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Do you support America's intervention in Libya?

Do you support America's intervention in Libya?


  • Total voters
    31
  • Poll closed .

Chappy

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Do you support America's intervention in Libya?

Record your public opinion above.
 
No. It's juvenile adventurism motivated by personal goals, not sound strategic planning, and those persona goals have nothing to do with anything resembling a concern for people in Libya.

No valid US interest is being served.
 
We have no business imposing a no-fly zone in Libya. We have no money. We're stuck with the bill and our soldiers will be stuck in a third war.
 
The U.S. interest was in preventing the negative effect if an Arab tyrant successfully demonstrated that unconstrained, horrific violence against their own oppressed people works. The Arab Facebook Revolution��™ lives on!
 
Do you support America's intervention in Libya?

Record your public opinion above.

I am ambivalent on this, I support it as long as we don't get in deeper and have "mission creep."
 
The U.S. interest was in preventing the negative effect if an Arab tyrant successfully demonstrated that unconstrained, horrific violence against their own oppressed people works. The Arab Facebook Revolution��™ lives on!

And exactly how does that interest the US? Libya posed no threat to America. Muammar Gaddafi has been a known tyrant for decades, but earlier this year Libya was on the UN's Human Rights Council. Just what the US needs... another war. This will definitely require ground troops at some point if we are going to overthrow Gaddafi.
 
While I'm sympathetic to any opposition towards a brutal tyrant like Gaddafi, I see no American interests that justify investing American treasure or blood in aiding their cause. I know right now the no-fly zone represents a limited investment of treasure and carries no real risk of spilling American blood, but I also doubt a no fly zone will be enough to secure a rebel victory. So I'm very concerned about mission creep. Especially since whenever we get involved in Middle Eastern affairs, it almost always is seen as American meddling or worse by most of the population.
 
The U.S. interest was in preventing the negative effect if an Arab tyrant successfully demonstrated that unconstrained, horrific violence against their own oppressed people works. The Arab Facebook Revolution��™ lives on!

How exactly is this furthering US interests? A revolutionary government won't necessarily be any more friendly to the US than Gaddafi. In fact, its doubtful they have enough widespread support to even keep Lybia from collapsing into civil war if they do manage to depose Gaddafi. Why do you think we continue to prop up the corrupt House of Saud? We're terrified of what a people's revoltion would look like in Saudi Arabia. Gaddafi is a devil, but at least he's a devil we know and have contained.

Now all that said, I support anyone who rises up against tyranny, especially someone like Gaddafi, but I see no benefit to justify US involvement. Aren't two never ending nation building exercises enough for us?
 
Al Qaeda's premise is that only through violent assault on the West can Arab nations be free. Tunisia and Egypt put that to the lie. Libya were Qaddafi to survive through violent suppression of his people would be the counter example. Best we make sure that he fails or at the very least doesn't succeed.
 
At the current moment I support the intervention. There is benefit to setting a precedent against slaughtering your people, in addition it would be nice to calm the oil market by stabilizing the region. Going through the U.N. was handy because if other people want to use similar justification in the future, we can control the situation with veto power. Finally, it is even possible that the Libyans will build a better nation for themselves. That said, I have serious reservations as well. Obama has not put forth clear goals or a clear strategy. Apparently, we want Qadaffi gone, but we aren't trying to kill him and we aren't supporting the rebels either. However, he has clearly stated we won't put troops on the ground either, which means the situation is unlikely to end up in a cluster**** either.
 
I think we need to do something. America has a history of standing up to brutal dictators and communist assholes. Why can't we just drop or ship weapons. Worked against the soviets when they were in Afganistan?
 
I think we need to do something. America has a history of standing up to brutal dictators and communist assholes. Why can't we just drop or ship weapons. Worked against the soviets when they were in Afganistan?

We have a history of standing up to brutal dictators?

You mean guys like Fulgencio Batista? Or Mobuto? Or the Shah of Iran? Or Augusto Pinochet?

We've backed and bankrolled plenty of brutal dictators over the years, just as long as they were "our" dictators. Heck, we're still propping up the House of Saud. America is no different than any other nation. We back people who back us. We're not evil imperialists and we're not white knights. We're a nation state looking out for own interests. How effectively we serve those interests by backing petty tyrants is a whole different question.
 
Do you support America's intervention in Libya?

Record your public opinion above.

I support it.Perhaps while the US is support the rebels a bomb will accidentally drop on the Lockerbie bomber's house and hopefully cause that scumbag to have slow and agonizing death. Our country should get out of aligning itself with countries whose values are not similar to our own.
 
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It is not an American intervention. A coalition of nations is enforcing a UN resolution.
 
No, I don't support our involvement. We have a history of supporting rebellions like this and then it coming back to bite us in the ass later. And I don't think it really serves our interests all that much at the moment.
 
The U.S. interest was in preventing the negative effect if an Arab tyrant successfully demonstrated that unconstrained, horrific violence against their own oppressed people works.

Only if we take the other Arab dictators as fools. The subtext of what you are saying is "If you kill too many people, we'll bomb you too." And every other Arab leader knows that that isn't a credible threat. The United States has neither the resources, the political will, nor the desire to get involved in yet ANOTHER Muslim country. Hell, we barely got involved in Libya, and only after much dithering. No Arab leader, especially ones that have traditionally been US-friendly, is the slightest bit worried that the US is going to provide military support to their protesters. If they were, they never would have endorsed a no-fly zone in Libya.
 
I am ambivalent on this, I support it as long as we don't get in deeper and have "mission creep."

We've already had mission creep. The no-fly zone quickly evolved into widespread air strikes...and if our pilots had crashed near Tripoli instead of Benghazi, I'm quite sure it would have evolved into special forces on the ground to rescue them. The mission to prevent a massacre was supplanted by a mission to serve as the rebels' air force, which was supplanted by a mission to bring democracy to Libya.

If that doesn't qualify as mission creep, I don't know what does.
 
No, it serves no valid U.S. interests and just wastes money we don't have. Isn't the whole point of a popular uprising to overthrow the existing regime on their own? If more powerful nations help, that's not an uprising, it's an invasion.
 
It is not an American intervention. A coalition of nations is enforcing a UN resolution.

When all is said and done, it will be the US that pays the bill, sends the troops, and receives the blame. UN had Libya on the human rights council earlier in the year. What a joke that was.
 
I think we need to do something. America has a history of standing up to brutal dictators and communist assholes. Why can't we just drop or ship weapons. Worked against the soviets when they were in Afganistan?

Do you realize the blowback that occurred from that? We gave weapon technology to the people we would be at war with twenty years later.
 
I think we need to do something. America has a history of standing up to brutal dictators and communist assholes. Why can't we just drop or ship weapons. Worked against the soviets when they were in Afganistan?

No, America has a history of supporting brutal dictators and communist assholes when it serves our interests. We supported the Taliban, we supported Saddam, when it served us to do so. Then, when they turn around and stab us in the back, which any idiot could have told them they'd do eventually, they get all surprised.

We make our own problems.
 
We have a history of standing up to brutal dictators?

You mean guys like Fulgencio Batista? Or Mobuto? Or the Shah of Iran? Or Augusto Pinochet?

We've backed and bankrolled plenty of brutal dictators over the years, just as long as they were "our" dictators. Heck, we're still propping up the House of Saud. America is no different than any other nation. We back people who back us. We're not evil imperialists and we're not white knights. We're a nation state looking out for own interests. How effectively we serve those interests by backing petty tyrants is a whole different question.

I'm not applying for American sainthood here just stating the facts. And yes you can put cases where we did support dictators using them as tools to serve our own self interest in its proper context, and Monday morning quarterback those policies. That isn't the point in this case. The point is we should help the people of Libya in my opinion but maybe just supply weapons etc.
 
Do you realize the blowback that occurred from that? We gave weapon technology to the people we would be at war with twenty years later.

Yes its a crazy world. We taught the Japanese too long before Iraq modernizing their military only to fight them in a world war and then rebuilt their country making them one of our largest trading partners. Same with our euro enemies in WW2. War is an art. Not saying were perfect.
 
No, America has a history of supporting brutal dictators and communist assholes when it serves our interests. We supported the Taliban, we supported Saddam, when it served us to do so. Then, when they turn around and stab us in the back, which any idiot could have told them they'd do eventually, they get all surprised.

We make our own problems.

Yes we support our interests. There is nothing wrong with standing up to dictators or using them to support our interests.
 
I'm not applying for American sainthood here just stating the facts. And yes you can put cases where we did support dictators using them as tools to serve our own self interest in its proper context, and Monday morning quarterback those policies. That isn't the point in this case. The point is we should help the people of Libya in my opinion but maybe just supply weapons etc.

You're the one who stated we have a history of standing up to brutal dictators, as if our foreign policy was based on some sort of anti-dicatator doctrine.

America has, as you now say, supported dictators when we believe ti serves our interests to do so. So the question regarding Lybia is, exactly what interest demands our involvement in the internal affairs of a soveriegn foreign nation? Frankly, I don't see any interests that come close to warranting such involvement.
 
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