U.S. launches airstrikes on Libya

[Chet Lemon]

Sen. Roy Blunt (Mo.): “Whenever the President of the United States authorizes a military intervention, he must clearly define the goal and mission of our involvement to Congress, our men and women in uniform, and the American people. Unfortunately, President Obama has failed to meet this criteria, and the cost of our involvement in Libya remains unclear. . . . The president’s response to these upheavals has often been unsteady and uncertain. If the United States was going to act in Libya, the president should have acted weeks before he did, and done so using much clearer guiding principles and with a more clearly-defined strategy.”

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/2chamb...KSpqB_blog.html

[Jenksismyhero]

OBAMA: “For generations, the United States of America has played a unique role as an anchor of global security and as an advocate for human freedom. Mindful of the risks and costs of military action, we are naturally reluctant to use force to solve the world’s many challenges. But when our interests and values are at stake, we have a responsibility to act.” Edited March 29, 2011 by Jenksismybitch

[southsider2k5]

OBAMA: “For generations, the United States of America has played a unique role as an anchor of global security and as an advocate for human freedom. Mindful of the risks and costs of military action, we are naturally reluctant to use force to solve the world’s many challenges. But when our interests and values are at stake, we have a responsibility to act.”

 

George W Obama

[Balta1701]

Ok, I'm lost, what does any of that have to do with a bus crash in Englewood?

[Steve9347]

Ok, I'm lost, what does any of that have to do with a bus crash in Englewood?

I'm thinking two things... Jenks grabbed the wrong link and ss2k5 didn't read the story he was quoting with hilarity.

[Balta1701]

I'm thinking two things... Jenks grabbed the wrong link and ss2k5 didn't read the story he was quoting with hilarity.

I figured the first part, but I sorta expected that 2k5 would have a legit response.

 

Perhaps Obama's Libya actions caused the bus crash, but Bush could have prevented it.

[Jenksismyhero]

I figured the first part, but I sorta expected that 2k5 would have a legit response.

 

Perhaps Obama's Libya actions caused the bus crash, but Bush could have prevented it.

 

Lol. No, I meant for that link to be there. Goes back to my earlier argument that instead of spending 600 million and counting on this Libya situation, we may be better suited to spend that money back here at home, where, you know, people still get shot at by rogue gang members.

 

I think ssk5's comment might relate to this article, comparing Obama's speech with Bush's second inaugural address (the source of my quote).

[NorthSideSox72]

Lol. No, I meant for that link to be there. Goes back to my earlier argument that instead of spending 600 million and counting on this Libya situation, we may be better suited to spend that money back here at home, where, you know, people still get shot at by rogue gang members.

This argument I get. I can see a real strong case for not doing anything, and putting that money to use here instead.

 

Of course, I've suggested that the $1T over 10 years we have spent on Iraq could have gotten the US energy independent (and without all the death, destruction and hatred of a war), but I was scoffed at for that idea.

 

[Balta1701]

Oh, Joy.

Hillary Clinton has paved the way for the United States to arm the Libyan rebels by declaring that the recent UN security council resolution relaxed an arms embargo on the country.

 

As Libya's opposition leaders called for the international community to arm them, the secretary of state indicated that the US was considering whether to meet their demands when she talked of a "work in progress".

 

The US indicated on Monday night that it had not ruled out arming the rebels, though it was assumed this would take some time because of a UN arms embargo which applies to all sides in Libya.

 

But Clinton made clear that UN security council resolution 1973, which allowed military strikes against Muammar Gaddafi's regime, relaxed the embargo. Speaking after the conference on Libya in London, Clinton said: "It is our interpretation that [resolution] 1973 amended or overrode the absolute prohibition of arms to anyone in Libya so that there could be legitimate transfer of arms if a country were to choose to do that. We have not made that decision at this time."

[Balta1701]

WTF?

The new leader of Libya's opposition military spent the past two decades in suburban Virginia but felt compelled — even in his late-60s — to return to the battlefield in his homeland, according to people who know him.

 

Khalifa Hifter was once a top military officer for Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, but after a disastrous military adventure in Chad in the late 1980s, Hifter switched to the anti-Gadhafi opposition. In the early 1990s, he moved to suburban Virginia, where he established a life but maintained ties to anti-Gadhafi groups.

 

Late last week, Hifter was appointed to lead the rebel army, which has been in chaos for weeks. He is the third such leader in less than a month, and rebels interviewed in Libya openly voiced distrust for the most recent leader, Abdel Fatah Younes, who had been at Gadhafi's side until just a month ago.

....

 

Since coming to the United States in the early 1990s, Hifter lived in suburban Virginia outside Washington, D.C. Badr said he was unsure exactly what Hifter did to support himself, and that Hifter primarily focused on helping his large family.

The leader of the "rebel army" gets appointed to the job after the U.S. starts bombing, and conveniently had spent nearly 20 years living just outside of D.C. with no one knowing what job he had?

 

I'll tell you one thing. I'm sure he didn't get any U.S. military support or training. That'd be crazy talk.

 

Edit: Why do I feel like LF has something to do with this and that's why we haven't seen him much lately?

[StrangeSox]

ld is Hifter!

[Balta1701]

ld is Hifter!

After the first typo...I though you'd committed another Godwin's law violation.

[Soxbadger]

Conspiracy talk is always fun.

 

Im just not sure why the US would be training a guy form 1991-2010 for a revolution that we had no idea was going to take place.

 

Unless the US has access to a time machine, and we sent back an operative to tell the US in 1990 that we would need to train this man for the war that would happen in 2010.

 

Man that sounds like some sort of movie I saw one time.

 

(Edit)

 

The reason I post this is that the Finance Minister is also some one who moved from the US back to Libya after the revolution.

 

Just a possibility that people who Gaddafi didnt like moved to the US for safety.

 

http://www.mail.com/business/economy/29345...s-mistakes.html

 

Tarhouni, who received his doctorate in finance and economics from Michigan State University, left Libya first in 1973 and then three years later for good. He returned to the country only after the rebellion against Gadhafi started on Feb. 15.

Edited March 29, 2011 by Soxbadger

[kapkomet]

Let's be clear, this is about EU oil, not US oil. Just sayin'.

 

[Soxbadger]

That is definitely what some people think, I dont necessarily believe it follows good logic, but everyone is entitled to their opinion.

 

Many of the EU members were pretty friendly with Gaddafi (before the Revolution), had they sided with Gaddafi he likely would have made sure that they got all the oil they needed. Not sure why they would want to pick the unknown Libyan govt compared to Gaddafi. Generally its easier to deal with dictators because they care about money and power, and will make deals that make them rich at the expense of their people.

 

Dealing with an unknown Democracy wouldnt be my first choice to guarantee an oil supply, but I think because people used the oil argument in Iraq, others feel the need to use it in Libya.

 

Both in my opinion dont really make a lot of sense, but they are easy ideas to throw around and cant really be refuted (in both Iraq and Libya), because no matter what anyone says, you can always say "The real reason is oil" and no way to disprove it.

[StrangeSox]

Oh bulls***. No one is claiming it's Iraq 2. But continue to ignore the obvious similarities.

 

Please, explain. Anything you've tried so far has failed badly.

 

Also, I'm still waiting on your links to show that the US/Obama was leading the charge on this from day one.

What are you talking about?

[Jenksismyhero]

Please, explain. Anything you've tried so far has failed badly.

 

Well, if you can't grasp what i'm saying there's not much I can do. I've provided similarities, you're choosing to ignore them. For the 3rd time, no one is saying that this situation is EXACTLY like Iraq, but how are there not similarities when we have a President using about 5 different excuses to justify involvement, the exact scope of our involvement isn't clear, and we really have no way of knowing how long we'll be there. So, yeah, again, that's three similarities to the situation we're having in Iraq.

 

What are you talking about?

 

(Jenksismyb**** @ Mar 28, 2011 -> 09:58 AM)

Maybe "goal" wasn't the right word. Let's go with "purpose." The purpose was fighting terrorism and like you said, creating a stronghold in the region.

 

We have no such clearly defined purpose in Libya. We have a bunch of different bulls*** justifications. And that's BS that we garnered international support first. My perception is that other nations threw up a fit that no one was doing anything about MG and then we decided we'd act on behalf of the world (yet again).

 

And yeah, look at all that political capital we threw away. No one trusts us anymore! No one is ever going to ask for our help! Bulls***, bulls***, bulls***. Iraq didn't do anything to hurt us in terms of foreign policy. We might have pissed off some citizens of various countries, but in terms of our actual dealings with countries it didn't do anything. Do we view Russia much different because of their actions in Georgia? Do we view the French different because they didn't want to get involved in Iraq? Nope. It's business as usual and always has been.

 

(StrangeSox @ Mar 28, 2011 -> 11:32 AM)

 

Your perception is noticeably divorced from reality.

 

You told me before that the way I perceived this whole situation was wrong. I asked you to provide me with evidence that I was. You haven't yet. Probably because I'm right. The US was probably the 3rd country (behind France and Britain) to call out for some kind of action, and once we did, we took the lead and performed the vast majority of air strikes. So, again, how is that "noticeably divorced from reality?"

Edited March 30, 2011 by Jenksismybitch

[StrangeSox]

Because there was a UN resolution passed explicitly authorizing international action, which is a lot different from the unilateral action implied in your post.

 

As for your similarities to Iraq, again, the scale isn't nearly the same here. The justification for relatively limited military action has always been and is still humanitarian intervention to stop Gaddafi from brutal retaliation against the rebellion. That hasn't changed and isn't at all similar to the numerous weak/fabricated justifications for a full-scale invasion and occupation of Iraq.

 

Saying that our exact scope isn't clear is a meaningless comparison to Iraq because it applies to every single war ever fought by anyone.

 

Saying we really have no way of knowing how long we'll be there fails on the same front mentioned above as well as the fact that the scale and scope is nowhere near Iraq and we're not invading pretty much unilaterally to overthrow Gaddafi and occupying the country until a stable government appears.

 

I'm not ignoring the similarities that you've presented, I've pointed out why they're so flawed.

[NorthSideSox72]

Let's be clear, this is about EU oil, not US oil. Just sayin'.

You know as well as I do that it doesn't work that way.

 

There are a lot of people who feel we shouldn't have gotten involved in Libya, or Iraq or even Afghanistan for that matter. They feel that the US military should be for national defense only, or maybe something really gihugic like a World War, but that we could spend the billions or trillions of dollars from these wars on US domestic problems and be better off.

 

But what you just said illustrates exactly why we can't do that. People who feel this way - that we should not get involved - are working an a patently false assumption. That assumption is that the US is truly independent. It is not. We are highly dependent on other countries for our oil, for some of our food, for our own financial stability... the list goes on. We are so fully intertwined in the global economy that, if we simply elect to never get involved in this sort of thing, our own interests would be devastated.

 

People are upset that oil is a factor in Libya and Iraq? Not sure if you noticed, but we kinda need a lot of oil. And no, Kap, Libya's oil being suddenly shut down would not only effect the EU, because oil is priced globally. This would effect us just as much as it would any other oil importer.

 

Now, if you wanted to make the assumption of the isolationists correct, then you need to get us energy, food, financially and otherwise independent, or close to it. That means spending a T or 2 on energy over the next decade, paying off a good chuck of a $13T debt, fiscally supporting a bunch of unprofitable agriculture, and so on and so forth.

 

Unless you have a way to do all of that, then let's not pretend that being an island is realistic. Its no more realistic than saying we can go into every awful situation like this, because we can't do that either. We'd be fighting 20 wars at all times.

 

What does that leave? Reasonable choice. Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya are three very different wars in pretty much all the key ways. Then there are the wars we could fight but are not - Yemen, North Korea, any number of African nations that are in collapse, etc. You can't do all, and doing nothing for any of them would only cost us in the long run, so you choose the highest value targets, where chances of success are highest, political capital is used most efficiently, and where it helps our interests. Libya, particularly the way we are doing it, fits that bill, IMO. Afghanistan not as much, but that was a war you pretty much HAD to fight for non-financial reasons. Iraq was idiotic from day 1.

 

[Balta1701]

Let's be clear, this is about EU oil, not US oil. Just sayin'.

I'm not sure how anyone with a basic understanding of economics could write this without laughing.

[southsider2k5]

Lol. No, I meant for that link to be there. Goes back to my earlier argument that instead of spending 600 million and counting on this Libya situation, we may be better suited to spend that money back here at home, where, you know, people still get shot at by rogue gang members.

 

I think ssk5's comment might relate to this article, comparing Obama's speech with Bush's second inaugural address (the source of my quote).

Honestly I hadn't seen that story at all. When I heard the quotes from Obama, all I could think of was that this was a speech Bush would have given in 2001/2/3/4, which would have been derided by most of the MSM.

[StrangeSox]

The MSM was cheerleading the Iraq war through at least 2003.

[Balta1701]

Honestly I hadn't seen that story at all. When I heard the quotes from Obama, all I could think of was that this was a speech Bush would have given in 2001/2/3/4, which would have been derided by most of the MSM.

I don't think the media was deriding any speech by Bush about Iraq before the summer of 2003.

[Chet Lemon]

“I didn’t see victory defined,” House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said of Obama’s address. “A lot of us are left asking what the endgame is. A lot of us are asking questions about how long we’re going to be there.”

 

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration...bya-explanation

[Balta1701]

I hate having to agree with Eric Cantor.