Tunesia, Egyt and now Yemen: a domino effect in the Middle East?

I agree but I don't see it happening on a large scale. Right now we are dealing with enough without going back and investigating and actually proving if the misstatements, omissions and sometimes outright untruths in order to invade Iraq amounted to war crimes. Also, the UN would have to get involved to prove the US broke international laws when and I just don't see those countries risking so much and spending energy on it when there are problems right now to deal with.

However, what I meant by "owning it" was referring to the Colin Powell quote "you broke it, you own it." The very last thing we need in the US is to give any kind of impression we are set to own another country rich with oil resources. It needs to be a more collective effort(if one is made), with the Libyan rebels calling all the shots once Qaddafi is gone. Also, every time there is war there is always civilian casualties, so that is another worry and reason why there should caution right now.





source

That may be true of Dys, but I have my doubts about Olga.

Why don't you be the gentlemen you try to project your self to be and get off her back? You are acting the prick.

Not at all, though your opinion is your own.

She appears to believe that a perfection that does not exist should actually be achieved by others, and has been very intolerant of those who act but fail to achieve it - despite offering no, even remotely feasible, way of doing so...

Gob advances the perfect excuse for war criminals and all manner of felon.

Probably the same guy who at Sunday mass goes thru all the usual rituals, gladhands the priest and fellow parishioners and believes himself blessed.

But this is a public debate revelette. What George or myself say about Olga is unlikely to have any effect on her. But it might have an effect on viewers here who have a tendency to become like Olga. It is after all an attractive proposition to pose as saintly whilst sat watching TV munching on choc-chocs. Without some opposition it could easily catch on and that wouldn't be very good.

Have you seen Saif in the back of the car with the BBC's Lisa Holland? Why is it not even considered that Gadaffi might have the nerve to kill a few now in order to save thousands in the future? None of us are fortune tellers and he knows Libya. We don't.

Not to worry; our superpower status is fast disappearing from our land as we fight wars in foreign countries, subsidize rich oil companies with over $90 billion in subsidies, kill unions, don't tax the rich who own over 80% of this countries wealth, and give billions away to other countries as our own infrastructure crumbles into useless condition.

It's only a matter of time. No federal, state, or local government understands fiscal responsibility; they only know how to spend money they don't have - and will never have. They're good at playing revenue games they know will never materialize. They sure know how to destroy a once great country.

The BBC website has a nifty, interactive set of maps up today. You can find it at "Key Maps and Video" and it was last updated a couple of hours ago.

CI thank you for posting this reality check. I'm on a short break from a project in Syria and only read the last couple of pages here but it's like reading some science-fiction version of alternative reality. You have a map, so do a few others here - but there's no way anyone advocating no-fly zones can possibly name the distance from Tobruk to Tripoli, or from either to the nearest naval air stations (in Sicily and in Crete), let alone name the serial numbers of the colonel's (and his tribe's, including the Croatian wife and her sons) assault helicopters. These helicopters can't be spotted from a sufficient distance if flying at low altitude - so taking out about a hundred old MIGs, and maybe 15 old Mirages, and taking out any number of (mobile!) SAM batteries is an opening move.

The man isn't as insane as anyone would have you believe - he's really had to face an al-Qaeda-backed uprising in Benghazi years ago, and he's prepared.

Never mind the BBC. Read the Islamic press, specifically Syria's and Iran's. Nobody - including the Libyan rebels - is calling for Western intervention.

The BBC maps say nothing about possible intervention. I think the notion has been slapped down in the U.S. and Europe as being a bad or really bad idea.

In your eagerness to absolve the voters of responsibility you have clean forgotten that the voters will only elect people who cannot prevent themselves spending money that they don't have.

Anyone eager to run a tight ship is simply unelectable. There is no point in people like that even going into politics.

For someone who has visited over 160 countries, lives in luxury in a $500, ooo house, crows about how well his investments are doing and is benefitting from advanced medical care, the remarks you make are ridiculous and especially as those trifles have been parleyed out of a seemingly very modest talent.

Absolving the voters, your neighbours and fellow A2kers, is, of course, very popular.

spendi, You're over-reaching; I never said the voters are absolved of anything! Where did you learn English?

If history is any clue, it's not only Americans who vote into office dummies, incompetents, and over-spenders.

You didn't need to say it outright. It was the implication.

Maps never do. The simple point to be understood here is that the potential beneficiaries of any such military intervention want nothing to do with it.

No disagreement from me, HS.

The so-called "implication" is already understood by most people, and you're the one who seems clueless.

I'm not sure that's entirely accurate.

From what I heard, he warned against underestimating what is involved in establishing a No-Fly zone.

I'm sure McCain is aware of what is involved, but I have my doubts about Kerry of Vietnam...the hypocritical bugger.

A recurring theme of this thread has been romanticism vs cynicism, fancy vs reality, optimism vs pessimism.

The problem I have with so many of the arguments being made in connection with this theme is that they are entirely inconsistent with prior expressed opinions, and situational to an extreme.

Intervene in Libya, but not Iraq, Mubarak was a tyrannical beast, but Chavez is a man of the people, Islamists are the bogeymen of the Middle East, but Right Wing Christians are perhaps the most serious threat facing democracy in the US.

I'm actually sympathetic to the notion that it's possible to change the world for the better, by simply bettering oneself each and every day, but that method of change won't save a single life in Libya, The Ivory Coast, Mexico, China, Uzbekistan or any other place where innocents are being killed by the corrupt and the power mad.

It's a very worthy path to take, and it can produce the desired effect, but not any time soon. Still, we are each only individuals and can, ultimately, only control our own actions.

So follow that path if you will, but pardon others if they don't want to wait for change at a glacial pace.

I am also very sympathetic to the hardcore cynics: The history of the world is something far different than the plot of Hoosiers, and for every uplifting event we gladly celebrate, there are a hundred horrid obscenities we would prefer to forget.

That sort of cynicism is paralysing though. Nothing works so why do anything?

I was in favor of the Iraq invasion, and I am in favor of intervention in Libya.

If you weren't and are not, that's perfectly fine, we may disagree but I appreciate consistency of thought. If you are for one but against the other, please spare me the specious arguments about how the two interventions are substantially different.

It seems to me that there are, fundamentally, three avenues for American foreign policy:

1) Consistent isolationism - no exceptions
2) Consistent intervention based on a set of fundamental principles and limited only by the extremity of price paid (We needn't commit suicide in a hopeless attempt to save Tibetians)
3) Real politik which puts the interests of the country above every other consideration.

I more inclined to #2, but I could live with the others if they were consistently applied.

Of course, though, they never will be, if for no other reason than the fact that we have periodic elections.

So I am left to advocating, and voting for candidates who I believe are inclined to #2...and castigating the inconsistent hypocrites.

No offense, Finn, but your numbering system reminds me of the old joke - one German, a scientist, two Germans, a brewery, three Germans, a world war