Regarding our new involvement in Libya, do you have faith that US will play only a support role?

[Stinky The Clown]

Do you think American boots will not tread on Libyan soil?

Do you think American pilots will not overfly Libyan air space?

Do you think genocide is possible, as some have suggested?





No, I do not support Col. Q. He is a bad man.

[leftstreet]

1. The US taxpayer will continue to support the military contractors

That's the only certainty

[AnOhioan]

2. +1000

[DURHAM D]

3. Yes. No. AWACs. Yes - already happening. nt

[rurallib]

4. dam good questions. IGhaddafi is out quickly, maybe we can stay out

But are we or the UN going to get involved in the whole post war thing like Iraq?
If the new government is another dictator, what happens?

[sabrina 1]

6. If the new government is a dictatorship, we will support it.

We are supporting the Bahrainian Govt., the Yemeni Govt, the Uzbekistan Govt.,all of whom are currently brutalizing their own people, and until the people made it clear they were not giving up until they were gone, we supported Mubarak in Egypt and Ben Ali in Tunisia and Qadaffi in Libya.

We have a history of supporting brutal dictatorships around the world. Dictators are easier to 'do business with' as they do not care about their people. The U.S. as revealed in the Wikileaks cables, were fully aware of the brutality against their people of all these dictators, but, as one cable said about Karamov of Uzbekistan admitting how bad he was 'but he lets us build our military bases in his country'.

What I would worry about is what will the U.S. do if a truly democratic government emerges and decides that the Libyan people have first rights to profit from their own resources.

We also supported every brutal dictator we could find in Latin America, while we backed coups against their democratically elected leaders, in Venezuela, in Honduras, in Haiti and elsewhere.

Democracies tend to put their people first. Dictators put themselves and what they can get out of a bargain with Global Corps first. And they do the dirty work of oppressing anyone who opposes the selling of their country to Global Corps. That way the West can look the other way and leave the dirty work to their hired hitmen, like Mubarak, Ben Ali, Qaddafi, Karamov, et al.

Even now the U.S. is working in Latin America to undermine democracies that have the crazy idea that they are sovereign nations and owe the U.S. nothing.

We are not in Libya for the sake of the people that's for sure and anyone who believes that has been asleep for the last ten years.

[Warren Stupidity]

5. no. And it has already been announced that we are going in with major strikes.

This was a 'no fly zone' action for about 5 minutes. Now it is an 'eliminate the Libyan Army' action, and we are about to be knee deep in blood.

[snappyturtle]

7. No, I wouldn't even take a small bet on it. We'll see what happens. nt

[lumpy]

8. We should not be militarily involved, period. God only knows what

the outcome will be. Time to give up the idea that military action is going to solve a damn thing.

[cedric]

11. Like dictatorships and torture

Well, it may save those rebels who are fighting for democracy being saving from being hung by their necks from lamp posts. Then again if the Libyans got democracy they may not be so pleased with those powers in the west that supported the despotic regimes in the middle east that suppressed free speech, tortured dissenters and persecuted their populace. Then again its ensured political stability, so that we could sell them arms and buy their oil, but trade has always been more important when its not your rights that are being suppressed.

[jannyk]

9. The allied forces are not short of aircraft/pilots

unless they need 'drones' the US is not needed in the air.

I thought the US was just going to shoot at things from a boat

BBC: #
1722: The BBC's Katie Connolly in Washington DC says both the White House and the US State Department have been emphasising the same line - that the US has been invited to take action and is not leading operations.

[kiva]

10. Hope? Yes. Believe it? No. n/t

[kenny blankenship]

12. I support Obama's decision to join in intervention, despite many misgivings about the tardiness etc.

No I don't think Obama wants US forces on the ground in Libya. I really do not.

I hope US pilots will overfly Libya and I hope they bomb the shit out of Gaddafi's "loyalist" mercenary forces, starting with Col. Moammer Muammer Muammar himself, or however the fuck he spells his name at the top of his cheques.

Yes, I believe that Gaddafi's consolidation of rule over western Libya and Benghazi will be, should it occur, marked by an extraordinary flow of blood, and would be followed up by many years of brutal repression, scarcely less violent. Genocide? It wouldn't fit the definition, but the bloodshed promises to be grand scale and unlikely to subside for a long time.

I believe the Western powers need this transition to be concluded as swiftly as possible for economic reasons, and I also believe that many people in govt. around the world are not willing to sit by and just watch Gaddafi retake power and fill the streets of Libya with the blood of his enemies, or suspected enemies. Economically speaking, in the short term, they might be better off just letting him retake Benghazi and put down the revolution. Considerations like that seem to have delayed the emergence of a pro-revolution response from, in particular, Great Britain (the civil govt/political subsidiary arm of British Petroleum). And the lateness of the response is the main source of worry for me. But they appear to have decided that Gaddafi's kind of stability in Libya will not be that stable for the long term. Not anymore. (If Col. Botox succeeded in putting down the revolution militarily would that be the end of it? Probably not. There would likely be an underground guerrilla/"terrorist" campaign following the defeat of the revolution, and that would likely target the oil facilities and BP assets, which equals unending oil mkt speculative orgy, which equals return to Great Depression II.) Therefore, they need him gone, and the ordeal gotten over with haste.

Although I have a lot of misgivings about this move, I hope that this decision to intervene will benefit the Libyan people, and will not prove to be as half-hearted as it was delayed. Until Obama shows some ulterior "oily" motivation through his actions, or indicates that he does intend to send ground forces in for occupation (which I really really can't believe he'd do) he gets a pass from me on this intervention. He went to the UN. The Arab League supports it. That has taken so much time that it may already be too late to help the Libyan revolution. Going to Congress? There's no time for that.