What would happen if teabagger militia groups began violent attacks against the US?

[Hugabear]

Let's say that Obama gets re-elected in 2012, and extreme right-wing militia groups in various parts of the country decide to take matters into their own hands. Perhaps they're in states that have sympathetic governors. They begin launching attacks against US military bases and federal installations. The Obama administration responds with force, and as hostilities escalate, we end up bombing the militia strongholds. Think Waco times 100. The militia groups reach out to the international community. Russia and China demand that Obama cease military actions against the militia groups. Russia warns that if we continue killing the rebels, that they'll be forced to intervene on their behalf.

Question: Would the US be justified in using deadly military force to quell a violent uprising bent on overthrowing the government? Would foreign countries be within their rights to use military force to protect the militia groups?

[JanMichael]

1. Don't ask overly complicated questions. It confuses people. nt.

[patrick t. cakes]

2. yes nt

[Snotcicles]

72. Kind of makes you think about that Bolton UN thing. A few short years ago. nt

[patrick t. cakes]

81. tell me more. i missed it.

thanks in advance.

[Snotcicles]

86. Bolton wanted to de-claw the UN he said something like, you could lop off the top

half of the UN building and it wouldn't make any difference. I always wondered why they wanted the UN impotent. Could it be the UN was the only way to rein in an internal coup. That was back when there was all that martial law talk going around. I really don't know if there was any merit to it though.

[shraby]

3. If I recall, the Libyan protestors started out with a peaceful

movement. It was Kadafy who started the violence and made the protest a whole new ballgame. That's what dictators do..then they say "we had to stop the violence". Mubarak tried that and it didn't work.

[joshcryer]

11. Yes, they fired on peaceful protesters, not just in Benghazi but in every city.

[Turborama]

17. Best answer in this thread

As someone below said, analogy fail.

This is what happens when people who haven't been paying attention until the news tells them to get involved.

[joshcryer]

26. 80% of these people have NOT been following it.

It's impossible for me to believe that informed people would have the position people are taking!

[northernlights]

54. unlike those violent protesters at Kent State

think it can't happen here?

[louslobbs]

84. Exactly, the op does not apply in this current situation. Now, if all of the angry, right wing

militias, white power groups, neo Nazis, kkk and other fanatical terrorist groups in this country were simply gathering and expressing their upset with the government, without violence, and our government started to fire on them and began killing protesters,who are simply laying in a public square sleeping at night waiting for the morning to come to continue their peaceful protests, would be barbaric. I think that firing on peaceful protesters, marching with signs, or sleeping in the town square, deserves monitoring by the police to control crowds and prevent violence, but violence, threats of violence and gunfire by a government, to silence peaceful protesters should never, ever, happen anywhere. Especially here.
Lou

[FarPoint]

4. I believe this would be call treason.

Just a thought.

[alphafemale]

16. It's called treason there too

Difference that Obama is elected and not a dictator.

[malaise]

21. True but Gaddafi is the legitimate leader of the country

The Western governments ensured that - they loved him.

[B Calm]

32. According to the Supreme Court, so was Chuckle-nuts Bush.

[alphafemale]

35. And the armed insurrection happened against him happened...when?

I'd have been against that too, by the way.

[B Calm]

67. It's damn SHAME we didn't.

[ButterflyBlood]

88. A military coup is a legitimate way to take power?

n/t

[mmonk]

5. It would have to go through the UN Security Council.

We have multinational interests here.;-)

[randr]

6. An incident would cause a huge traffic jam

and implode on itself.

[alphafemale]

7. Obama isn't a dictator.

Analogy FAIL!

[seabeyond]

13. i appreciate the serious answers. there is that. we have opportunity to vote ours out. they start

started out peaceful demonstrations. i appreciate people that gave reasoned answers. thanks

[OwnedByFerrets]

23. Why is it a fail? He never said he was. The question remains.

You did NOTHING to answer it.

[alphafemale]

31. You think an uprising against an dictator...

as opposed to some racists revolting against an elected president simply because he's a n----r would the same thing....really?

Really?

[ButterflyBlood]

90. The analogy also fails as the rebels aren't in the scenario...

aren't those who split from the military over refusing to follow orders to slaughter unarmed protesters. Nor are they fighting imported mercenaries from foreign countries that would also be massacring civilians.

[Hugabear]

36. Isnt that term relative?

To hear the teabaggers, they think he is.

[alphafemale]

41. And to hear some of the most hysterical on our side so was bush.

We have only a vague concept of what actually living under a dictator would be like.

[CommonSensePLZ]

71. He's the black, Muslim Hitler who's gonna kill grandma, redistribute wealth!....

And take a dump on the constitution!

...According to Teabags and FoxNews. *rollseyes* Did you forget perhaps all the armed rallies they had (funny, I couldn't even bring a wooden stick to an antiwar rally!) and the huge boosted sale of guns immediately after Obama was elected?

This is why we can't have nice things.

[proud2BlibKansan]

8. I was wondering about this myself

What if some foreign super power decided to intervene in Wisconsin?

[Codeine]

9. If Obama was an autocratic dictator in power for decades

then your comparison might make a lick of sense.

[OwnedByFerrets]

24. His question makes a TON of sense. Answer the question

instead of dismissing it because you dont like where the question takes you.

[Codeine]

25. His question made ZERO sense.

It is replete with false assumptions and flawed analogies. Khadafy is not Obama. The rebels are not teabaggers. Libya is not a representative democracy with regular free elections.

It's complete and total bullshit.

[GKirk]

10. Sounds like a movie plot...

...something like Red Dawn. And about as likely. But anywho, attacks on a U.S. military installation would be defended against. And they would be over before any country could offer help.

[seabeyond]

12. this is the question i posed to the sn discussing the issue. talk about reasons to have intervention

but would conclude with this.

[Countdown_3_2_1]

53. There is NO reason for a foreign govt to intervene. nt

[seabeyond]

58. in your opinion. nt

[Countdown_3_2_1]

62. Name one. or a few. any at all.

Why would any govt go to the expense of invasion and war to help one side or the other?
Especially when one of the fighting US factions will have NUKES.
Tell me.

[seabeyond]

68. there are pretty obvious answers. i am sure you have heard them, which

leads me to believe, it doesnt matter to you. so

a waste of time.

[Countdown_3_2_1]

69. No, I really haven't heard a single reason for foreign military intervention.

You don't have to convince me. just enlighten me.

it takes two seconds to type out a reason. I would ask for another two seconds to reveal what country would be willing to go to the expense and sacrifice to invade.

[Countdown_3_2_1]

70. Can anyone give me a good reason? I promise I won't force you to debate.

If you want to drop it after saying your piece, fine. I'll respect that.

[Countdown_3_2_1]

80. Foreign Intervention: Can someone name a single reason for another country to invade?

just one reason.
I won't be mean, or combative.

and what govt is likely to invade in such a scenario?

[cali]

14. What if the government started firing at peaceful tea party marchers?

see how that works?

[GKirk]

27. That's insane.

Crazy people are allowed to peacefully demonstrate.

[joshcryer]

15. What would happen if the National Guard fired upon protesters and the army decided...

...that the National Guard was wrong in shooting on those protesters, and the President came in defense of the National Guard and called the peace loving protesters terrorists and demanded that the army who sided with the protesters shoot the protesters who were now carrying guns in self defense after having killed the National Guardsmen who killed the protesters?

In the United States this scenario is fucking impossible. IMPOSSIBLE.

But that's exactly what happened in Libya.

[Turborama]

18. Actually, it would have to be imported mercenaries from South America firing on the protesters...

...for this epic failure of an analogy to get anywhere close to what has been going on in Libya, wouldn't it?

[joshcryer]

20. True, that'd be the national guard. But that's a shitty ass insult to the Nat. Guard!

[DefenseLawyer]

28. Impossible for the National Guard to fire on protestors in the United States?

Really?

[joshcryer]

29. Impossible for the army to side with the protesters while the President praised the Guard...

...and demanded that the army fire upon the protesters.

I did purposefully use the National Guard here, btw (Kent State). I thought it was the closest analog to the Libyan mercenaries.

If Kent State escalated and the President ordered the National Guard to fire on the other protesters around the country over the killings, I assure you such a process is utterly impossible.

[DefenseLawyer]

33. How is anything "impossible"?

Simply because "this is America and we're better than that"? I think the scenario described makes an excellent hypothetical for fleshing out our thinking on intervention. Just dismissing it by saying "we don't ever have to worry about it because it's impossible that that would ever happen here" doesn't address the question at all.

[joshcryer]

47. I say that to point out how ludicrious it is for people to defend Gaddafi.

He's not fighting a "rebellion." He's effectively using his "National Guard" to kill protesters and the military that denounced him when he defended the National Guard and ordered the military to kill the protesters.

The situation is hilarious, there's no comparison, it cannot apply to the United States, and even in any scenario where it magically did you would denounce the President.

[DefenseLawyer]

57. First of all I haven't denounced anyone

Second of all, this was simply a hypothetical put forth by the OP as an intellectual exercise, allowing those who chose to ponder it, a chance to flesh out their attitudes about foreign intervention in the United States and to then, perhaps, compare that to their support for our intervention in Libya. Rather than take part in the exercise and stake out a position and defend it, it seems to me you were either unable to reconcile the positions or simply didn't like the conclusions you came to so you just dismissed the entire question as "ridiculous" and then for some reason accused me (And I didn't even pose the question) of being an opponent of the President and a defender of Gaddafi. I'm afraid simply calling the question "hilarious" isn't very persuasive. Try again.

[joshcryer]

59. So if the President did side with murderers you'd not denounce them?

Yes, that most fucking certainly is ridiculous beyond measure.

[DefenseLawyer]

61. Whether one is a murderer or a freedom fighter or a defender of the faith

is a matter of perspective, isn't it. I'm pretty sure that was part of the original point. When you feel like discussing the issue rather than just taking the rather odd position that a hypothetical can be "impossible" I encourage you to take the plunge.

[joshcryer]

64. So you wouldn't denounce a President singing praise for a force murdering unarmed civilians.

Good job.

[DefenseLawyer]

75. I'm not sure what your "gotcha" question has to do with the original premise

The original premise was one in which a foreign power might justify intervening in our affairs militarily. You went off on your own about who I would or would not "denounce" after dismissing the premise as "impossible" You are free ask your quesion, but if you think that it somehow makes a point about the OP, I'm sorry to say it's lost on me.

[TorchTheWitch]

76. NO ONE here is defending Gaddafi!

I'm so sick of this bullshit claim and the utter insult it is. NO ONE on this board defends what Gaddafi is doing. PERIOD. Those of us who don't believe military intervention is appropriate in Libya are NOT defending Gaddafi no matter how hard you and others here are trying to make it so.

[Morning Dew]

19. What are the chances that the teabaggers would ask the UN for help?

Or the international community?

To them, anyone who isn't a "US American" is a commie wimp who hates America.

Hell, they think half of America hates America.

[Countdown_3_2_1]

51. Teabaggers hate the UN.

I'm related to one. They want the US out of the UN.
No, they would not call for foreign help.

[OwnedByFerrets]

22. I've been wanting to ask this very question for awhile now. Thanks

for posting it for me.

[Initech]

60. Same here. Glenn Beck has unleashed a new type of crazy, and it's gonna get dangerous.

[MindPilot]

30. After a fierce initial assault of misspelled signs,

there will be a break in the fighting to resupply Depends and charge the scooter batteries. Then it will be time for the Early Bird Special at Denny's.

[Codeine]

40. Mercenary PortaPottie suppliers will step in to aid the rebellion.

Hostilities resume after a quick smoke break, but anti-government momentum wanes when rebel forces realize they all have appointments with their Medicare doctors. Fighting flares up again when funding arrives for the rebels in the form of Social Security payments.

[bluestate10]

34. What you described is not a peaceful push for change.

Given your description, President Obama should fight them with every weapon in the US arsenal short of nukes.

[joshcryer]

48. What he described is not the situation in Libya.

If you believe it is you are misled.

[EstimatedProphet]

37. I'd really love to see this start

What would happen is I would get some popcorn and nachos, and watch the entertainment.

Do you really think that a bunch of inbred hillbillies with shotguns and moonshine grenades are going to have a serious impact on a MILITARY BASE? That might last all of 5 seconds. They don't have gunships or tanks, but the military has a bunch of them.

Now, frankly, the thing that I think is much more likely and therefore scarier is that the militias decide that their real enemy is them goldurn lieburuls, and start moving into the suburbs to shoot people. Kind of like what happened in the Knoxville UU church, on a much larger scale. I think that's very likely. As far as them attacking military bases, i hope they're so stupid as to do that before they decide to come after unarmed citizens en masse.

[Ikonoklast]

38. No foreign government would intervene.

They would reap any benefit from this country self-destructing, just as they are benefiting economically as the Republicans have already declared war against the working class.


Also, if foreign trops ever intervened in a domestic situation in this country, both sides would stop fighting each other and turn on the invaders with a vengence.

After we were done killing any foregner on our soil, we would then go back to killing each other.


We might not eaxactly love one another, but one thing we can agree on is that it would be OUR fight, and God help the dumbass that sticks his nose into it.

[Countdown_3_2_1]

52. Bingo. There would be no overiding interest to invade for one side or the other

neither allies or enemies will interfere.

[Jamastiene]

39. Imagine what the US would be like today had several countries

teamed up together to help the "rebels" here during America's (1st, we are probably on our way to a second one now) Civil War.

That is food for thought. We wouldn't like that America too much and we sure as hell would not like some other country teaming up with teabaggers to overthrow our government then installing a dictator to run America with an iron fist, which is what is going to happen in Libya. You can mark my words on that. America will help overthrow Gadaffi then turn right around and install a new dictator. It's a pattern. We've been doing it for years now.

Why do you think that within the same year, America was sending millions of dollars to the Taliban to help "fight" the drug farms, and allow access to build that oil pipeline, then the next minute, the Taliban was all of a sudden enemy #2 (after bin Laden)? They quit cooperating with what the US wanted. The US was fine as long as they were letting us build the oil pipeline. The minute they quit cooperating, all of a sudden those atrocities the Taliban was doing came out and all of a sudden it became oh soooo important to fight them.

The same thing happened with Saddam Hussein. There is a video of Rumsfeld saying how much he liked Saddam Hussein. Reagan said he liked Hussein too. He invited Hussein to the White House. America's government knew Saddam gassed his own people and had WMDs at one point, because we kept the damn receipts where we sold the weapons and gas to him to do just that. He stopped cooperating with us and boom, it all of a sudden mattered that he gassed his own people. Before that, as long as he was doing what we wanted him to do, we looked the other way.

Those of us wise enough to see this pattern know that the oh so precious "Northern Alliance" and other rebel groups that were known as some of the worst human rights violators that we became friends with to fight in Iraq will be our "bin Ladens" of the future. It never fails. We trained bin Laden in the first place. He turned out to be our enemy when we dropped his ass like a hot potato after we were through using him to fight the Soviets during the Cold War.


Three things stand out in my mind right now.
1. What do the other countries who are having uprisings right now have that we really really want? Answer that and you'll know the answer why Libyan rebels matter so much more to us (all of a sudden) than those others who are overthrowing their government right now. The leaders of the countries with uprisings that we are NOT bombing right now have dictators that are cooperating with the US in some way. Whatever resource they have and whatever complicity those dictators have with us is keeping those dictators safe from our bombs.

2. Who will be Libya's next dictator? You know. The one that we will inevitably install as per our pattern. Who has our government found to replace him? It must be someone awfully pliable. Of course, whoever the next dictator will be, we'll let them do whatever the fuck they want to the citizens of Libya until they say no to us. It always works that way.

3. How long before things go "wrong" with these air strikes in Libya and we need soldiers "on the ground?" How long after that before "insurgents" start making it so was just absolutely have to stay there 10 or more freaking years? You know. To "keep the peace" (translated: further our own business interests, i.e. let the corporations set up shop and pillage and plunder the place).

Instead of seeing some rosy colored fairy tale where America is the hero protecting the only country in the world with oppressed people (yeah, right), I see the truth. There are tons of countries in this world who have oppressed people suffering human rights violations.

Why this one?
What have they got that our corporations want to pillage? And who will be the next dictator we install once we get rid of the current dictator who isn't doing what we want him to do.

I'm not so young and naive any more to believe that America is selfless in any military action we take. We haven't been heroes in a long long time. We were reluctant "heroes" in World War 2, at best. Look how long that shit went on before our corporations stopped supporting the Nazis and we finally had to bother to go fight them.

There is nothing selfless and heroic about this. I know enough to know we are being lied to once again and that the truth will reveal itself in time. That bullshit lie that America is some sort of hero country liberating people and spreading freedom in the world lost its "Wizard of Oz" curtain years ago. I fully see the man behind the curtain. I just wonder what the fuck he is up to. I'm smart enough to know bullshit when I'm being fed it...for the zillionth time.

My question isn't why or why not we are lobbing missiles in Libya. My question is who has America picked out to be their next dictator later down the road (after a protracted occupation) and what do they have that we want to plunder in the meantime before we install their next dictator.

All this selfless hero shit some seem to believe is really separating the naive from the ones who have been actually paying attention in American MIC 101. They have some serious studying to do.

[TorchTheWitch]

79. [phone]

[dkofos]

42. Faux and CNN (faux lite) would be there calling them freedom fighters.

[Arkana]

43. Seeing as how Libya started peacefully and would still be that way

if Moammar hadn't told the army to start killing them, your equivalency is invalid.

And no uprising by teabaggers would be peaceful.

[joshcryer]

49. It's just more slander against the revolutionaries who begged for help.

[Arkana]

78. Why is no one acknowledging that THEY ASKED FOR HELP?

They said, and I quote: "Why won't the world help us?"

[cliffordu]

44. WOLVERINES11111!!!1111!!!!!

[jacquelope]

77. Hey aren't they remaking that movie? :D n/t

.

[HEyHEY]

45. So, as far as you're concerned Gaddafi is the victim

Must be nice to live in a fantasy

[joshcryer]

50. They played that meme all night, like a skipping record.

Gaddafi is fighting a rebellion and he has ever right to kill his own people.

[deaniac21]

46. Most of them are so old that it wouldn't be much of a problem.

[piedmont]

55. Answers: 1) YES 2) NO, under the circumstances outlined.

You wrote: "Question: Would the US be justified in using deadly military force to quell a violent uprising bent on overthrowing the government? Would foreign countries be within their rights to use military force to protect the militia groups?"


Are there legitimate, nonviolent avenues for regime change backed by the people and have they been attempted?
Did the government escalate the violence, or did the protesters/rebels?

The answers to these questions are the reasons I would respond "yes, no" to the questions asked for your scenario and completely the opposite for the Libyan situation.

[Kermitt Gribble]

56. Yes

the US would be justified in using deadly military force to quell a violent uprising bent on overthrowing the government.

I find this part humorous:

"They begin launching attacks against US military bases and federal installations."

A bunch of pissed off, dim-witted teabaggers with hunting rifles against a US military base armed with combat-trained troops and state-of-the-art weaponry.

I doubt they would attack a base. More likely, they would hit offices of Democratic congresspeople , and then cry like babies when our military steps in.

[tabasco]

63. Poor Muammar!!

Your post is stupid. v

[GSLevel9]

65. RIDICULOUS premise. nt

[jacquelope]

66. I know one thing for sure - keep foreign countries OUT OF OUR BUSINESS!!!

We the people will settle the question of whether the Government has a right to put down those militias.

But by God I'll take up arms personally against any U.N. interference. By God. This would be our mess, and it would be up to us to handle it.

Oh and... America OUT of Libya. OUT of Afghanistan. OUT of Iraq. Kill Osama Bin Ladin for killing our people, and then GTFO!!!

[TorchTheWitch]

73. we've been through this before in our history

The Civil War. An internal conflict the government had the right and responsibility to put down with violent means. And because it was an internal conflict even though hundreds of thousands were dying and the southern states were virtually decimated foreign countries did the right thing and kept out of it.

Internal conflicts such as revolutions and civil wars are not the business of foreign countries, and the only reason they may involve themselves is for their OWN interests and always to the detriment of the country having the internal conflict.

[A wise Man]

74. Thats what they won't....

a new type of CIVIL WAR..TOTALY BUILT ON THEOR IGNORANCE.

[Distant Observer]

82. AMAZING!!! It's so funny that "progressives" don't see that "Rebels" in Libya are ideological twins

The Rebel faction really represents something of a Libyan reactionary faction that opposes
Gaddafi's pan-Africanism, his socialistic policies. It has "tribal" or "racist" overtones in their
disdain for "darker" Libyan and Gaddafi's "open-boders" immigration policy. Like the wingnut Teabagger movement, they are regionally concentrated -- mainly in the Eastern province (Cyrenaica, from which the deposed King Idris came).

Unfortunately for Gaddafi, the Libyan rebels are much more educated than their US counterparts,
having benefited from the free education, through University, to which all Libyan are entitled under the "ruthless dictator" Colonel Gaddafi.

[BobbyBoring]

83. WOW!

JUST WOW!

[Turborama]

87. We had one of those when Iran's Green uprising was happening in 2009, too

It's amazing to think they regard DU as so important and how much effort they put into getting the 'message' out.

[Spider Jerusalem]

85. Let's say that there were peaceful demonstrations against an illegitimate and dictatorial government

Which were met with brutal force that escalated in a spiral of violence. And included use of military aircraft and heavy weapons against civilians, along with the use of foreign mercenary death squads. Would the UN be justified in using military force against this government, or not?

Because make no mistake, that is what we are talking about here, not your hypothetical which bears no resemblance whatever to the actual situation in Libya. And the action being undertaken is by UN member states acting pursuant to a UN Security Council resolution under Chapter VII of the UN charter, NOT unilaterally by the US.

[ButterflyBlood]

89. This might be the single worst analogy I've ever read on DU

and I'm not being hyperbolic in that.