walksalone Posted March 30, 2011 Share Posted March 30, 2011 Why do we give a rats ass about Libya??? We've got a sh*tty track record helping "rebels" don't we? Look at Afganistan, Iraq. Seriously. Link to comment
gobiggergoredder Posted March 30, 2011 Share Posted March 30, 2011 I'd just like to know why we haven't heard from Michael Moore, Susan Surandon, Dixie Chicks, janeane garofalo etc? Why is there no issues with Libya? Didn't Sadam gas and strike fear in his people? Several years ago it seemed like the right thing to get involved in Iraq. I was later proven wrong. Link to comment
HuskerfaninOkieland Posted March 30, 2011 Share Posted March 30, 2011 I'd just like to know why we haven't heard from Michael Moore, Susan Surandon, Dixie Chicks, janeane garofalo etc? Why is there no issues with Libya? Didn't Sadam gas and strike fear in his people? Several years ago it seemed like the right thing to get involved in Iraq. I was later proven wrong. Michael Moore has spoken. He's still a jackass though... Link to comment
carlfense Posted March 30, 2011 Share Posted March 30, 2011 I'm not sure why we are in Libya either. I think a lot of it is trying to support the European countries who supported us in Afghanistan. Also, I have a feeling that we are trying to build some desperately needed goodwill in the Middle East. (Keep in mind that those opinions are primarily pulled from my nether regions.) Until (god forbid!) there are US boots on the ground I don't think of it as another Iraq or Afghanistan. We could leave Libya today and we'd be out around $.5 billion with no US lives lost. The same can't be said about Iraq and Afghanistan (trillions of dollars and thousands of lives.) This worked in Kosovo . . . I guess we'll see if it works in North Africa. I wish we would have stayed out of it. Link to comment
carlfense Posted March 30, 2011 Share Posted March 30, 2011 Several years ago it seemed like the right thing to get involved in Iraq. I was later proven wrong. That will happen when you are lied to by the US government. Those WMDs must have been there somewhere, right? Link to comment
walksalone Posted March 30, 2011 Author Share Posted March 30, 2011 Several years ago it seemed like the right thing to get involved in Iraq. I was later proven wrong. That will happen when you are lied to by the US government. Those WMDs must have been there somewhere, right? WMD's or not, Iraq was gonna happen sooner or later. Somebody in the U.N. woulda got their panties in a twist, and that woulda happened anyway. I'm not condoning the war in Iraq, because it could have waited. Fighting a war on two fronts (Iraq, Afganistan) is a good way to get your ass handed to you. Link to comment
carlfense Posted March 30, 2011 Share Posted March 30, 2011 Several years ago it seemed like the right thing to get involved in Iraq. I was later proven wrong. That will happen when you are lied to by the US government. Those WMDs must have been there somewhere, right? WMD's or not, Iraq was gonna happen sooner or later. Somebody in the U.N. woulda got their panties in a twist, and that woulda happened anyway. I'm not condoning the war in Iraq, because it could have waited. Fighting a war on two fronts (Iraq, Afganistan) is a good way to get your ass handed to you. Maybe if we had waited until the UN decided something had to be done we wouldn't be bearing the trillion+ dollar bill by ourselves. Link to comment
carlfense Posted March 30, 2011 Share Posted March 30, 2011 I'd just like to know why we haven't heard from Michael Moore, Susan Surandon, Dixie Chicks, janeane garofalo etc? Why is there no issues with Libya? Didn't Sadam gas and strike fear in his people? Several years ago it seemed like the right thing to get involved in Iraq. I was later proven wrong. I'm just as fascinated by the conservative commentators who suggested that disagreeing with the Iraq and Afghanistan wars was tantamount to treason . . . who are now attacking Obama for this Libya action. Or Newt Gingrich, who was for the no fly zone before he was against it. (For the record, I'm against Libya, Iraq AND Afghanistan.) Link to comment
strigori Posted March 30, 2011 Share Posted March 30, 2011 We have had involvement in Libya mainly because of NATO. NATO voted to impose a no fly zone, so we help out. The republican hypocrisy around it though is amusing. Before the fighter and missile involvement they were criticizing how Obama wasnt doing anything and he was taking too long to push a no fly zone, now they all flip 180 and blast him for getting involved. I think if Obama were to say it was a raining outside most of the republicans would stand up and yell "Lies, its sunny out" Link to comment
AR Husker Fan Posted March 31, 2011 Share Posted March 31, 2011 While it hasn't been dwelt on by the media overmuch, the NATO push came about due to concerns expressed by Libya's neighboring countries. They feared destabilization in Libya - even more, they feared that Gadaffi's actions would result in hordes of Libyans pouring across the boarders into their countries. You might recall that some middle eastern countries were reported to have pleaded for western intervention but later pulled back - which is typical for that region - in an effort to hedge their bets. Link to comment
knapplc Posted March 31, 2011 Share Posted March 31, 2011 I have family in France, and they're telling me this was largely a French situation. The French have had interests in Libya for over a century, and while they don't get the majority of their oil from Libya, it's a source of minerals for the French. This is all the talk in Paris, especially how hypocritical the French are being by throwing their weight around with Libya after condemning the US for attacking Iraq. What a difference a few years makes, huh? Link to comment
krill Posted April 2, 2011 Share Posted April 2, 2011 I have family in France, and they're telling me this was largely a French situation. The French have had interests in Libya for over a century, and while they don't get the majority of their oil from Libya, it's a source of minerals for the French. This is all the talk in Paris, especially how hypocritical the French are being by throwing their weight around with Libya after condemning the US for attacking Iraq. What a difference a few years makes, huh? For whatever reason there's a widespread notion in the US that France is the first to back down from a fight when it's really been quite the opposite in the post war era. Algeria, Egypt, Vietnam and a whole slew of minor interventions and peacekeeping operations in western Africa. France was also the first security council member to propose a rapid military intervention in Kuwait to expel Iraqi army. Why they didn't join the so called coalition of the willing to invade Iraq is complicated. Like the US, France doesn't respond well to diplomatic badgering and threats. Their intelligence agency also knew from the onset that the NIE and Powell's UN presentation was a sham; so did the British for that matter but they still went along and look where that got them. In my opinion that Obama wanted to avoid being dragged into Libya but underestimated how quickly the war drums would start beating in Europe. It shocked me how quickly people here wanted to jump in too, as though every intervention in South American, African and Middle Eastern civil wars has ended with the desired result. They have all ended disastrously with long lasting consequences. So here we are engaged in another civil war, in a country with zero civil institutions praying that the rebels will win and miraculously establish a functional, secular government. What's likely to happen in Libya, and Egypt / Syria / Yemen for that matter is very weak democracies like Pakistan that are plagued by election fraud and massive corruption from the onset and then under constant duress from militant Islamic groups and / or military coups. Link to comment
walksalone Posted April 14, 2011 Author Share Posted April 14, 2011 Being stationed in Europe, I quickly found out what NATO really means... Not Able To Organize I had one of these political geniuses tell me that we were there so that civilians wouldn't be killed. Why is it then, that all these civilans seems to have pickups with heavy machineguns or rocket launchers in the back... Can't we just let them rub themselves out. Link to comment
It'sNotAFakeID Posted April 19, 2011 Share Posted April 19, 2011 I guess we're not happy unless we can police the entire world and put them under our thumb...I can see why some foreign countries don't like us...I can also see why a lot of people in our own country don't like us. As for fighting a war on two fronts...look what it did for Germany in WWII. Hitler made a mistake when he decided to attack the Soviet Union Link to comment
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