I was scrolling to the bottom of the page just now, when it occurred to me that this belief deserved even more slamming.
At the precise same time as the Libya intervention, France engaged in armed intervention on behalf of the Muslim Ouattara against the Christian Gbagbo in the Côte d’Ivoire. The US has troops all over, including in the middle of that often-violent standoff between the Koreas and in various stuff in Latin America on and off for the last century. The UK has had troops in Sierra Leone in the last decade. France sent troops to Christian Rwanda (albeit too late and in the wrong role). And, of course, there was that “different phenomenon” in the Balkans, where “Christendom” intervened mostly on behalf of Muslims against ethnic cleansing by other Christians. A much more convincing pattern is that intervention depends on perceived stake in the country* and ease of engagement. There is simply no empirical backing for your claims.
To John Mace, I think the West actually has been surprised at how poorly the Libyan rebels have fared. They clearly have manpower, just not the quality manpower. ISTM that France et al. originally were assuming air strikes would eliminate Qaddafi’s advantage and make it so clear that he would fall in the end that his supporters would abandon him and the regime would collapse in on itself. Since that hasn’t happened, they keep raising the stakes to make it clear the winner will definitely be the rebels, no matter what happens.
To RedFury, the continued siege on Misurata acts as a sufficient justification for continued attacks on the government. It may or may not be what was intended, but really all NATO needs is permissibility, not a mandate. The current troops by any straight reading are not an “occupation” force, so that clause is no barrier either.
All that said, it would be damned nice of the Qaddafi regime to topple, already!
EATA: I forgot to respond to the later portion of Commissar’s post, but I love how all his examples of Marxist predictions happening… haven’t actually happened.
*Interestingly, the two big stakes seem to be geography and colonial history/cultural links. Most of these countries are of so little material interest to the world at large that you really can’t justify intervention on material grounds. If you use these factors, you can explain Australia in Timor-Leste, France in Rwanda (ish) and Côte D’Ivoire, the US in Latin America, NATO in the Balkans,…