"Reagan managed to kill a few of Gaddafi's wives and children, and apparently that made us all safer."

I'm gonna guess that the wives, children, and families of the 270 people that died in the Lockerbie bombing probably agree with that statement.

Are we going to have to keep an eye out for the Libyan hit squad?

I'm gonna guess that the wives, children, and families of the 270 people that died in the Lockerbie bombing probably agree with that statement.

When your country has been occupied by foreign powers over and over for a few thousand years, then you'll seem like you know what you're talking about. Trying to perform ventriloquism using the families of Lockerbie victims is trashy, at best.

When innocent people are killed, the right thing to do is kill other innocent people.

Blood for oil is happening there whether we get involved or not. Just a question of whose blood, really.

Folks who make snarky comments in after the fact recriminations might want to get their facts straight so that their silliness actually makes some sense.

The Tripoli bombngs in the Reagan era were in retaliation for a bombing of a GI patronized disco / club in Germany, which were without any doubt traced directly to Captain Quadaffi.

The effect upon his avowed use of asymetrical warfare was negligible.

PanAm 103 was several years later.

Only until Captain Quadaffi viewed the second Iraq invasion did he claim to eschew asymetrical warfare.

The Tripoli bombings in the Reagan years had zero deterant effect upon Quadaffi's adventurism.

We were not safer after those.

We were safer, vis a vis Quadaffi, after Iraq II.

Letter from Gadafi, or however the hell his name is spelled, to Obama:

“I have said to you before that even if Libya and the United States enter into war, God forbid, you will always remain my son, and I have all the love for you as a son, and I do not want your image to change with me.”

Dear God, please, the oxygen and the smelling salts, over here, please...

"Trying to perform ventriloquism using the families of Lockerbie victims is trashy, at best."

Trying to remotely defend a monster like Muammar Ghaddafi is just plain trashy. Is Ghaddafi a "foreign power" occupying Libya? If so, what is your problem with getting rid of him. If not, what is your point?

Why don't we stop the blood for oil by drilling here NOW?

Recent accounts suggest we can be energy independent by using what we have, perhaps with a bit of oil from coal/natural gas ala sasol. (google or bing coal to oil)

Thanks
JK

The good news, if there can be good news in all of this, is that Obama resisted the pressure from the War Hawks (see John Bolton in California this weekend) and waited for the international community to take up the cause and participate in a significant manner.

Maybe, just maybe, he is learning.

That's COLONEL Gadhafi. Thank you very much!

Shame on Obama. Another foolish war. The U.S. military is great. Bush & Obama are not great.

The people's cities and rural areas are in financial trouble, some going bankrupt, and yet the MIC marches on with the people's money for more and more wars!

Very much intelligent personal understanding of the bad guys among us and their crimes in our times, may be learned by reading post-doctoral dissertations of widest comprehension and deepest historical sensibility provided in links such as this:

Tarpley.net/

You may like to bookmark Tarpley's material for on-going reference, but if the bastard USGovt starts censoring the internet that site perhaps might be among the first ones that are blacked out. Or you may like to stick your head in the TV Dunce box and pretend that your own life and what you know doesn't matter.

Tensky,

Obvioulsy there are different viewpoints.

Tarpley's site has collection of them.

He apparently gives much credibility to others and none to our own leaders.

Seemingly he is accepting as 100% reliable those other versions of all things.

Is Tarpley so intelligent that we must follow his lead?
Or is it ok to be a little sketpical of his take and sources?

He apparently gives much credibility to others and none to our own leaders.

Are there any leaders except for a very few who are for the people?

Seems we are on a world battle here, on whose agenda?

The people in our country anyway have been marginalized and are being, as I type, at the mercy of whatever level will fall out on all of this. Do people recognize something bigger is at play here?

Look at the local leadership - we cannot rely on them.
Congress is owned by corporations.

Where are good leaders here or in the nation or in the world? We need stellar leaders, not same as usual in the predicament that we are in.

I really don't get it.

Kadaffi didn't become a nice guy some years ago. He needed more money than he could get with the sanctions in place, so he moderated his behavior. Likewise the oil companied wanted more oil from Libya than they could get without he sanctions in place, so they pressured governments to lift sanctions. It was pretty obviously a peace-for-oil deal.

Now we have a couple people's revolutions on each side of Libya that spill into the place and catch the Libyan people up in it too. Kadaffi, true to form, throws the full weight of his loyalist military at them and begins openly massacring them. The democratic rebels cry for help, the Arab League says it's a good idea to help and asks for intervention, the UN Security Council actually authorizes force, and other nations take the lead in both bringing the intervention about and in providing the forces.

And all this is somehow not good enough justification for us to get involved?

I've been on this forum since before the Iraq war started. Y'all know I'm not a hawk. But come on, what does it take? If this is not a worthwhile military intervention, then what is?

Alan,

in defense of the fretting doves on this forum, they have one point that should make all of us very nervous about a new war...the law of unintended consequences.

After cheering on the Egyptians and the Tunisians, I am extremely jumpy about the outcome...can democracy even take root in a society with these kinds of rifts? How can a Salafi who wants sharia installed possibly work with a democracy-minded secularist? Won't we just see a replay of Moktada el-Sadr versus Maliki, Fatah versus Hamas, the Iranian mullocracy versus 40% of the Iranian people? What if Islamists take charge in Egypt and demo the pyramids, following the example of the Taliban, who dynamited a gigantic millenias-old cliff-carving of the Buddha?

All of this makes my mouth go dry.

While I agree with Alan that this particular effort has relative legitimacy, it still feels very, very wrong.

I want to know who makes up the goofy names for these "operations". I suppose we pay someone a lot of money to do this.
What gets me as well, is that now that Barry has gone along and agreed to a no fly zone, now the repugs and the rest who previously were encouraging him to do so, are now apparently getting cold feet, and "demanding answers" according to one headline.
It seems as though this turmoil will never end.

PS: I think I will go and make up my emergency kit for my car now...
Let's see...water, batteries, flashlight, dog food, food for the people, can opener, blankets,....underwear...toilet kit, prescriptions,...oh yeah, and gold bullion in small denominations...

End the war(s)and close the military bases around the world.

America (and its citizens) needs to stop pretending that it is "spreading" freedom by creating chaos around the world

How much more hypocrisy can we stand as educated citizens?
Our tax dollars are killing innocent people all around the world.

NO MORE WAR!! - Peace Rally & March in Portland , Oregon - ...

Watch at least Ray Harris speak at the beginning of this video.

Trying to remotely defend a monster like Muammar Ghaddafi is just plain trashy.

Trying to pretend you know how relatives of Lockerbie victims feel and think is worse than trashy. And using them as a way to say "killing people is okay, as long as you're retaliating" is simple-minded and absurd.

Is Ghaddafi a "foreign power" occupying Libya?

No. The history of Libya (which totals over a few thousand years) is largely a history of exactly what's happening right now during bombing of Libyan cities. There's a reason "the shores of Tripoli" is part of the Marine Corps hymn; it's because the US has a proud history of extreme response (leaving out colonization here) and planting its flag with a middle finger and yee-haw anywhere it likes. Everybody from the Greeks to the Romans down to the present have invaded, built, destroyed, rebuilt, and colonized Libya.

If so, what is your problem with getting rid of him. If not, what is your point?

My point is not whether Qadaffi is "good" or "evil". My point is the righteous tirade made by the US and others over Qadaffi's actions are extremely hypocritical and carefully calculated for political and strategic benefit--and that deciding to attack into and cause destruction in any country we choose is just as immoral as Qadaffi.

Imagine, if you will, a foreign power striking at the US leadership, intending to usurp and kill it, because of our genocidal rampage throughout the Pacific in the 19th and 20th centuries. Same situation, different actors. Would you consider it justified?

Our tax dollars are killing innocent people all around the world.

Our tax dollars are killing innocent people all around the world.
Our tax dollars are killing innocent people all around the world.
Our tax dollars are killing innocent people all around the world.

Will our children be next?

I went to the very first anti war rally (against the Iraq war) in 2002. Charles Lewis spoke at that one and it was about this time of year too. I still have my "Patriot for Peace" button and I was excoriated and told I was un-American by several "friends" at the time because I opposed that war too.
It sucks to be right...especially when it does absolutely NO good, doesn't change a g/d thing, and the situation never improves.

portland native,
How many have walked the streets to protest wars? Now we have protesters being arrested for what? I imagine it was because they did not stay in the zone! Unbelievable in this country, yet believable that it has come to this as too much has been dismissed by thinking this could not happen in America!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_speech_zone

http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2011/03/19/photos-from-white-house-rally-in-support-of-bradley-manning/
Daniel Ellsberg, Kevin Zeese, Margaret Flowers, David Swanson, Medea Benjamin, Mike Malloy and over a hundred others were arrested in front of the White House today to protest President Obama’s torture of Bradley Manning.

Before you get gung ho about others going to war, please ask yourself a simple question: If you were in the U.S. military, and if you were killed in Libya, would it be worth it? Would it be worth your child's life? If not, do not support sending the children of others. (I joined the Marines during the Vietnam war.)

Great job on the flag with stripes and the "stars" are all corporate logos, on the firedoglake link.
Many of us have been walkin' the streets since the 60's when we opposed the Viet Nam war. Now our knees and hips are worn out. We can't walk as far, our voices are weak, and will is weaker still in many cases. And the young folks don't know anything different. Their collective education has dumbed them down to be complacent, and as long as the kids are "plugged in" to something life goes on...for them.
Ike was right; the military-industrial complex has taken over.

Joel,
I have often wondered about the lack of good leadership now.
How many that would have become the stellar leaders we need now may have been killed in that Vietnam War?
You may be a leader in your area and may also have known good ones we lost...if you care to comment.
May have even lost a future President who could have helped this country at this time. May have had a good Congress who would have stood up for rights they fought for instead of letting our Constitution be put aside.

Instead we got Cheney who got umpteen deferments - he and others like him, hawks eager to send others to war! eager to take executive power over all and ignore the law and the Constitution.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1IK-Q9quqk

Al M

That guy has lot to say but isn't it just supposition?

He can't know the thinking, motications and behind the scenes activities much more than you or I.