The U.S. has participated in a policing operation attacking Libya along with
armed forces from other members of the international community.
The ostensible purpose is to stop Qaddafi from further attacks on the rebels.
My memory contains the results of other such police actions, which began
modestly and led to entanglements in large scale wars, with thousands of casualties on all sides, and outcomes far from what was intended. Think of Bosnia, Iraq, Somalia. Afghanistan.
The basic problem in such police actions are the unknowns. The attackers know their purpose and intent. They do not know how the attacked party will respond. Usually the response is different than expected, and the operation
leads into unexpected directions, requiring further and escalated attacks, provoking ever more violent responses. And so the waltz of war develops its
own momentum and we are once again embroiled in a foreign adventure
which drains our scarce resources. Let us hope for a different outcome on this one.
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2 comments:
Your fears match mine. The U.S. is ill prepared to take on military activity on yet another front but our habit of assuming the role of big brother is in our genes, a defect we need to correct ASAP.
Even though we have decades of experience attempting to correct what we see as defects in Muslim culture we still refuse to recognize their penchant for chaos and their abhorrence of Western ideas. U.K. and U.S. involvement will certainly be blamed when this current activity yields thousands more lost lives and the friction between the ideologies will only increase. Other U.N. participants will largely escape the backlash because they are seen as little more than puppets of U.S. financial pressures.
This, particular involvement has been long over-due because the tyrannical reign of the Qaddafa has been an abomination for half a century but if/when Muammar Gaddafi is gone there is certain to be another of his ilk ready to take his place. We have only to review history of the Barbary Coast to envision what will be the future.
Lybia is oil,oil, oil. The Opec countries will not allow the Us and other European nations to get theirr hands in the well.
Jacquesmaxx
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