Sander said:
SuAside said:
Well, a minority started an armed uprising against the standing regime (which you know, has an army).
I'm not sure it's a minority, actually. Well, I'm pretty sure the actual fighters are a minority. But I don't know if support for them isn't present among a majority of the population, and it is at least present among a large part of the population.
No one actually knows. That's just it. We artificially supported the rebels under the guise of a no-fly zone to protect civilians and whatnot.
What actually happened is that we bombed all tanks nearing the rebel strongholds. Tanks that had no anti-air capability to speak of. We also bombed Kadhaffi's command structure and so on. This is not actually required for the stated objectives. We're the legitimacy in that?
So don't call it a no-fly zone. It's not. It's military backing of the rebel faction. Which is fine in itself, as long as you don't prance around the issue. It's no wonder the arab league has second thoughts...
Sander said:
Which makes your argument about exporting democracy and whatnot superfluous. This isn't the US invading Iraq just because, this is the UN and NATO aiding already established rebels.
The NATO is actually not being used. Only NATO capability is used.
And the UN? The UN would likely be one of the only supposedly legitimate organizations to be able to mandate an intervention. It did not send in blue helmets however.
Are we going to do the same for any other country? Will we declare a no-fly zone over Tibet when the next uprising comes? Will we support a religious uprising in Pakistan that topples the current regime?
Of course not. Yet, the damage done would likely be the same as what good ol' Kadhaffi would've done to his own people...
We didn't support the Nepalese uprising either, did we? Why aren't we mopping up in Birma/Myanmar?
Yes, not acting is often horrible, but we've done it so many times before. Why did we act now in particular? What gives us the right to intervene when it's not even clear if the rebels aren't a minority in the country?
Ilosar said:
Yeah, what's this about exporting democracy? A dictator in place for four decades attacks him own population with airplanes. Regardless of your feelings towards NATO, I simply cannot fathom how trying to stop him would be a bad thing in the long run. If he is left unchecked, there will be hell to pay for a lot of people, you don't cross madmen like that with no repercussions.
I feel very strongly PRO-NATO for the record btw. It's one of the most useful military organizations in the world. But again: NATO isn't actually involved at this stage, only member states, which is very different.
But as to why I feel bad about it? We are creating power vacuums in the region. In countries where the only real organized opposition is usually supporting islamic extremists (openly or overtly).
Believe it or not, but Libya was a great ally to the US in the war on terrorism (in the past decade). Navy SEALs, Green Berrets and British SAS trained Libyan anti-terrorist teams.
Libya also had an arrest warrant out for Osama Bin Laden years before 9/11 and they had warned the West multiple times of the dangers he posed.
Much like in Saddam's Iraq, in Kadhaffi's Libya the extremist religious sects were fairly well under control and kept tabs on as they posed a threat to the powerstructure already in place (this was obviously not always the case, as Kadhaffi long supported extremists, but this changed). Remove this powerstructure and you now have a bigass playing field that is impossible to control for the fledgling state.
In time, previously strong and western-minded countries like Egypt might fall into Talibanesque conditions, and this through democratic means... It's hard to believe, but not impossible. Libya can be manipulated in the same way. You can better believe that muslim extremists will be pumping a lot of money in reconstructing the country when the time comes, thus gaining favor and political power over time.
It scares me, because this scenario is not unlikely in a lot of other countries, such as Yemen (which is already far more extreme & religious than both Egypt and Libya). Where is our support for Yemen's uprising? Or Bahrein's? Those are all out western allies... And we're not going to lift a finger because of it. Where is your democracy and freedom there?
To top it all off, most if not all countries participating have internal political reasons to attack Libya & Kadhaffi. Especially France...
It leaves me with a bitter taste in my mouth. Doing nothing would likely have resulted in wholesale slaughter, yes. But I'm not convinced this is going to be much better for them in the short term (they might still get slaughtered) and for us in the long term (we might be creating our own future enemies).
