT UP, they would still have their contracts with K-Daffy and $140/bbl oil wouldn't be an issue.

The "right to protect" is a continuation of setting aside the "Treaty of Westphalia" by President Bush #43. This is not bad, but a significant change in the understanding of who and what is acceptable in recognizing humanity.

The stepping back from cross border sovereign intervention established with Westphalia provided the breathing room for Roman Catholicism and Protestantism to establish local tolerance if not acceptance.

Stepping back from the Sunni/Shia divide is the logical next step in the evolution of civilization. Nuclear weapons and other WMD will be developed as such knowledge is increasingly available.

Policing the availability of such capability will become a ever more difficult task. Education and developing a sophisticated defense strategy, such as "missle defence" will become the only viable course of action until either Education wins or the "bad guys" destroy themselves.

I do feel the nuclear winter concern has been over stated, and therefore if we are able to provide a defensive position which maintains suitable separation, Mutual Assurred Destruction will once again bring the super ambitious to heel.

Cheers;

Posted by: maz2 at March 23, 2011 2:15 PM: "Meanwhile, Liberal Count Ignatieff attacks..."

I'm pretty much convinced at this point that Count Iggy is either clinically insane, a Commie plant, or comes from such a privileged upbringing that he is contrarian just for the sake of being contrarian -- kinda like the little brat whose ass you just want to spank black and blue 'cause he crys no matter what you give him.

Reason being, because Iggy yelled and screamed for Harper to hurry up and get over to Libya and invade the damn place for "democracy". No sooner we get over there (barely 24 hours later) and the Iggynoramus is yelling and screaming about how we better have an "exit strategy" and get out of there right away. The bottom line is the Libs want Harper to screw up and anything they demand is designed to do that, even if it costs lives.

So I say kudos to Harper for "Contempt of Parliament"! Calling all Canadians to join together with Harper to show contempt for the most wretched contemptible dishonest anti-democratic Parliament in Canada's history!!! And after our CF18's finish bombing Ghadaffi, I hope one them "mistakenly" drops a bomb on the spoiled aristocrat Ignatieff's villa in France in their overflight on their way home.

If we weren't discussing this, we would be discussing the massacre of 25,000 civilians in Benghazi (give or take, between 10 and 50 thousand most likely). One could make a case for saying that is not our problem, but France and the U.K. decided it was their problem. Obama signed on at the last moment because he didn't want to lose face. We have clearly been roped in to provide token support.

Gadhafi is crazy enough to blame "the west" for his civil war, whether we get involved or not. His story about Al Qaeda being behind the insurrection was just a last-minute story designed to throw off the NATO intervention, even he probably doesn't believe this. Of course there probably are some radical islamists among the insurgents, just as there are in Egypt. The question is, how much influence will they have in the aftermath? What group will be running the provisional government, and will that government even have control over Libya or just the eastern half?

The way I see this, we can at least cut our losses by containing this intervention strategy to Libya, on the basis that Gadhafi is worse than every other regional government, so if we get asked again we need to say no, unless some other case involves a direct threat on Israel's security, as might a request to intervene in Syria, Lebanon or Jordan. Yemen, whatever happens there, we should monitor from the outside and keep track of terrorist enablers. If they come to have too much influence then consider striking their power base, but otherwise, all of these other countries should just be left to sort out their political struggles.

Now that we're involved in Libya, it will probably need to be a fight to the finish because do we really want an enraged Gadhafi to remain in charge of anything? No, because there will be multiple terrorist strikes in the future if he's allowed to continue.

There probably are no right answers, just a choice between wrong answers, in our response to this complicated regional upheaval. Sooner or later the focus of it will become Arabs vs Jews in the disputed territory we call the Holy Land, and when that phase comes, pray that Obama is no longer president. I think it is coming on a bit too fast for that timetable. Even when Mubarak was still in power, I had the sense that this would turn into a big mess and that the end game was the fate of Jerusalem. The only question this raises about Gadhafi and Libya is, do you prefer to have him strutting around during that phase, or six feet under?

Fearless leader "Pray they don't withdraw their troops and turn left into Poland." Thanks for my afternoon laugh.

Oz, so Sarkozy wants to don Napoleon's mantle?

Oz, so Sarkozy wants to don Napoleon's mantle?
~Ken (Kulak)

No.
Sarkozy and his foreign minister made the wrong call and backed the wrong horse(rebels), so they're trying to put the fix in and make sure the horse they backed wins in the end.
They suckered a number of NATO countries to throw in with them and help rectify their gross foreign policy miscalculation.

Yes, K-Daffy was a major terrorist supporter back when the USSR looked like it was winning the global domination game, but after the USSR voted itself out of existence K-Daffy cooled his heels.
K-Daffy wasn't a radical Muslim, he was just a client of the Soviets.

Today our forces are backing the Islamists we've been fighting for 10 years.(if you discount the fact that NATO did the same thing in Bosnia, Kosovo etc. where Osama bin Laden got his first combat experience)

This is just deja vu all over again.
Slobodan Milosovic was the good guy and we were the bad guys and here we are making the same mistake.

Canada should get out of NATO and out of the UN.

ricardo at 3:13 PM: "So I say kudos to Harper for "Contempt of Parliament"!"
============
Right on!! I've never been so contemptuous of Parliament in my life. Bring on that election and let's clean house.

Louise at March 23, 2011 5:42 PM,

Exactly Louise. "Contempt of Parliament" is something the Libs just invented anyway (no historical precedence whatsoever), just like they made a coup with the separatist Bloc and tried to call it "coalition".

The fact is the Libs are in "contempt of democracy" because they have never recognized the current elected Gov as legit. And they seem to forget that the Cons are also a part of Parliament, and hold more seats than any other party. Does that mean that the Cons are in contempt of themselves?

Bomb Libya, then vote out the Lib fascists!

It's George's fault.

AlMoh's world is churning.

The Syrian regime is a Baathist regime.

Maddass Saddam's ex-regime was a Baathist regime, aka National Socialism. (H/T Joe Stalin-Adolf)

...-

"One thing, however, is for certain: If Syria does not see a full-blown uprising soon, a culture of dissent has nonetheless commenced. The fear barrier has been broken irreversibly."

"Syria's coming revolution?"

"By taking to the streets, even in fairly small numbers, Syrians have crossed a 'red line' with their regime."

"The revolution that was sparked in Tunisia has given birth to a new pan Arab-movement, a "neo-Arabism", which privileges freedom and democratic participation of the people over ideology, sectarianism and the interest of dictators.

As we witness a rebirth of a revolutionary neo-Arabism that has infected millions from Morocco to Bahrain, we cannot ignore the birth-place of the original pan Arab movement of the past century – Syria.

Much has been written about Syria and why it cannot be next in line of the modern day Grand Arab Revolution. Very few have asked the question: "Why not?"

On March 15, the Syrian Day of Rage, as its Facebook group put it, hundreds were reported to have taken to the streets of Damascus, the capital.

On March 17th, "The Friday of Dignity", the momentum picked up. Hundreds of Syrians protested in Homs, Aleppo, Dara'a and the coastal city of Banias. In Dara'a, a southwestern city on the Jordanian border, protests have turned deadly and the regime has sealed off the city in a hurried attempt to quell the spreading unrest.

Challenging the regime

Compared to footage of thousands, and sometimes millions, of protesters on the streets of Tunis, Cairo, Manama, Sana'a and Tripoli, the numbers in Syria might seem low. It should be noted, however, that what has taken place in Syria over the past few days is simply unprecedented. The only mass public expressions that Damascus has seen in the past few decades have been demonstrations co-opted by pro-regime supporters."

http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/03/201132113479124674.html

The French started their participation(and ended it) with the grand total of ONE SORTY.

The Brits are out of weapons with 12.

The U.S. are now expected to spend the real money to satisfy Europe's oil-gone-bad deal with Quaddafi.

And they will stretch the credit card limit with the Chinese to do so.

How stupid can a declining empire get?

Really stupid.

"So, what is the lesson for Iran, Syria, and the other assorted mix of thugs and Islamists in the ME ... "

That even super-wuss half mooslem guy Barack Hussein Obama will come and kick their @sses if they start shooting up their own populace.

And that there's a Conservative PM in Britain.

Oh, and don't short the Frogs on any oil deals. It ain't safe.

It's a good thing the Obamba's and other worlds liberal masses have loaded up the west with millions upon millions of Muslims, including Libyans, Syrian, Pakistani et al......None of them will have an issue with Obabmas bombs killing their relatives at home, not one.

These are moderate Muslims after all, they don't go for that revenge, honour killing type of stuff like the "tiny insignificant extremist minority" . he he he......... Guess we will just have to disarm the American public now so that some Libyan "student" we imported doesn't get ahold of a deer rifle and blow up the Sears Tower with it.

What a bunch of F8cking idiots.

That even super-wuss half mooslem guy Barack Hussein Obama will come and kick their @sses if they start shooting up their own populace.
~The Phantom

Shooting up their own populace?
Says you, Obama, and the MSM.
We know that Obama and the MSM are liars, what's your excuse?

beagle>

".....make up yer mind"

Question about making up minds beagley - Why does the left scream and froth at the mouth when a paedophilic child molester is about to lethally injected on death row - yet they have no problem whatsoever with Obamba launching 112 Tomahawk missiles into the cities of a country that has not invaded anyone, gassed anyone in mass, or any other offensive atrocity outside of their own boarders? We are of course talking about the confirmed reports of woman and children being killed by these missiles.

Yet I suppose they aren't decadent freaks like Obamba or the pedophile on the death row gurney worthy of the lefts sympathies.

Oz, a few points.
I agree with you about Gaddafi's cave-in after the fall of the USSR.
I don't agree with you about Slobbo. There were NO good guys in former Yugoslavia. They were all thugs. It was the Germans that precipitated the 10-year crisis by prematurely recognizing the independence of Slovenia that created the immediate collapse of Yugoslavia. And once recognized, the interventions started when the Serbs and Croats renewed their centuries-long animosity which Tito had kept suppressed.

It's not clear that the opposition in Libya is islamist, though I will grant you that the signs do not look good, given what's already happened in Egypt and Tunisia.

As for NATO and the UN, I despise them as well, but let's be honest. Getting out of either is NOT a real-world option.

cgh >

"It's not clear that the opposition in Libya is islamist..."

Actually it's not clear to anyone what's really going on. What we do know is that 5 million Libyans couldn't muster up a threatening attack on Saskatchewan if they were sitting on the border armed.

We seem to have two groups in the west salivating at the thought of bombing Libya deeper into the stone-age than they currently are. First are the so called "neo cons" who have bought into all the MSM hype that Gadaffi is the antichrist able to chemically nuke every major US city by his mere thoughts.

Second and worst of all are the pathetic back flipping leftoid's who think that this is somehow a just "Liberal War" because their black messiah who would never lie to them and has told them so. What you didn't see the "Nobel Peace Prize" hanging like an upside-down cross in the Oval Office as proof?

The fact is this is going to cost the west big time, in refugees, rebuilding infrastructure, pandering to Islam for forgiveness, white guilt, you name it we will pay.

As for NATO and the UN, I despise them as well, but let's be honest. Getting out of either is NOT a real-world option.
~cgh

I think it is an option that should be pursued.

We are a part of NORAD, which I think we should remain in, but NATO is an alliance that is increasingly being abused and used for purposes that it was never intended for, particularly bailing out failed European policy.

I brought up the former Yugoslavia because to this day there has been no proof of genocide there, no mass graves, and Milosovic was tried for 4 years and no good proof was brought against him for war crimes.
Canada was #3 in that conflict for the number of bombs it's planes dropped and there was no compelling reason for us to be there at all.

Libya is following the exact same script.