A government who shoots peaceful protesters & starts killing defectors of it's own military for not killing civilians. That's why there is a "rebel" group, essentially they are protesters who have armed themselves against an overly aggressive government.
Well, I am not sure I'd align myself entirely with the democrats. Not all military actions are the same, done for the same reasons or have the same outcomes. Acting like missile strikes while enforcing a UN no-fly zone is similar to a declaration of war & occupation that includes a ground invasion on another country is silly.
Sadam bulldozed between 4000 and 5000 entire villages. He mass murdered 300,000+ of his people when they sought independence. You asked the question, but you don't like the answer (the truth). And if you think his past actions didn't deter many from trying again in 1991 when GHW Bush called for the Iraqi people to overthrow Saddam, think again. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_uprisings_in_Iraq The revolt was fueled by the perception that the power of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was vulnerable at the time; as well as by heavily fueled anger at government repression and the devastation wrought by two wars in a decade, the Iran-Iraq War and the Gulf War. United States also played a role in encouraging the uprisings, which were then controversially not aided by the U.S. forces present on Iraqi soil. ... During the few weeks of unrest tens of thousands of people were killed. Many more died during the following months, while nearly two million Iraqis fled for their lives. In the aftermath, the government intensified the forced relocating of Marsh Arabs and the draining of the Iraqi marshlands, while the Allies established the Iraqi no-fly zones.
ROFL.... Has the Lib government gassed their people yet? As bad as things are in Libya right now, it pales by comparison to the things that Saddam did to his people, so why don't you take a closer look at your argument. Are you in favor of this because it's the right thing to do or are you in favor of this because it's your Messiah?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world...n-libya/2011/03/20/AB1pSg1_story.html?hpid=z3 Arab League condemns broad bombing campaign in Libya CAIRO—The Arab League secretary general, Amr Moussa, deplored the broad scope of the U.S.-European bombing campaign in Libya and said Sunday that he would call a league meeting to reconsider Arab approval of the Western military intervention. Moussa said the Arab League’s approval of a no-fly zone on March 12 was based on a desire to prevent Moammar Gaddafi’s air force from attacking civilians and was not designed to endorse the intense bombing and missile attacks — including on Tripoli, the capital, and on Libyan ground forces — whose images have filled Arab television screens for two days. “What is happening in Libya differs from the aim of imposing a no-fly zone,” he said in a statement on the official Middle East News Agency. “And what we want is the protection of civilians and not the shelling of more civilians.”
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/storie...ME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2011-03-19-18-32-15 Anti-war protesters arrested near White House WASHINGTON (AP) -- More than 100 anti-war protesters, including the man who leaked the Pentagon Papers, were arrested outside the White House in demonstrations marking the eighth anniversary of the U.S.-led war in Iraq. The protesters, some shouting anti-war slogans and singing "We Shall Not Be Moved," were arrested Saturday after ignoring orders to move away from the gates of the White House. The demonstrators cheered loudly as Daniel Ellsberg, the former military analyst who in 1971 leaked the Pentagon's secret history of the Vietnam War that was later published in major newspapers, was arrested and led away by police. In New York City, about 80 protesters gathered near the U.S. military recruiting center in Times Square, chanting "No to war" and carrying banners that read, "I am not paying for war" and "Butter not guns." Similar protests marking the start of the Iraq war also were organized Saturday in San Francisco, Chicago and other cities.
Who is stating that Saddam wasn't a terrible person? While Saddam was terrible, there are many groups within Iraq who would like to kill each other. There is no guarantee that a Saddam-less Iraq would have been less bloody. We could hum and hah, all day long about possible outcomes and what could have been done when & where - in the past. Should we have intervened and helped the Iraqi people who were fighting against Saddam in the past? Perhaps so. That doesn't necessarily have bearing on the conditions that surrounded Iraq in 2003 when the US invaded or the conditions surrounding Libya in 2011. Yes, I am aware of this too. This was not an "organic" uprising, it resulted from US intervention. Perhaps the US should have monopolized on it, but I believe the the mentality of military leaders & George Bush Sr at the time was that Iraq was no cakewalk & could turn into a Vietnam. Look how easy it has been to train the Iraqi Army to defend itself and to install a new functioning government. It was a dick move by Bush Sr though.
So is Gaddifi a nice guy? Does it really matter if Gaddafi gassed his own people or not? It has little to do with which guy was more ruthless & more to do with the sustainability of the outcome from our efforts. Seriously?
Libya is responding to insurgents exactly the same way our DHS has plans to deal with us if/when we get uncomfortable enough to revolt.
We shouldn't be bombing. There is no need for us if the Euros are so eager to do it. We shouldn't have gone into Iraq either, and we should have only done a quick Afghan invasion and kept the huge progress we made at the beginning. Yet instead, W decided to change his focus to Iraq and let Afghanistan spiral out of control which is where it is now, where the only thing to do is pull out.
Obama is finding out, like Presidents before him, that it's easy to espouse constitutional opinions when you're not President to criticize a standing President, but yet another to be that man in the role. I'll cut him some slack here.
Big Bush's plan failed. He planned to weaken Iraq in Kuwait, then fan revolution within Iraq. As you hinted, the U.S. caused thousands to be killed in a failed insurrection. A decade later, Little Bush used the American-caused killings as one of the excuses to attack again. Another excuse was WMDs, which of course, Reagan had sold to Iraq so they could exterminate Iranians. The U.S. promotes mass killings, then uses them as an excuse to start more wars. Then in the American sanctions, a half-milllion Iraqi children died from lack of medical supplies. Then in the unprovoked American attack by Little Bush, many hundreds of thousands of Iraqis died. But this was good, because Saddam was a bad guy for doing our bidding and killing people...
Thanks for bringing that to my attention. That's info kept secret even on MSNBC, which like Fox, parrots the line that the Arab League wants this. Secretary Gates warned a week ago that enforcing a no-fly zone would mean putting troops on the ground. Obama said Britain and France can do the latter, not us. After receiving their bribes from Britain and France, the Arab League pretends for internal consumption to be surprised that the U.S. is massively bombing big city civilians. But the League knew from Gates that this long multi-year war wouldn't be confined to troops out in the desert between cities. I expect Obama to mostly get out of this war within a week. He knows 2 extremely long wars have already irretrievably destroyed the economy. I expect Khadaffi to remain in power over his half of Libya. Libyans in the re-colonized side like him, but those who say so will be killed under the colonial flag funded by Britain and France. The colonial powers will allow a liberal lifestyle for everyone till they consolidate power and get that oil money they got before Khadaffi. Then the torture asylums open up, as the U.S. did in Iraq and Afghanistan. Who are the rebels, anyway? Foreign mercenaries? The news media is always careful not to call them Libyans.
Forensics done on soil samples from places where Saddam gassed his own people show the gas was mustard gas of the variety created by the Germans. The US didn't sell Saddam the WMDs he used against Iran or his own people. In fact, the Riegle Report mentions all kinds of bad things we sold to Saddam, but poison gas wasn't even mentioned - biological agents were mentioned, but those were dual use (e.g. for research by Iraqi universities). You may remember our combat with Iraq. In the first Gulf War, Iraqi pilots flew their MIG fighters to Iran to seek safe haven. The missiles launched against Israel were SCUDs. Heck, the guns the Iraqis used were AK-47s. Those aren't US weapons.
Does the UN now supercede our own Congress? I must have missed that one. Otherwise, W should have just bombed the shit out of Iraq once UN Res. 1441 passed the UNSC on a 15-0 vote. I'll never understand a partisan mind. This Libyan massacre by US bombs under a Democratic President, yet supported by liberal/anti-war people, baffles me.
