Assuming the US gets involved, whose job do you think it will be to rebuild the country after the civil war is over? The invasion of Iraq was an act of sheer idiocy, in part because the UN didn’t authorize it.
That doesn’t mean that when the UN does authorize things we have to get involved. Just that when it doesn’t, we usually shouldn’t.
If you read my post, you will note that I was responding to Sam Stone’s accusation of the United States being “AWOL,” “disengaged,” and strongly implying that the US is sandbagging other countries’ efforts to kick some ass.
I’m saying that if the US not rushing out to take the lead on this matter is of such a great operational concern for Canada and its six F-18s, then I am questioning what the hell good is it to have F-18s if it is too difficult to actually use them without US support.
Please keep in mind that I support the UN’s action, and think that the US SHOULD be engaged in Libya operations because it is the right thing to do. But I reject criticism of the US which seems to imply that we are somehow doing wrong to other countries who are more forward-leaning that the US is at this point.
No.
The US resisted it until yesterday, when it finally agreed to support such a resolution. Now that the resolution has gone through, countries like the UK and France have immediately committed air assets. I don’t know if the US has done or not.
It’s a no-fly zone. The resolution specifically prohibits any kind of occupation or invasion force.
Sure they can. The UK operated just fine in the Falklands, and is in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Yes, but that doesn’t mean one won’t be necessary. Maybe after the war a stable coalition forms capable of putting together a framework of government. Maybe it doesn’t, and Libya turns into Afghanistan or Somalia.
The UK operated just fine in the Falklands from aircraft carriers that are no longer in service. The UK has operated in Iraq and Afghanistan from friendly airbases. Have any of Libya’s neighbors offered to allow NATO forces to operate from their soil?
To be franck, what I find disturbing is that it didn’t interfer in some other places, like the ex-Yugoslavia and Rwanda.
Cyprus, southern France and the nato air bases in Sicily are great aircraft carriers thanks.
Not to mention France has an aircraft carrier there anyway.
You’re right about occupation or invasion, but wrong about it being only a no flight zone. In fact the resolution allows about anything to protect the civilian population, except except sending troops on the ground.
My understanding is that what is envisioned is basically a “no-move zone”. Land forces and ships (Libya has used her navy both in bombings and for landings) would be valid targets, AFAIK.
I don’t see “genocide” happening in Libya. Not to minimize the deaths and suffering there, but it’s not genocide.
The UN was slow to get involved, but UNMIK was established in 1999: United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo - Wikipedia
It wasn’t UN, but it was NATO, and included: United States, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Canada, Spain, Portugal, Denmark, Turkey, Netherlands and Belgium. The mission was codenamed ‘Operation Allied Force’, except in the US for some reason, maybe that’s why some Americans think they took on the serbs single-handed.
Sierra Leone. Cote D’Ivoire.
There is a strong probability, in my opinion, that the US had to be got on-side before something the UK and France had been pushing for would receive UN approval. And ‘on-side’ seems to include participation. In other words, we were prepared to go it alone, with a UN mandate, but to get the UN mandate, the US wanted in. So don’t get pissed off at US participation when the US wanted to be in the fray.
Sheesh, do people equate the nightly news and blogosphere with diplomacy or action? Sam - do you have a cite for the Hillary and Bill being hopping mad? Or something to indicate that Obama has been disengaging rather than engaging behind the scenes?
One should note that both China and Russia, who have a history of vetoing such interventions in another country’s sovereign internal affairs, did not veto the UN resolution. Coincidence that the Obama administration has been improving relations with both China and Russia?
It’s amazing what you can accomplish if you don’t care who gets the credit.
I’m not as familiar with Cote D’Ivoire, but I seem to recall that Kenya supported the operations in Sierra Leone. If your point is that Britain and Canada are the equals of the Kenyans in terms of expeditionary capability, I think we are making the same point.
You are misunderstanding my point. Sam Stone seems to be implying that Obama is holding up other countries from beginning their military action. I’m saying that if other countries want to go ahead, they should be free to do so. And if they are not going ahead because they depend on certain military capabilities to be provided by the United States, they need to fix their friggin’ military so we don’t need to hold their hands all the time.
I’m getting the feeling that this is deliberately proceeding without a majority-American logistical basis–Italian bases and the Charles de Gaulle instead of the Enterprise, and so on.
France also has an Air Force base at an airport in Chad, though it may even be further from Tripoli than mainland France is.
Because Italian intervention will look so un-imperialistic compared to American help 