George Bush isn't president, so military interventions are back in style with the American left...
Progressives, are you comfortable with using military force — including airstrikes against strategic military targets — in Libya?Did progressives just rip a page from the neocon handbook?
There are clear and compelling reasons to use force in this case, in concert with a progressive internationalist worldview, the belief that America can best defend itself by building a world safe for individual liberty and democracy. The progressive internationalist now has little choice but to act militarily to stop the mass, indiscriminate killing of Libyans who hold those values. (Gut Check Time for Progressives)
And who says these Libyan rebels "hold those values." What proof do we have that any of these human hornets swarming in the face of creaking kleptocrats are motivated by anything even close to democracy or Western values?
Two cheers for President Obama’s non-intervention in Libya
It was the right thing to do, but he did it badly, and out of a feckless indecisiveness. The he blew it completely by reversing himself once the opportunity to decapitate the Khadaffi regime had passed. He was just the man to stand up and tell the European and Arab states to man up and take care of it themselves, we’re tired of fighting their wars for them.
But instead, he dithered in the face of having to do something harder that delivering a flowery speech, dissipating another opportunity and hastening Western entropy.
“The Arabs and the Europeans live there, and if they truly see hell coming, they should act, and they can act.” --Leslie GelbEuropeans and Arab states have the ability to take military action on their own. Leslie Gelb explains:
Doubt not that those pushing for a U.N./U.S. no-fly zone can enforce that goal themselves. Libya has less than 200 usable jet fighters of old vintage, flown by pilots who get less than 90 hours practice time yearly.
Egypt has first-class F-16s that could pulverize any Libyan opposition. Saudi air power is even more formidable. That is to say nothing of the hundreds of top-grade fighters that London and Paris could deploy to bases in Egypt, Tunisia, or Italy. There would be no contest. Those arguing for a no-fly zone don't need a U.S. aircraft carrier.
If the stakes are anywhere near as great as activists claim, they don't need a U.N. Security Council resolution either. Many is the nation that resorted to force without such international blessing.
The hypocrisy here is monumental, even by traditional foreign-policy standards of baloney. (Leslie Gelb -- Let Libya's Neighbors Fix It)* - Since this writing, they did get a security council resolution and the bombing has begun. We'll see what happens.
