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« Not that we'd actually want them to act on this | Main | Too late »

Conflicting thoughts on Libya

Pros:

  • I sure felt bad/frustrated/angered when the protests in Libya weren't going the way they were going in Egypt and Tunisia. I didn't want to see people slaughtered by a dictator and it's nice to think that we can help them.
  • We actually went to the UN and got approval for this. We're not "going it alone" or with a select group of allies. From an international law perspective, this is legal.

Cons:

  • This may seem like a technicality to some, but Congress did not authorize this military action. From a US Constitution point of view, this is not legal. Even Bush had authorization for the Iraq invasion. And what is really bewildering is i don't think there's any doubt that Congress would have approved this if Obama had called an emergency session. Whatever you think about the current situation, this makes it a lot easier for a President to unilaterally declare war in the future.
  • We're supposed to be "broke" to the point where we're cutting people's pensions and talking about cutting off unemployment support and reducing social security benefits. How can we afford this war? (I know the answer - we're not really broke - but the obvious hypocrisy is frustrating.)
  • By getting involved, we provide ammunition to radical groups who'd like to turn this into a US vs. Islam thing. Bush's endorsement of the Iranian revolution provided the "proof" the Iranian government needed to say that the protests were just a front for a US takeover.
  • We've already bombed civilians; the further this goes on, the worse it will be. And most analysts seem to think that we're going to have to get involved in a ground war if we're going to accomplish anything.
  • Why Libya and not Yemen or Bahrain where we've also seen brutality from the authorities against the protesters? Why not in the Ivory Coast which isn't related to this wave of Middle-Eastern protests but where there's a much larger humanitarian crisis going on?

Don't think that because i listed the Cons second that i give them more weight. That first bullet under Pros is a big one, and possibly outweighs all of the others put together. But there's a lot not to like about this.

By fnord12 | March 21, 2011, 9:58 AM | Liberal Outrage