Are we stupid? No, seriously...
I'll be the first one to admit that Moammar Qaddafi is a bad guy. Probably a really, really bad guy. But we're going to establish a "no-fly" zone over a country that hasn't fielded a reasonably decent plane in fifteen years? Who's doing most of the fighting on the ground?
ON THE FUCKING GROUND
No-fly what? A tank? A Howitzer? What are we thinking? What are we telling them not to fly in a country with no particular air force? Yeah, I know the Syrians are helping out, but I get the impression that most of the attacks on civilians have been ground attacks, low-flying helicopters and snipers.
And the ultimate aim of this little not-quite-a-bombing-run? "Humanitarian effort."
We're lobbing cruise missiles into the general area of people. That's only humanitarian if you don't consider the folks being maimed, injured or killed by the excess shrapnel to be human. Only the folks who are not getting attacked by Qaddafi are going to be missed by all this humanitarian shrapnel.
One step over the line. All Obama has to do now is start eviscerating puppies, and perhaps a lot of Democrats will finally admit that he's a Republican.
We are currently involved in two dipshit wars in the Middle East, and now we've decided to throw our hand in on a third. After going on and on about not being the world's police force, what are we trying to do with Qaddafi? Spank him? Make him want to give up power, I suppose, but you can only do that by convincing a patently insane person to do the sane thing. He's not going to; he's going to keep going on and on and on until he and his family are in front of a firing squad or a beheading squad (or whatever culturally appropriate method is used for executing people in Libya), or safely whisked away to some third-party country that doesn't mind a batshit weirdo with the Russian "nurse" and a truly splendiferous wardrobe taking up space in some of their better real estate for the rest of his life.
I welcome Middle Eastern countries trying to shed themselves of the imperialist nutjobs we've either aided covertly or installed overtly, in order to have a better or certainly a different country for their futures. I seem to remember when we were always talking about exporting democracy as if an idea could be sent to other countries and look just like our version of it. Which is nonsense on its face, because we can't even export soda without screwing up the slogan: (US English) "Coke is Life!"; (Mandarin) "Coke Brings Your Ancestors Back from the Dead!". See? Or when a certain famous software company started showing its face in Beijing on the sides of buses, and everyone started laughing at any company that would call itself "Very Small and Soft."
So the fact that Egypt is tired of its dictator makes sense, and they've de-installed him in favor of something else. Hopefully, when they finally decide on who the something is going to be, they will also abide by whatever treaties we may have signed with the previous nutjob, and not oppress their own people all over again, thus becoming the next thing the folks in Egypt have to swarm out onto the streets to protest - two years from now. Stability is usually better than instability, even if the folks running things aren't perfect.
But Libya? Libya is dealing with a guy who has no compunction about using deadly force against an unarmed foe, who doesn't entirely object to "collateral damage" and who will put people in prison without trial for the rest of their lives.
And then of course, there's Qaddafi.
I'll be the first one to admit that Moammar Qaddafi is a bad guy. Probably a really, really bad guy. But we're going to establish a "no-fly" zone over a country that hasn't fielded a reasonably decent plane in fifteen years? Who's doing most of the fighting on the ground?
ON THE FUCKING GROUND
No-fly what? A tank? A Howitzer? What are we thinking? What are we telling them not to fly in a country with no particular air force? Yeah, I know the Syrians are helping out, but I get the impression that most of the attacks on civilians have been ground attacks, low-flying helicopters and snipers.
And the ultimate aim of this little not-quite-a-bombing-run? "Humanitarian effort."
We're lobbing cruise missiles into the general area of people. That's only humanitarian if you don't consider the folks being maimed, injured or killed by the excess shrapnel to be human. Only the folks who are not getting attacked by Qaddafi are going to be missed by all this humanitarian shrapnel.
One step over the line. All Obama has to do now is start eviscerating puppies, and perhaps a lot of Democrats will finally admit that he's a Republican.
We are currently involved in two dipshit wars in the Middle East, and now we've decided to throw our hand in on a third. After going on and on about not being the world's police force, what are we trying to do with Qaddafi? Spank him? Make him want to give up power, I suppose, but you can only do that by convincing a patently insane person to do the sane thing. He's not going to; he's going to keep going on and on and on until he and his family are in front of a firing squad or a beheading squad (or whatever culturally appropriate method is used for executing people in Libya), or safely whisked away to some third-party country that doesn't mind a batshit weirdo with the Russian "nurse" and a truly splendiferous wardrobe taking up space in some of their better real estate for the rest of his life.
I welcome Middle Eastern countries trying to shed themselves of the imperialist nutjobs we've either aided covertly or installed overtly, in order to have a better or certainly a different country for their futures. I seem to remember when we were always talking about exporting democracy as if an idea could be sent to other countries and look just like our version of it. Which is nonsense on its face, because we can't even export soda without screwing up the slogan: (US English) "Coke is Life!"; (Mandarin) "Coke Brings Your Ancestors Back from the Dead!". See? Or when a certain famous software company started showing its face in Beijing on the sides of buses, and everyone started laughing at any company that would call itself "Very Small and Soft."
So the fact that Egypt is tired of its dictator makes sense, and they've de-installed him in favor of something else. Hopefully, when they finally decide on who the something is going to be, they will also abide by whatever treaties we may have signed with the previous nutjob, and not oppress their own people all over again, thus becoming the next thing the folks in Egypt have to swarm out onto the streets to protest - two years from now. Stability is usually better than instability, even if the folks running things aren't perfect.
But Libya? Libya is dealing with a guy who has no compunction about using deadly force against an unarmed foe, who doesn't entirely object to "collateral damage" and who will put people in prison without trial for the rest of their lives.
And then of course, there's Qaddafi.
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