I wanted no part of Libya’s civil war, as I made as clear as possible for weeks prior to our commitment to that clusterfuck. And now pretty much everything I feared has come to pass, with an added bonus of the administration thumbing its nose at the War Powers Resolution. That’s a nice little cherry on top.
What did I say? I said the opposition was too disorganized and weak to topple Gaddafi and that we would have to get deeply involved in training and arming them. I said that it wasn’t in our national interests to be involved in Libya and that it wouldn’t have any support from the public. I said that we didn’t know who we were dealing with or even who we’d like to see in a future government in Libya. And every single piece of that is detailed in the linked McClatchy article.
No one wants to see a bunch of innocent people get gunned down by a lunatic. But sometimes you are just not in a position to help. Another thing I said was that once we committed, we ought to go take him out of Tripoli, dead or alive, and get the thing over with. Because it isn’t humanitarian to arm a country up for a prolonged civil war that kills many more people and leaves more destruction than anything that you prevented in the first place.
What’s become an open-ended conflict, military officers and experts say, illustrates ill-defined U.S. objectives, the limits of relying solely on air power and the lack of diplomatic tools to broker an end to Col. Moammar Gadhafi’s regime. Thousands of anti-Gadhafi rebels have been killed, and some at the Pentagon worry that the mounting deaths and reduced U.S. involvement have jeopardized what President Barack Obama called a campaign to protect Libyan civilians.
“We are losing the goodwill this was supposed to create,” said one senior military officer who wasn’t authorized to be quoted by name.
Meanwhile, no one appears to give a damn about the Syrians, which at least means that we’re not bogged down in that country, too, bleeding more money and good will. Every bad thing that is happening in the world is not our responsibility. We can’t fix everything. We need to learn that.
Dumb. Read Juan Cole.
And lols @ Kucinich for going to Syria and joining with teabaggers and being a front-man for their dictator.
It appears that the Syrian state media “mistranslated” Kucinich’s words. Shocking, I know.
Hopefully, Dennis K. is working to establish himself as good cop/interlocutor with Assad – the role Jesse Jackson used to play so effectively. Remember that awesome shot of him holding hands and praying with a visibly uncomfortable Slobodan Milosevic?
Um, this is the article you’re relying on? Because that’s plainly false. Unless “rebels” somehow doesn’t count Misratans or western mountain berbers…
I think you’re guilty of a little confirmation bias here.
I don’t understand your comment. The paragraph you cite acknowledges tenuous gains in the western mountains. And Misrati is a city under siege, not much in territory. The reporting is accurate.
And I don’t understand your post.
Does the part of the country west of Brega not count? In what possible universe can you claim that Qaddafi hasn’t seen substantial attrition of control in the west?
There is no stalemate.
if you say so.
Repeating an inaccurate report doesn’t make it true. The rebels in the west have pushed to within 50 miles of Tripoli. They have cut off Khadaffy’s supply route from Algeria. His military capacity has been eroded by about 3/4. His regime is steadily growing weaker, and an uprising is being organized in the capital.
Severe confirmation bias on your part, Booman.
Seriously, read Juan Cole’s blog.
First, let me say that I agree we should not be fucking around in other countries unless we really have US interests. Problem is NATO wanted in because they saw intervention as moral and just. Perhaps they were wrong, but once involvement commenced, that alternate history is unknowable. Of course we can all imagine a happier version of reality where we did not intervene, only a few rebel leaders are killed by the Colonel and all is well. Problem is, that scenario only imaginary and rather ignorant of facts on the ground (in the denial sense). If things can go wrong via intervention, they certainly can go wrong without it (Uganda anyone?). But this conversation is Monday-morning quarterbacking. Now there is War.
The strategy, while ultimately about gaining ground is actually about controlling energy infrastructure and maintaining ‘siege’. While the ground-game will ebb and flow, there is the basic fact that the Colonel has only so much supply to maintain his effort and is distracted from taking out his domestic enemies and their people. At least now he is in combat with a volunteer force instead of the general population, although his mortars don’t know the difference. Ultimately, you win wars by breaking the will to fight, not by taking land (see Iraq, where land was never the issue).
Again, given the siege strategy, it really is a matter of luring him out of the cities and trying to get him to use a lot of gas driving back and forth. As long as he is not taking retribution against his own citizens unchecked (remember this guy’s actual history), the clearly defined goal of the no-fly zone is satisfied.
I’m sorry the set of goals is so simple, but that is what it has always been. The Colonel knows this and has been reporting NATO-killed civilians with every bombing, a strategy that is working on the Italians (they have asked for an end to hostilities once or twice after such reports). “Losing” this conflict from the NATO POV means the state’s security forces start killing innocents en masse.
Why do we want more goals than the basic protection of the citizenry? Don’t conflate the military success of the rebels’ ground game with the NATO goal: save human life. I really don’t think NATO cares if there is ANY sort of military triumph as long as the Colonel goes (removing the threat of collective punishment of citizens) and the state’s security apparatus stands down.
I wouldn’t dump on the next regime until it exists, although our Murphy’s Law foreign policy experience recently SHOULD make us all a bit more trigger-shy than we are.
Again, we in there. Deal with it. Undermining your President’s foreign policy isn’t going to do much to get him re-elected or to fix it. Especially since the Colonel will most likely be done-in by his own people if he doesn’t step aside.
“While the ground-game will ebb and flow….”
Nobody could have predicted that a war in Libya wouldn’t be decided by short-term changes in territorial control, but by one side steadily increasing its material strength while the other side was steadily eroded and unable to replenish its strength!
Well, nobody who treats military matters as a litmus test of one’s commitment to anti-war, so-called-anti-imperialist ideology, which doesn’t need to be informed by specific knowledge about the operation or about the area’s history.
joe-
If you’ve the time, please rewrite the second sentence and (especially) the third sentences of your comment? I got lost in the grammar and I’d really like to understand you better.
🙂
seized a significant weapons depot near the town of Zintan.
http://english.aljazeera.net/video/africa/2011/06/201162818013525743.html
If you thought this was going to be over in a matter of 3 months then that was just unrealistic expectations on your part. It won’t take years to ouster Gaddafi but it also was never going to be a short operation.
I also think trying to put a one size fits all on where we use our military as short-sighted. Ideally we would act in Syria as well but the conditions aren’t there to do so. Those conditions being NATO allies leading the charge because of fear of a refugee crisis, Syria’s neighbors asking for intervention, and most importantly the people themselves asking for intervention.
I find the argument that we should do nothing because we can’t do everything short-sighted to say the least
I don’t think I am putting anything is a one-size-fits-all category.
The reasons for us to stay of Libya are many, but the number one reason was the risk/reward ratio.
The risk/reward ratio in Syria is substantially worse. Enough worse that we’re not tempted to be humanitarian about that mess.
For me, neither case rises to a level where our interests in serving humanity outweigh the risks we take on by doing so.
If some see Syria and Libya in different categories, that’s fine. But my analysis is consistent. We should intervene when our interests are directly threatened and where intervention will protect us rather than expose us to even greater peril. For me, Libya simply did not pass that test.
Just exactly what risks do you think we’re taking on in Libya? What is the greater peril that Libya exposes us to? Especially as the US is minimally involved.
And Kerry and Lugar just rescued Obama from not having Congressional authorization; the Senate Foreign Relations Committee just authorized the Libya mission for up to a year.
On Libya, the benefit depends on whether you think our interests are threatened by the collapse of the EU because national front parties tear it apart over the immigration and refugee (i.e. muslims) issue, using the economic crisis as a wedge issue. The UK and France (especially France) are driving this the intervention in Libya because they (especially Sarkozy) don’t want to see victories by Le Pen and Wilders and other throwbacks to the 1930s. Which is why France took the step of parachuting small-arms weapons into the western mountains, which no doubt did not hurt in the rebels’ taking of the major ammunition storage facility. That puts the firepower in the hands of the rebels in the west. No we will see whether they will protect civilians.
Misrata is under a weird type of siege now. Life is moving toward normal slowly (people are not hunkered down in their apartments waiting for the next barrage). People are leaving Tripoli if they can and going to Misrata. Tripoli is under a state of siege by Gaddafi security forces. No males 18-40 are permitted to leave the city. And before each air strike, NATO drops leaflets announcing oncoming air strikes to civilians in nearby neighborhoods. To permit them to move to safer locations.
Syria is a very difficult case to figure out how to proceed. Turkey, probably the most astute diplomatic corps in the area, hasn’t figured out what to do other than try to contain the chaos by providing refugee camps.
There is a major difference between Libya and Syria diplomatically. In the case of Libya, there was a definite set of evidence that was available that went above and beyond the usual authoritarian repression in its scope and brutality. There was a clear request for international intervention from people in the country and in the region. And Gaddafi lacked diplomatic allies, having only Hugo Chavez come to his rhetorical defense.
In Syria, there has been no unified movement yet. First, it is too dispersed and sporadic with little unity as yet; there is no recognizable organized body capable of making the request. Assad still retains a scrap of legitimacy within the country, whether we like it or not. Assad most definitely has allies in Iran and in Lebanon, who are willing to provide advice and assets. There are persistent reports about Iranian advisers to the Syrian security forces, sharing strategy and tactics grown out of Iran’s suppression of the Green Revolution in 2009. And what exactly does “intervene” mean in the case of Syria. We and the EU have frozen the the assets of the key players in the regime—well, as many of the assets as we had control over. Beyond that and a certain amount of diplomatic isolation and shunning, what would the US (or any other intervenors) do?
The risk/reward ratio in Syria is worse for every nation that has thought of engaging this issue. It likely will be worse that Iran imagined for itself.
Syria, like Yemen is a situation that must unwind. A rapid collapse of legitimacy and general uprising like that in Libya could destabilize Lebanon, create problems in Turkey and Iraq, and be seen by Israel as a threat that required action.
The difference between the Syria and Yemen, btw, is likely the power of US military aid and its possible withdrawal. The US does not have to embarrass Saleh and the Khalifas by pressuring them in public. The US does has to be aware of Saudi interests in both of these countries. Saudi interests are much like US interests with regard to Mexico, stability on the border. US interests in Syria have to take into account the interests of allies like Turkey and Israel and the imperative to be able to withdraw from Iraq by the end of the year. That changes the picture from just considering Syria in isolation.
Not all US actions with regard to any of these crises are public. I suspect some long hours and hard work in consulting with other countries as to how best to keep these situations from sparking a general regional crisis. Especially one that would spur Israel to action. And require a decision of whether to honor requests by a long-term ally.
Your process of analysis is consistent. It’s your assignment of risks and rewards (or risks and greater risks) that are point of disagreement. And being seen as (1) being consistent to “American principles” and (2) being seen as engaging in a humanitarian effort in support of strengthening international organizations and peace are both rewards. It is the American people and public opinion that are generous when they are generous, not the diplomatic calculation.
When you say “risks we are taking in doing so,” are you referring to the zero casualties we have suffered?
I gotta agree with some of the other commentators. I was against u.s. involvement in Libya too, but it’s really not looking like a stalemate anymore. the rebels have consolidated their gains in the east, the seige of misratah was lifted last month when rebels broke through the qadhafi forces surrounding the town. they seized a border crossing in the western mountains to open a new western supply line, the rebels have effectively taken control of the mountainous region in the eastern-central region of the country, and at let two neighborhoods in tripoli are in a low grade rebellion, pinning down qadhafi’s elite units that would otherwise be used in other parts pf the country.
for a while there was a lot of back and forth that didn’t seem to add up to anything more than a stalemate, but for the past few weeks things have been slowly and steadily going downhill for qadhafi’s government. that doesn’t mean it will end soon. it could drag on for a long time still. but it really does look like the writing is on the wall and qadhafi’s best case scenario at this point is a slow decline in control over a shrinking portion of the country.
I have little doubt that eventually Gaddafi will be killed or forced from power. However, every aspect of my concern is going to fruition, and a few others I didn’t even know to worry about (like NATO running out of weapons and Obama’s crapping on the WPR).
I won’t argue that some progress has been made in acquiring some territory, although I don’t see it is particularly impressive.
But, the Arab League leader and Italy are already prepared to quit. People are pissed that we’re not doing more, rather than grateful that we’re doing anything at all. We still don’t know who we trust and want to see in charge. Casualties are piling up. We had to dip into the Strategic Reserve. It’s costing us a lot of money. We’re basically arming up the country for a civil war in the name of humanitarianism, when we could solve the immediate problem in a half-hour if we had any balls.
The whole thing is a disaster.
just to be clear, i also think getting involved in libya militarily was a mistake (i would not have minded if we “got involved” in other ways like recognizing the provisional government, or sending humanitarian supplies), i think it’s terrible that the obama administration has violated the war powers act, and i think even after we have gotten involved we should quit right now.
my only point is the civil war isn’t really a stalemate anymore. it was for a while, but things seem to have turned in the rebel’s favor.
why should we quit right now?
If you’re right that the tide has turned, it seems an inopportune time to quit.
because it violates u.s. law to continue without congressional authorization, and because even with the tide turned that doesn’t mean it will necessarily end soon with or without u.s. help.
well, the Senate Foreign Relations committee approved the mission yesterday and the whole Senate will probably follow that up soon, especially since the recess has been cancelled. I expect the House will grumpily follow suit. So, the WPR debate shouldn’t lead us to quit, even if it should be resolved in a way that reiterates Congress’s authority.
If we should quit, it must be for different reasons.
The WPR debate was bogus to begin with. If it were real, the Congress would cut off funds. There are few American lives at risk should they do that.
The WPR debate was anti-Obama not anti-Libyan-war. Except for Kucinich, who was being Kucinich–tilting at windmills.
It’s not a bogus debate. At all.
The GOP is being hypocritical, but other critics are not.
It was never a stalemate; it was only a misunderstanding of the nature of the fight that made it appear so to some.
Look at World War Two: wars in Libya aren’t won by seizing territory, but by one side having its capability eroded until it collapses.
People looking at where the Benghazi/Abjdabya/Brega front was were missing the point.
Libya is going to be liberated when an uprising in Tripoli ousts the regime, not by a rebel army marching from east to west and overrunning the capital. NATO and the rebels have been steadily bringing that day closer day by day by eroding Khadaffy’s military forces, and by opening new front after new front, thus forcing the dispersal of loyalist forces to more and more parts of the country (and away from the capital).
Yeah, so awesome. Meanwhile, I got this email today:
No idea what I’m going to do now, especially because I have $50,000 in debt. And they want me to shoulder more of the costs for college? Lol…what a fucking joke.
So much for doubling the number of volunteers. I’m sure we can decrease the amount even more and fund a war in the Middle East somewhere rather than sending in an educator.
How awful. Perhaps you should continue to bitch about Obama constantly and let the Republican appropriators who slash funding to programs like the Peace Corps at every turn get a pass? The White House should have tried harder! That’s the problem! Clearly!
…Hmm.
Actually, more money was appropriated than Obama asked for last year.
Hey dumbass. Here’s how much they hate us.
http://www.petercliffordonline.com/libya/
It’s cool if you’re against the intervention. It’s not cool to just make shit up to justify that view.
“Because it isn’t humanitarian to arm a country up for a prolonged civil war that kills many more people and leaves more destruction than anything that you prevented in the first place.“
This statement is just bullshit. Have you even bothered to look up any casualty figures from Libya? More people were killed in the weeks before NATO intervention than in the months since, and that doesn’t even take into account the impending Sbrenca on steroids in Benghazi.
It’s great that you are so optimistic and think the civil war we’re producing is so low on casualties.
Excuse? The civil war WE produced?
You haven’t the foggiest idea what you’re talking about. The protesters had armed themselves and were fighting back against the government for weeks before we intervened to prevent the mass slaughter they have planned.
You want to talk about casualties? 1000 civilians died in Misurata from government shelling and rocket attacks, while the people in the city begged for NATO to do more. The day after the very first UAV strike took out the very first multiple rocket launcher, the government forces pulled back.
And what’s this 60s-leftover obsession with the word “civil war?” Am I supposed to be less supportive of the mission because the fight is being led by Libyans themselves, instead your/George Bush’s dumbass idea that we should “roll in and finish off the government in half an hour” by ourselves, and then be left to run the place? Am I supposed to assume that, because it’s a civil war, we can’t rightfully view the popular uprising as superior to the dictator and his war criminals? Oddly enough, you weren’t pushing this moral equivalency before Khadaffy set out on a campaign of mass slaughter.
Yes, this is a civil war that WE produced. There was an uprising, not a civil war. It was an uprising on the verge of being crushed. Then WE, in the name of humanitarianism, decided to arm a weak, poorly organized, ill-led rag-tag group of disparate tribes whose only unity lies in opposition to Gaddafi.
Despite your claims that everything is going swimmingly, no one in any position of responsibility seems to agree with you, and there is no end in sight. But even if it does end relatively soon, what then?
We have no idea.
We are likely to leave Libya in a highly-armed state of political chaos that leads to mass joblessness, a lack of oil production, and much more misery than we prevented.
You are flat-out wrong. The uprising had turned into a two-sided fight, involving main-force military units operating against each other, weeks before the first French jet bombed the first government tank. Heck, the rebels had their own tanks and gun trucks before we ever intervened.
We did not militarize this conflict; we only tipped the odds of an ongoing fight.
“Despite your claims that everything is going swimmingly, no one in any position of responsibility seems to agree with you, and there is no end in sight.”
You’re wrong about that, too. Seriously, you’re clearly limiting your information to sources that confirm what you want to believe. Read Juan Cole. Daily. The end is very much in sight. You’re just repeating a stale narrative that wasn’t true the first time it was asserted.
“But even if it does end relatively soon, what then?” Is it supposed to be a bad thing that we’re not trying to control Libya’s political future? Tell me, were you asking this same question when the dictators fell in Egypt and Tunisia? Oh noes, Uncle Sam doesn’t know how those North African DFHs are going to handle their politics! What a tragedy!
I like Juan Cole. I’ve read his recent pieces on Libya. But I don’t understand why Cole’s analysis gives you so much comfort. He’s cheerleading, not giving any informed comment.
There’s enough confirmation bias to go around. I don’t get why people can’t have a breadth of opinions of a complicated issue in a info-poor environment without calling others ‘dumbasses’ or having the hubris to think they’ve got the ‘reality’ of the situation pegged.
There a 100 legitimate reasons not to have been involved and at least one or two for going in. It’s really your personal priorities for the nation and your opinions on the morality of military intervention and in what context that leads one to one’s opinion on the matter.
Implicit to a lot of Booman’s argument is the presumption that people are better off a bit oppressed than dead. I think we can all get with that. So it really comes down to whether or not there would be more dead people with or without NATO intervention. This is not knowable once you’ve chosen one path or another.
So it really is a matter of whether you think it more moral and in the national interest to have tried to do a noble thing and risk a likelihood of fucking it all up than to have stood aside and risked watching yet another genocide (or two).
That is certainly a matter of debate and I applaud Obama for at least being decisive in the context of a terribly difficult and complex situation.
Let’s also not forget that France (with many motivations) had pretty much set Libya on the path to escalated civil conflict before the US got publicly involved (making promises to potential defectors, dropping arms and material to rebels, sending in spooks, the whole nine). Who knows how long we’ve been actively involved? Are we a pure co-conspirator of France’s in the fomenting of a civil war or are we providing the minimum cover for an ally that forced us into involvement.
Is this a response to my comment or intended for someone else’s?
I don’t recall calling anyone a dumbass.
Nope, not your style at all.
See thread leading up to your comment…
Well, at least not here..
As to your other points, you’ve characterized my argument and reasoning quite well.
Basically, I am of the pretty firm opinion that it is almost always a bad idea to introduce a whole lot of weaponry into an already tense environment. When it’s a strongly tribal environment with a lot of religious extremism, it’s particularly risky.
And when the fighting is over and your target is vanquished, you’re left with a bunch of battle-hardened, psychologically damaged teenagers with rocket-propelled grenades running around.
This is not good. It’s very hard to call it humanitarian.
And let’s by clear about why we’re doing this to Libya. It’s because we want to abide by the niceties and limitations of UN authority. We could just send in the 101st Airborne and have this done in a day or two, at least as far as removing Gaddafi from power. Very few people would be killed. And the country wouldn’t be awash with weapons.
So, I like to abide by international law, but I do not see this as a sensible answer to removing Gaddafi from power or protecting human life.
Finally, let’s not get too excited about the genocide that was avoided here. He was going to beat the crap out of a city, that’s true. And a lot of people would have died. I do not think we averted a Rwanda here. More like a Dresden, at the very worst. And I even doubt that. Gaddafi likes to run his mouth and make threats. That doesn’t mean he was going to kill tens of thousands of people.
I have no use for Gaddafi and I am glad he’s now an indicted war criminal. He deserves it. I wouldn’t complain if the US ignored international law and paratrooped down on his ass and put him in cuffs.
What I don’t want is what we’re doing. It’s stupid and expensive, and it’s morality is badly undermined for being so.
I’m much more of a fan of contact poison at the next bunga-bunga party.
Perhaps MORE airpower (Bosnia method) might have worked better (if your gonna do it, do it), but I don’t think you’d necessarily come out any better. The Colonel is much more prepared for a bombing campaign. War by analogy doesn’t always work out.
Dresden?! That’s not a particularly contrasting example. More fire, less jungle, but both had utter destruction and lots of little bits of people all about.
The term genocide would be appropriate because the conflict has inter-ethnic and inter-tribal aspects and a government retribution program would almost certainly include collective punishment. The total numbers might not have been as impressive but the potential for total destruction of one or more tribe/ethnicity within Libya was there.
And I REALLY hate to say it, but..
I’ll make a gentleman’s bet that we’ll find a significant chemical weapons stockpile (another great reason not to go in on the ground). Let me be clear, I don’t believe that this would justify anything we do or do not.
..but I received a warning that the comment did not post because some sort of key had expired. I resubmitted the comment, et voila. I wish it was twice as good of a comment, though..
I erased the double comment for you.
Don’t fall in love with the contact poison. It turned out badly with Castro and our buddy in Dallas. You saw how we dealt with bin-Laden? That’s much more reliable. And if we want to let him rot in the Hague instead of putting a bullet in his brain, that might be possible depending on circumstances.
Personally, I blame the French. They need to get this over with. They owe it to Obama, frankly.
Years ago, I had an associate who was set up with a deli in Havana in hopes of serving poisoned meat to Castro. Which he did. Castro shrugged it off and didn’t miss more than a few hours work.
Yes, Libya was definitely push past the point of no return by les grenouilles.
“We are likely to leave Libya in a highly-armed state of political chaos that leads to mass joblessness, a lack of oil production, and much more misery than we prevented.”
And no matter what actually happens after Khadaffy falls, you’re going to write pieces about how totally right you’ve been proved.
No.
I’ll write that I’ve been proven right if Libya is a chaotic and violent place that can’t produce oil or function like a stable nation state.
If it isn’t chaotic or violent and it resumes its former place in the world economy, then I will be largely proven wrong.
That’s not Boo’s style at all, bro.
isn’t this exchange just a matter of semantics? at the moment that NATO intervened the protest movement in libya had become violent. whether the violence at that point had become at “civil war” or whether it was still just protesters starting to fight back against the government crackdown is nothing more than what label you want to slap on it. it can be argued either way, which means that ultimately it is little more than spin.
i do think it is likely that the protest/rebellion would have been violently suppressed if not for NATO’s action. by preventing that suppression and giving the anti-government people more time and space to fight back means that we “created” the civil war, or just aided a faction in an already existing civil war that was about to be snuffed out is also just a matter of spin.
(it’s also possible that if NATO had not acted, qadhafi would not have been able to snuff out the protesters with its violent crackdown. in other words, it could have turned into what happened in syria, where the government massacred a bunch of people but that did not deter the protesters)
While I agree with everything else you’re saying, I don’t think it’s just about semantics.
I don’t care what you call the pre-NATO uprising. But it didn’t have anymore strength and was on the verge of being stamped out.
It was the very weakness of the uprising that convinced me that intervention would be long, possibly inconclusive, therefore unpopular, and that it was not likely to save lives and quite likely to do the opposite. The worst scenario was to arm-up a full-on civil war, both because wars wreck countries and ruin lives and because we’d be stuck in the middle of it and responsible for the aftermath.
If Gaddafi leaves tomorrow, this may turn out okay. But if he hangs on, this is going to turn sour quick. And we still have no real plan for what to do when he leaves.
Dang! They’re turning on you, Boo.
I’m still stunned this guy has any support on the left for this “Kinetic Military Action” (don’t you dare say “war!”, since dropping bombs and dominating a declared enemy in a foreign nation is no longer war unless the POTUS and his men say so).
I would add to all of your objections that we don’t know who the hell will actually run the country once “we’ve succeeded”… Islamist are already driving the process in Egypt… Reminds me of Saddam all over again. Good heavens, at least Saddam galvanized all the Islamists against him vs. outwardly and against us. Heck, Saddam’s minister of propaganda was even a Christian, and now they’re getting persecuted within the new regime. So much for tolerance. (You may recall, I was against that intervention, too.)
Biggest casualty of this, though, is in the doublespeak department. “This ain’t war. It’s a Kinetic Military Action.” Hah!
Then there’s Kohl flippity flopping, demanding Congressional Approval from Bush (“you don’t seek approval [i]after[/i] you’ve gone to war” was his mantra then, no??), yet suggesting the hostilities required to trigger a War definition are really just an “ambiguous form of art.”
And then Hillary and chastising Congress for putting up barriers as “serving the interests of Gahdaffi” Oh well… You’re either with us or against us”
This is too rich. I hope someone is writing this all down.
Who exactly is counting casualties? I think it is safe to say that until there is a disciplined effort to count them, any numbers we read are pretty much info-deprived estimates or pure propaganda.