And, the Union saved, and the slaves freed. Well worth it. And, no, the ACW did not “earn the enmity” of Britain.
:dubious: And when exactly did it end, pray tell?
And reconstruction and Black Codes. With a price tag of half of a million dead. We’re looking back at a war fought almost 150 years ago; it’s easy to call it well worth it from this prospective. Judging it from two years after the fact it’s easier to see it as having been a senseless bloodbath than something emphatically ‘well worth it’, particularly when odds were you’d be related to at least one of those half million dead.
Considering the alternative and where we’d be now if the war had gone the other way, yes, well worth it.
I repeat.
Wasn’t the Revolution more civil than the Civil War?
For the losers, the war is never worth it.
For the winners ??? It depends on what the alternatives were.
Let’s take the American Civil War. If the war war was avaoided by some compromise that resulted in the end of slavery within a few years, then the war certainly wasn’t worth it. If the war was avoided by the North allowing the South to secede and retain slavery for another century or so, then the war was worth it.
But I agree with others. It’s often not clear at the start of a war whether the war will be worth it, and sometimes not clear aftward either.
To nitpick, the Revolution was also a Civil War since both sides were British. 
It was also a civil war within the colonies, Patriots v. Loyalists.
If I was in charge, I wouldn’t renew it for another season.
Sorry, but I’m going to have to reject your nitpick. The American Civil War and the American Revolution are both proper names for distinct military conflicts. The fact that they both could be termed either a civil war or a revolution is irrelevant. England has had any number of internecine struggles, but if you talk about the English Civil War, you’re specifically talking about the conflict that happened between 1642 and 1651.
What’s so great about democracy? 50 million psychos who are “brutal, detached from reality, possibly crazy, and astonishingly arrogant even for a despot” running the country? Democracy is not better than any other form of government.
The US should never have got involved in it.
It certainly has a much better performance record.
A lot of people in Libya and the Middle East are actively fighting and *dying *for secular democracy.
Amen to that
And a helluva lot more are fighting a helluva lot more effectively against it. There’s no ‘secular democratic’ opposition effectively in the field in Syria or Iraq. And no ‘democratic’ one in Egypt where the army have wound the clock right back to the secular pseudo-democratic military dictatorship they had in the first place.
And in Libya we don’t know what lunatic militia will end up holding onto power except we can safely say neither of the two main ones fighting it out are in the slightest bit interested in secular democracy.
I can’t pretend to be an expert on Syria, Iraq or Egypt, so I won’t attempt to answer those points. However as this thread is about the Libyan Revolution and as I’m Libyan, I can feel fairly confident in saying that the Libyan people don’t want *any *“lunatic militias” in power. They are sick to death of them and of the"Islamist" groups who are trying to take over the country and impose their own brand of brutality on it, and they certainly don’t want a theocracy. Believe me when I tell you that while Libyans value their identity as Muslims, it is only those self-same lunatic militias that actually want the country to be run according to Sharia Law or their interpretation of it. Secular democracy, stability and above all SAFETY is exactly what Libyans are fighting for. unfortunately it seems that the government is too toothless, corrupt or unwilling to provide any of these things, so Libyans are incredibly frustrated and it seems that General Haftar is indeed indicative of that desire to roll up their sleeves and “clean house”.
Had Gaddafi and his sons stepped down without resorting violence, the civil war and subsequent militias and violence would not have occurred. Gaddafi is to blame for the most part.
Tyrants is tyrants, and you got to make allowances. Take 'em all around, they’re a pretty ornery lot. It’s the way they’re raised.
I’m sure you’re right but Libya doesn’t look like a place where people get any say unless they are part of a sizeable and well-armed group. I really hope you all get your wish though.
Thanks for your good wishes - I really mean that.
At the moment,you’re absolutely right. The only people getting what they want right now are the frothing crazies with guns, and life just isn’t safe for regular folks. However that’s exactly what we’re fighting to change. And despite the chaos happening right now, I think a nation that’s free of multiple weekly car-bombings, kidnappings and drive-by shootings of police and military personnel is something worth fighting for.
So in answer to the OP, yes I think it will be worth it. It’s heartbreaking to see the fighting that’s happening now, but in the end, if we end up with a safe and stable democracy where regular people can vote and have a voice, then I think it will have been worth it.