Thread: Looks like Ghadafi has won...

Originally Posted by goober

Wow, and maybe Obama could have sent Captain Marvel and Superman to help the rebels, or supplied them with an invisibility potion.

A no flight zone wouldn't have made much of a difference, tanks and artillery and trained forces still beat disorganized groups of well intentioned lightly armed untrained , undisciplined volunteers.

You are correct it would make zero differance now. It would have made a HUG difference at the onset of this mess.

Obama failed to act and many died.

Originally Posted by ConLib

What the liberals know is that our government has made so many really ignorant errors when meddling in the affairs of others. Mistakes that costs us much more than any short, slight gain we might think we've made.

Any meddling will not gain us anything, might cost us a protracted nation building like Iraq, for what? Which ever side wins will not hurt, nor hinder us. It we interfere, we are the aggressor.

Yea like in yulaslavia?

May their children forgive us.

Originally Posted by Andrewl

Ever since about 2003 Ghaddafi became the west's poster boy for "reformed" dictator. Western Europe was supplying him with weapons, the US had plans to, and everybody wanted a bit of the oil action - so much so that the UK actually released the mass murderer that bombed the pan-am flight to curry favor with Ghaddafi.

Ghaddafi was the guy that gave up his nuclear program to avoid being invaded by Bush.

Andrew

Sure but I don't know if lifting sanctions so that he'll stop funding terrorism means that we're best friends forever. It seems like a pretty reasonable diplomatic solution to me. Many of the more liberal posters have spent considerable time criticizing Pres. Obama's foreign policy decisions but ignore he had a lot of successes. This is one of them.

Originally Posted by Occam's Razor

So the general gist I'm getting from you right wingers is that you're all fine and well with smaller government until you see a war you'd love to enter.

I don't consider myself a right ringer but I support smaller government and staying out of wars that don't directly benefit us. I don't see any reason for us to get involved in Libya.

Originally Posted by Occam's Razor

I would argue that the vast majority of what our intervention does has nothing to do with our safety and everything to do with profit for special interests.

That's probably fairly accurate but I don't see it as a problem.

There is an infinite number of conflicts and social injustices going on in this world and we simply don't have the money or manpower to get involved in every single one. I don't see anything immoral about picking and choosing where we intervene on what best helps us.

Isn't doing what's best for us the point of forming separate governments?

Originally Posted by Occam's Razor

Well, we cared enough about Gadhafi to become friendly with him when he started disarming his country.

You can't go from aiding a dictator to pushing to oust him when his people decide to remove him without people noticing how Machiavellian American policy truly is.

It's not about freeing people and it probably never will be.

Granted, I'm not saying that other countries are any different. I just wish we'd be more honest with ourselves about this stuff.

We didn't care about Gaddhafi. We cared about ending his state sponsorship of terrorism, which is vastly different. It's not like our improved relations with Libya simply coincided with him disarming his country. Aid was given and sanctions were lifted because he agreed to our demands. It seems like a pretty solid diplomatic move to me.

Of course it's about freeing people but it's not all about freeing people. We have limited expenses and personnel and our actions have consequences, so we're forced to pick and choose our battles. We have to draw the line some place and our interests seems as good as any to draw it. I have a difficult time believing any government we've had in this country wouldn't choose to liberate everyone on the planet if it were actually possible but it's not.

Obama has failed. He had a chance to act but not knowing what to do,
afraid to do anything when knowing nothing, he erases concern in his mind by playing golf and playing with the NCAA Tournament seeding(he knows something about this).
Failure as a President , failure as Commander(what a joke) in Chief, failure as a leader, failure to gather foreign leaders to act in Libya(they dont respect him either).
Even France(Sarcosi) has recomended a NO FLY zone.

Every ally around the world will doubt our resolve.
Obama encouraged Libyan protesters VERBALLY but did not act to even gather together foreign action. He diserted those he lead on deceitfully.
He is now seen world wide as weak and indecisive, and USA is seen as a "PaperTiger".

[]China, Russia, Iran, Chavez, OsamaBin Laden are all rejoicing tonight,,,USA is in decline!

Originally Posted by GeorgeLaw

Obama has failed. He had a chance to act but not knowing what to do,
afraid to do anything when knowing nothing, he erases concern in his mind by playing golf and playing with the NCAA Tournament seeding(he knows something about this).
Failure as a President , failure as Commander(what a joke) in Chief, failure as a leader, failure to gather foreign leaders to act in Libya(they dont respect him either).
Even France(Sarcosi) has recomended a NO FLY zone.

Every ally around the world will doubt our resolve.
Obama encouraged Libyan protesters VERBALLY but did not act to even gather together foreign action. He diserted those he lead on deceitfully.
He is now seen world wide as weak and indecisive, and USA is seen as a "PaperTiger".

[]China, Russia, Iran, Chavez, OsamaBin Laden are all rejoicing tonight,,,USA is in decline!

I care as much about Pres. Obama golf outings as I do Pres. Bush's trips to his ranch in Texas. He is a weak and indecisive leader but that has nothing to do with his golf game or filling out his bracket. He could have been more decisive about it but has been absolutely right not to commit to a no-fly zone. Supporters are kidding themselves in thinking this will make a difference. It was going to take a full scale invasion if we acted and we're not in a position to commit ourselves to that.

Pres. Obama's unwillingness to commit to a no-fly zone puts us in a strong position to negotiate with Libya when the rebellion inevitably ends and he's going to need a lot of international aid to hold his country together, once again putting him in a position to make concessions. For the time being this is our best option.

Originally Posted by Donahue

I care as much about Pres. Obama golf outings about as much as Pres. Bush's trips to his ranch in Texas. He is a weak and indecisive leader but that has nothing to do with his golf game or filling out his bracket. He could have been more decisive about it but has been absolutely right not to commit to a no-fly zone. Supporters are kidding themselves in thinking this will make a difference. It was going to take a full scale invasion if we acted and we're not in a position to commit ourselves to that.

Pres. Obama's unwillingness to commit to a no-fly zone puts us in a strong position to negotiate with Libya when the rebellion inevitably ends and he's going to need a lot of international aid to hold his country together, once again putting him in a position to make concessions. For the time being this is our best option.

I respect your opinion,but do not agree.

To do nothing is always the safe thing to do; then depend on your slippery slimy gift of gab to justify later. That is his strong suit- slime!

Originally Posted by GeorgeLaw

I respect your opinion,but do not agree.

To do nothing is always the safe thing to do; then depend on your slippery slimy gift of gab to justify later. That is his strong suit- slime!

What is there to disagree with? Besides your nonsensical partisanship that is.

Col. Gaddafi's Air Force has in no way been the deciding factor in this rebellion. It might be the most powerful example of his military superiority over the rebels but it's merely an example. The simple reality is the rebels are a rag tag bunch of amateur soldiers who are out gunned by a unified, professional military. Col. Gaddafi has rolled over the rebels since they took possession of a few cities in the east and have showed no signs of stopping.

Knocking out his flight capabilities wouldn't change any of this.

Originally Posted by CSA

You are correct it would make zero differance now. It would have made a HUG difference at the onset of this mess.

Obama failed to act and many died.

It would have made a HUGE difference, the rebels would still have lost, but all the right wing noise machine would be criticizing Obama for instituting a no-fly zone...
The fact is, you guys determine your position on issues by watching what Obama does, and then claiming something different would have worked better.
The tell-tale signal that you are all totally full of crap, is that you have to wait to see what Obama does before you come up with your "version".
If Obama had put a no-fly zone into place, you'd be all up in arms about it.

Originally Posted by pramjockey

Yeah, that pretty much sums it up.

But, of course - this is what they would have wanted:

1) start with a no-fly zone. The extremely limited Libyan Air Force stays grounded. Artillery, rocket, and tank attacks continue against untrained individuals with small arms and RPGs. Said individuals continue to lose ground

2) demand airstrikes against Libyan army positions. Now US forces are more deeply involved, and start taking casualties as the Libyans start shooting back.

3) eventually - US invades Libya, at the cost of several trillion dollars (but we won't talk about that), and we sit in the middle of yet another civil war in the MidEast for a decade, while our men and women in uniform are killed.

4) blame Obama for getting us into that stupid shit.



That sound about right?

And people say I'm paranoid for thinking the pubs actually want to make things worse in this country than they already are. These people will do anything to increase their power, including involving us in a war we cannot win and that will ruin us forever

Originally Posted by MattInFla

I can't see blaming Obama here.

If you must blame someone outside Libya, it seems to me that the Arab League and the EU would be more viable targets for blame. It's their backyard.

Matt

Good post, but why not "blame" the LIBYANS. It is, after all THEIR country. The people in Tunisia and Egypt had little problem throwing out their leaders, who were both just as bad, if not worse, than Khadaffi.

Is it perhaps barely possible that some people there actually SUPPORT his regime? I know it's really hard for right wingers to accept that not every "gook" in the world actually has a true blue American inside, just waiting to get out, but it may be so.

Originally Posted by CSA

Yea like in yulaslavia?

No, more like in Iraq. Yugoslavia was a cobbled hodgepodge of historically independent states that nobody had ever even thought of until 1919, an unstable coalition held together only by a dictator who played off the powers against each other. Libya goes back to antiquity as one nation, as did Iraq/Mesopotamia

Originally Posted by Donahue

. . . He could have been more decisive about it but has been absolutely right not to commit to a no-fly zone. Supporters are kidding themselves in thinking this will make a difference. It was going to take a full scale invasion if we acted and we're not in a position to commit ourselves to that.

Pres. Obama's unwillingness to commit to a no-fly zone puts us in a strong position to negotiate with Libya when the rebellion inevitably ends and he's going to need a lot of international aid to hold his country together, once again putting him in a position to make concessions. For the time being this is our best option.

That seems to be Obama's assessment insofar as the US taking unilateral steps without others committing and getting on board for military interventions with deeds, troops, cash, etc, instead of the US getting stuck carrying all the water and its costs and consequences, etc, where others can spin away upon it with cheers and jeers of convenience on the free rider principle at no cost in lives, cash, accountability, etc.

The Associated Press: US adds new Libya sanctions