Some of my liberal friends are debating if not straight out opposing our involvement in Libya and Conservative friends are torn between outright Obama-inspired denunciation of the war and rah-rah cheer leading that is so characteristic of "national defense" conservatives.
Even worse, some of the more thoughtful liberal sites on the web are telling us that there is great confusion on the part of our administration as well as that of our allies as to who is supposed to run this show, what the objective of the show really is, and, most importantly, how it will end. There is criticism of the Obama Administration in not being decisive in a timely manner as well as being militarily incompetent also. I concede that both criticisms have merit.
I've only heard two view points in justification of our involvement which impress me.
First, and probably most important, is that Ghaddifi (spelling of his name seems to be free-form art among the media)was slaughtering his own people. I don't particularly care WHO'S people they were, the wholesale murder of any group of people is unacceptable and should be stopped and an international coalition appears to be the only legitimate source of military muscle to do it.
In defense of this first point, I will only briefly mention that after WWII there was a lot of finger-pointing taking place over allegations that both the United States and her Allies knew of the genocide against Jews taking place in Eastern Europe by the Nazi regime and yet the Allies and United States did not intercede until their personal interests were attacked. From that point on prevention of genocide, or prevention of wholesale slaughter of a distinct population has been seen as a legitimate reason for intervention...preferably with an international coalition. As truly objectionable as any war is, this is about as close as one could come to one of St Augustine's "just wars".
The other reason was a rather strange one and new to me. I'm not sure what to label it but it had to do with using Ghaddifi as an "object lesson" in the middle east. It goes something like this: We are experiencing the "Arab Spring". A time when rank and file Arabs of many different nations find their way to overthrow the hierarchical rulers who have oppressed and robbed them for years and set up their own forms of governments (hopefully democratic). I subscribe to the idea that the International Community should demonstrate that brutal crackdowns resembling wholesale murder will not be tolerated. And I also acknowledge the slippery slope that develops from such a policy.
Let's just hope Obama can pull this off and get us out quickly.
