-As Atrios says, it's good that wars are always free; otherwise our current budget crisis might put a crimp in any plans to wage war in Libya.
-Let's just say that I share John's skepticism about whether A) the Arab League will do jack shit about Libya and B) how successful NATO will be in convincing the rest of the Arab world that waging war on Libya isn't yet another example of Western imperialism.
-Do the rebels want us there? Do we know what their plans are? Will we have to occupy the country for the indefinite future? I remember when our involvement in Afghanistan was supposed to be just a combination of hunting down bin Laden and helping out the Northern Alliance, then getting out of the way. Of course, George Bush intentionally fucked up the hunt for bin Laden, but we were still supposed to just be the Northern Alliance's assistants. What's the situation in Libya? Do they even have that level of organization?
-I can't imagine that any Libyan of moderate awareness would want the USA to get involved after watching the disasters we've created in Iraq and Afghanistan. It's not like we've suddenly figured out how to occupy a country without abusing its population or bombing wedding parties.
-Ultimately, the responsibility for the Libyan rebels' success or failure needs to rest with the rebels themselves. Sometimes these things work out, and sometimes they don't. The world can be a shitty place, but I don't believe that it is the USA's responsibility to go stampeding in wherever people start to stand up to a horrible leader. Partly this is because of how many horrible leaders we have installed and continue to support against their people, and partly because it just isn't possible for outsiders to impose a suddenly free, democratic society by dropping bombs and shooting people with rifles.
It's not just that it's hard to create a functional, stable society in which the rule of law is universally applied, all citizens have a wide variety of personal freedoms and rights, and the government is actually elected by and accountable to the citizenry. It's not that it's especially hard to create that type of situation from outside, or that it's even harder to do it by destroying the nation's infrastructure and killing a not-insignificant number of the population.
No, the real issue is that we have yet to create that type of society here, in the USA. We're trying to export a system we refuse to fully implement for ourselves.
There's a lot to admire and love in America, and lot for which I am grateful. But the plain truth of the matter is that many things for which I am grateful are not experienced by people who were not born a male in a white, middle class family like I was. No nation that allows citizens to be routined subjected to electrical torture without any formal charges ever being brought against them, even at times without any suspicion that they were breaking any law, is not a nation that can claim much moral high ground.
No nation that incarcerates and puts to death black males at the rate we do can claim a high morality. No nation that allows so many of its citizens to go hungry every day, that is so closely connected to despicable, murderous regimes like the House of Saud or the 'Communist' dictators running China can claim the level of freedom we like to think we enjoy.
America has the most potential of any nation to be truly great. I firmly believe that. There have been many times at which we have lived up to that potential, but we have not yet reached the end of it. We have not yet created a nation that is in line with our self-assesment. Rather than trying to impose a system we ourselves have failed to fully achieve - and especially rather than trying to do it by dropping bombs and shooting people - our goal should be to export the potential for greatness.
I suffer no illusion that I know how to do that. But I do know that we've been trying, and failing, at the other method long enough to more than satisfy the popular definition of insanity.
