McCain pushes heavier U.S. involvement in Libya(edited)

McCain pushes heavier U.S. involvement in Libya - CNN.com

So John McCain went to Libya, and not only supports what we are doing, but thinks we should be doing more.

Now, I don't like our involvement there. I'm disappointed with Obama's actions in Libya.

I find it interesting that no matter who had won the Presidential election in 2008, our involvement in Libya would not have changed. I'm interested to hear from those who would have preferred a different outcome to the election and have been critical of Obama on this issue. Are you disappointed that McCain's policy would have been pretty close to Obamas?

Re: McCain in Libya

rocket88 said:

McCain pushes heavier U.S. involvement in Libya - CNN.com

So John McCain went to Libya, and not only supports what we are doing, but thinks we should be doing more.

Now, I don't like our involvement there. I'm disappointed with Obama's actions in Libya.

I find it interesting that no matter who had won the Presidential election in 2008, our involvement in Libya would not have changed. I'm interested to hear from those who would have preferred a different outcome to the election and have been critical of Obama on this issue. Are you disappointed that McCain's policy would have been pretty close to Obamas?

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I think it's funny that Michelle Bachmann and other Teabaggers are criticizing Obama for supporting the Libyan rebels because some of them may come from Muslim extremist groups and so may come to power after the rebellion but now I wonder if they will criticize McCain for giving his support for the rebels as well.

Re: McCain in Libya

Seems like a chump move for political manuvering in Washington.

Re: McCain in Libya

Thank goodness he is not president. Not sure we have seen a war he did not want us to fight.

Re: McCain in Libya

I would love to buy the story McCain is selling. I would love to be on the side of the underdog good guys against the terrible tyrant.

I don't trust our govt enough to take their word on it. I am too ignorant of the situation. And I am not sure what the implications of doing so would be. As I have said elsewhere I don't mind a humanitarian effort for the non-combatants. I think that would be an investment of good will that would provide a nice ROI in the long-term.
But the part where we become responsible for killing people when we have a choice not to needs more justifying still, imho.

Re: McCain in Libya

I oppose additional involvement. The U.S. should throw its support behind a verifiable ceasefire that protects the lives of civilians. It should not be engaging in regime change in a situation where it has no critical interests at stake.

Re: McCain in Libya

My question to McCain is...Where do we get the right to intervene? Just because you freakin say, we can? Being the world's policeman, especially when we have such urgent economic powers of our own is being two-faced, hypocritical and inconsistent

We can't even wipe our own asses on our own in good old America

Looks like I'm the only one who favors more assistance for the Libyans. I don't see why we can't aid the Libyans. It doesn't mean that we have to put a ground force in Libya, everything can be done from the air. Use some Apache attack helicopters and A-10 Thunderbolts and coordinate with the rebels' ground forces, that would do the trick. We have a huge trillion dollar military, seems like we should make good use of it and further our mutual interests abroad. The more democratic and friendly governments there are around the world, the better it is for the US, especially in the Middle East. Dictatorships generally have a lot of staying power, they won't go anywhere unless dislodged by an outside power. If our military is only for defending the US if attacked, then we should disband pretty much the whole military and rely strictly on the nukes for deterrence, doesn't make much sense to spend money to keep the units that we have.

Also, if you question being in Libya, you should also question why we are in Afghanistan where we have a ground force that is fighting and dying with not much appreciable gain in the long run. And finally, our own revolution might not have been successful if the French hadn't came to our aid with their Navy.

Giving the rebels weapons could bite us in the ass in the long run. However, giving them radios and training to direct airstrikes would be useful and has limited potential for abuse.

Well I am already disappointed we sent more drones in there. I watched McCain's speech to the Libyan rebels. I think it is an incredibly bad idea. I also watched an interview that Tom Brokaw did with one of the Saudi's sons and the Saudi had a point, we have no real plan, us nor NATO forces. We just need to leave there completely. If we stay, we need to withdraw more from Iraqi and Afghanistan, and not once should we be putting ground troops in Libya.

Opteron said:

Looks like I'm the only one who favors more assistance for the Libyans. I don't see why we can't aid the Libyans. It doesn't mean that we have to put a ground force in Libya, everything can be done from the air. Use some Apache attack helicopters and A-10 Thunderbolts and coordinate with the rebels' ground forces, that would do the trick. We have a huge trillion dollar military, seems like we should make good use of it and further our mutual interests abroad. The more democratic and friendly governments there are around the world, the better it is for the US, especially in the Middle East. Dictatorships generally have a lot of staying power, they won't go anywhere unless dislodged by an outside power. If our military is only for defending the US if attacked, then we should disband pretty much the whole military and rely strictly on the nukes for deterrence, doesn't make much sense to spend money to keep the units that we have.

Also, if you question being in Libya, you should also question why we are in Afghanistan where we have a ground force that is fighting and dying with not much appreciable gain in the long run. And finally, our own revolution might not have been successful if the French hadn't came to our aid with their Navy.

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OK I will start by saying we should get out of Afghanistan yesterday. As to why not kill a bunch more Libyans, for what? The way you phrase it this is some typeof video game for you.

If you are so in favor of killing Libyans, go sign up with rebels and have a go at it. I am not in favor of risking kids lives.

So drop out of school and fight the battle you want others to fight, for who knows what reason.

I am sick of people sitting at the PCs advocating sending more of our kids to kill or be killed.

Opteron said:

Looks like I'm the only one who favors more assistance for the Libyans. I don't see why we can't aid the Libyans. It doesn't mean that we have to put a ground force in Libya, everything can be done from the air. Use some Apache attack helicopters and A-10 Thunderbolts and coordinate with the rebels' ground forces, that would do the trick. We have a huge trillion dollar military, seems like we should make good use of it and further our mutual interests abroad. The more democratic and friendly governments there are around the world, the better it is for the US, especially in the Middle East. Dictatorships generally have a lot of staying power, they won't go anywhere unless dislodged by an outside power. If our military is only for defending the US if attacked, then we should disband pretty much the whole military and rely strictly on the nukes for deterrence, doesn't make much sense to spend money to keep the units that we have.

Also, if you question being in Libya, you should also question why we are in Afghanistan where we have a ground force that is fighting and dying with not much appreciable gain in the long run. And finally, our own revolution might not have been successful if the French hadn't came to our aid with their Navy.

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AQ ran like ******s from A-stan. So, the way I see it...mission complete. We should have left A-stan a long time ago

I believe your fundamental problem is the mistaken belief, if we give them support, they'll opt for democratic governments, give power to the people, personal liberty will expand and flourish. Bull****. The fact is, quite a lot of that section of the world DO NOT want to be like us. They have their own culture and history and they don't want to change that.

Islamic nations in the ME and North Africa at least are tribal at heart. Period

Opteron said:

Also, if you question being in Libya, you should also question why we are in Afghanistan where we have a ground force that is fighting and dying with not much appreciable gain in the long run. And finally, our own revolution might not have been successful if the French hadn't came to our aid with their Navy.

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The difference between Libya and Afghanistan is, simply put, 9/11. We had to root out al Qaeda, and now they are weakened. At the very least, the government there is not friendly to them.

Getting involved in this "East Libya" vs. "West Libya" seems a lot like getting involved in North Vietnam vs. South Vietnam. That didn't end well for us.

Opteron said:

We have a huge trillion dollar military, seems like we should make good use of it and further our mutual interests abroad. The more democratic and friendly governments there are around the world, the better it is for the US, especially in the Middle East. Dictatorships generally have a lot of staying power, they won't go anywhere unless dislodged by an outside power. If our military is only for defending the US if attacked, then we should disband pretty much the whole military and rely strictly on the nukes for deterrence, doesn't make much sense to spend money to keep the units that we have.

Click to expand...

No matter the outcome in Libya's civil war, no critical U.S. interests or allies are threatened. The U.S. military should be used to safeguard critical U.S. interests and allies, not to pursue regime change for the sake of doing so. The revolution in Libya should be waged, won, or lost by Libyans. That it has not been won despite close-air support missions is due to gross incompetence (political and military) on the part of the anti-Gadhafi forces and the reality that the anti-Gadhafi forces do not enjoy the broad-based support of Libya's people and tribes. It is a narrow regional uprising with national aspirations, not a nationwide uprising. Many Libyans continue to oppose the rebels. Hence, even if the dictatorship is toppled, there will be high risk of a wider civil war (power vacuum and incompetence of the anti-Gadhafi movement, which incredibly enough has made no meaningful efforts to build broad-based support nor issued any defining documents truly laying out what it stands for). Long-term security arrangements and potentially costly nation-building would likely be required to avert or reduce that risk.

That Col. Gadhafi's regime is brutal and has been hostile to the U.S. in the past is true. However, it does not pose a credible imminent threat to critical U.S. interests and allies to justify U.S. military intervention. If the U.S. and NATO can obtain a verifiable ceasefire that protects Libya's civilian population, they should take it. It is not NATO's nor the United States' obligation to wage the revolution on behalf of any faction within Libya given the absence of compelling interests.

ric27 said:

AQ ran like ******s from A-stan. So, the way I see it...mission complete. We should have left A-stan a long time ago

I believe your fundamental problem is the mistaken belief, if we give them support, they'll opt for democratic governments, give power to the people, personal liberty will expand and flourish. Bull****. The fact is, quite a lot of that section of the world DO NOT want to be like us. They have their own culture and history and they don't want to change that.

Islamic nations in the ME and North Africa at least are tribal at heart. Period

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Actually, I think you're wrong here. The whole point of these revolutions or demonstrations or however you call them is that the people want their freedom and want to embrace Western ideals. These demonstrations are driven by the youth and I think many of them are educated as well. They don't want the status quo anymore. The Bush administration went into to Iraq to do regime change and try to democratize the Middle East, at the point of the gun and poorly too, but that's what they did. Iraq has shown that they can moderately govern themselves, and I think other people want freedom too like that. The Middle East has long been a problem region and has dictatorships, we should take the chance to reform it so in the long run things will be better for everyone.

washunut said:

OK I will start by saying we should get out of Afghanistan yesterday. As to why not kill a bunch more Libyans, for what? The way you phrase it this is some typeof video game for you.

If you are so in favor of killing Libyans, go sign up with rebels and have a go at it. I am not in favor of risking kids lives.

So drop out of school and fight the battle you want others to fight, for who knows what reason.

I am sick of people sitting at the PCs advocating sending more of our kids to kill or be killed.

Click to expand...

Ok, we can do this with 0 American casualties through the air. Even if we have to we can use all drones. But people are dying everyday in Libya and you don't care anything about them, just as long as it's not an American that dies. So basically, just because someone isn't an American, their life is essentially forfeit? Overthrowing the regime would actually save lives in the long run.

donsutherland1 said:

No matter the outcome in Libya's civil war, no critical U.S. interests or allies are threatened. The U.S. military should be used to safeguard critical U.S. interests and allies, not to pursue regime change for the sake of doing so. The revolution in Libya should be waged, won, or lost by Libyans. That it has not been won despite close-air support missions is due to gross incompetence (political and military) on the part of the anti-Gadhafi forces and the reality that the anti-Gadhafi forces do not enjoy the broad-based support of Libya's people and tribes. It is a narrow regional uprising with national aspirations, not a nationwide uprising. Many Libyans continue to oppose the rebels. Hence, even if the dictatorship is toppled, there will be high risk of a wider civil war (power vacuum and incompetence of the anti-Gadhafi movement, which incredibly enough has made no meaningful efforts to build broad-based support nor issued any defining documents truly laying out what it stands for). Long-term security arrangements and potentially costly nation-building would likely be required to avert or reduce that risk.

Click to expand...

IMO, the 'not in our critical interest' policy is not a good policy. As I wrote before, Hitler militarizing the Rhineland and Japan invading China wasn't in our critical interest at the time, and those did not turn out well at all. A 'critical interest' policy generally lets situations build up into catastrophes which will ultimately have to be dealt with later.

I don't know where you got your information that this is a local uprising only, I'd like to see more on that, but don't forget, to openly defy Ghaddafi is almost like a death sentence so many people may not be willing to openly show their support for the uprising. Even so, the rebels are certainly willing to risk death for their cause. The overthrowing of Ghaddafi would be the only critical and difficult part, the rest could be left up to the Libyan people. There are no signs yet of competing factions struggling for power.

donsutherland1 said:

That Col. Gadhafi's regime is brutal and has been hostile to the U.S. in the past is true. However, it does not pose a credible imminent threat to critical U.S. interests and allies to justify U.S. military intervention. If the U.S. and NATO can obtain a verifiable ceasefire that protects Libya's civilian population, they should take it. It is not NATO's nor the United States' obligation to wage the revolution on behalf of any faction within Libya given the absence of compelling interests.

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I don't agree, I think that Col. Ghaddafi doesn't have as much right to rule the Libyan people as we do to topple him. I am an advocate for international intervention, as you can probably tell by my posts, and I think a dictator ruling his people by force does not have any right to rule his people. The Middle East as a region needs to be reformed. Failure to do so will have consequences for the US and the world through terrorism, oil, etc... I don't agree that only critical interests should be protected.

Opteron said:

Actually, I think you're wrong here. The whole point of these revolutions or demonstrations or however you call them is that the people want their freedom and want to embrace Western ideals. These demonstrations are driven by the youth and I think many of them are educated as well. They don't want the status quo anymore. The Bush administration went into to Iraq to do regime change and try to democratize the Middle East, at the point of the gun and poorly too, but that's what they did. Iraq has shown that they can moderately govern themselves, and I think other people want freedom too like that. The Middle East has long been a problem region and has dictatorships, we should take the chance to reform it so in the long run things will be better for everyone.

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You are taking the flawed position that everyone can be democratic, they want to be democratic and they will be better off with a democratic form of government. A 12th century tribal Arabic culture is not compatible with modern democracy. Islam exclusionism is not compatible with the human rights and tolerance inherent in a democratic society.

There is zero historical precedent, absolutely zero that Libya has any experience in actually electing a leader who is responsible to the people. Every single head of government for thousands of years has either been imposed by foreign conquest, or a strong man besting his opposition to take over. That same history is pretty much uniform for the rest of the Arab nations as well.

ric27 said:

You are taking the flawed position that everyone can be democratic, they want to be democratic and they will be better off with a democratic form of government. A 12th century tribal Arabic culture is not compatible with modern democracy. Islam exclusionism is not compatible with the human rights and tolerance inherent in a democratic society.

There is zero historical precedent, absolutely zero that Libya has any experience in actually electing a leader who is responsible to the people. Every single head of government for thousands of years has either been imposed by foreign conquest, or a strong man besting his opposition to take over. That same history is pretty much uniform for the rest of the Arab nations as well.

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I don't agree with you here, but we can disagree. In Egypt, the people demanded to have a fake democracy turned into a real one. The people marched and demanded they wanted real elections and not a dictator. Iraq has shown that it could be done. And Turkey is democratic as well. I think these demonstrations are a turning point and if there is a way to instill change in the Mideast, this would be the time to do it. We should capitalize on this moment and propel progress in this region forward. I think Libya can change too, with a little help. In Libya, this is a technological age, youth everywhere are growing up with technology and are not set in the old ways like before. Iran's demonstrations were also youth driven. People in the Mideast are demanding freedom and that's how I disagree.

Let me add, tribal is probably more like Afghanistan and rural Pakistan areas. I think Libya has more educated people than those areas, I think.

Opteron said:

IMO, the 'not in our critical interest' policy is not a good policy. As I wrote before, Hitler militarizing the Rhineland and Japan invading China wasn't in our critical interest at the time, and those did not turn out well at all. A 'critical interest' policy generally lets situations build up into catastrophes which will ultimately have to be dealt with later.

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The problem with that analogy is that in the case of Germany, Germany's militarization and increasing aggression, were leading to a dramatic shift in the balance of power that posed a real threat to key U.S. allies. Germany was a rapidly rising hostile power. U.S. military intervention could have been justified on those grounds well before Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. Libya does not even begin to compare.

Re: McCain in Libya

samsmart said:

I think it's funny that Michelle Bachmann and other Teabaggers are criticizing Obama for supporting the Libyan rebels because some of them may come from Muslim extremist groups and so may come to power after the rebellion but now I wonder if they will criticize McCain for giving his support for the rebels as well.

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YOU would think this is all funny. You can't believe people that think something like this is funny. We have no business in Libya, no national interest.

Re: McCain in Libya

Ill be the bad guy here The problem with libya and Syria and venezuela is the law written in 1976 that the US cannot exterminate single target vermin, like Khadafi. Whats better ? exterminating ONE GUY Khadafi...or sending in planes that kill thousands...we need to change that law.

Re: McCain in Libya

American said:

YOU would think this is all funny. You can't believe people that think something like this is funny. We have no business in Libya, no national interest.

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Well back to the original question. You, American, are one of the people I was curious to hear from. You would have prefered a different outcome in the Presidential election, right? Yet, it appears that had McCain won, he would have made largely the same choice that Obama has to get involved in Libya.

Does it disappoint you (as it does me) that we would be involved in this escapade regardless of the outcome of the election in 2008?

rocket88 said:

McCain pushes heavier U.S. involvement in Libya - CNN.com

So John McCain went to Libya, and not only supports what we are doing, but thinks we should be doing more.

Now, I don't like our involvement there. I'm disappointed with Obama's actions in Libya.

I find it interesting that no matter who had won the Presidential election in 2008, our involvement in Libya would not have changed. I'm interested to hear from those who would have preferred a different outcome to the election and have been critical of Obama on this issue. Are you disappointed that McCain's policy would have been pretty close to Obamas?

Click to expand...

I don't oppose how involvement in Libya. However, I oppose how we are involved in Libya. Launching a few air strikes and sending a few bandaids and PRC-77's isn't going to accomplish a damn thing. If we're not going in there for a good old fashion beat down of Qadaffi, then we're not doing anything but wasting time and money.

McCain wants to give them weapons; so what? They don't have a clue what to do with those weapons, which means it's yet another step in the direction of wasting our time and money.

This is nothing more than a replay of The Balkans and Somalia.

Opteron said:

Let me add, tribal is probably more like Afghanistan and rural Pakistan areas. I think Libya has more educated people than those areas, I think.

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Opteron - The people are tribal, but the borders weren't drawn up with the tribes in mind, so there are tribes with members on both sides of every border.

There is a lot of blame to be laid at the hands of British and French politicians who carved up the Middle East after WWI. Their arbitrary creation of borders and nations has been the basis for a lot of the conflict since then. If they had done the slightest bit of research or homework and determined tribal and religious groupings and divided the Ottoman Empire in that fashion, there might have been some hope for stability.

There should have been a Kurdistan composed of the Kurdish regions in Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Syria. Iraq should have been just Shiite Iraq in the south. Sunni Iraq should have been a separate nation or possibly part of Sunni Jordan or Syria.