Why Libya?

[Mr Khan]

dib8rman said:

Mr Khan said:

In the cynical sense; this was a put-up-or-shut-up moment for American foreign policy. You had a clear case of people struggling for Democracy, about to be slaughtered for their desire for freedom. If we didn't help them, who the hell could we justify helping in the future? The argument would forever be "well what about the Libyan insurgency?"

American foriegn policy has nothing to put up or shut up about.

I can't recall American troops or fire power ever being used internationally for just human rights violations.

We've used them for cases of Genocide, illegal annexation and crimes against humanity as well as possesion of weapons of mass destruction and crimes against humanity. But never for crimes against humanity on it's own. Usually we use diplomacy first believe it or not.

And how sure are you these people want democracy, the way they use the word is synonymous with Islam, talk to a few of them and explore what kind of democracy they are talking about, I'm not sure you will get the clarity you'd expect. It would be a waste of American blood to send troops there and is currently a burden on the American tax payer.

There are some intelligent folks down there that can form a decent government or at least want one that may be what your expecting but they are few and far between.

Short and sweet, what's happening in Libya will go full circle and if it doesn't then good for them.

@HS probably, this would make more sense if France were more involved, they may be afraid financially since Germany isn't supporting them.

Similar to what Rath said below, this is a matter of scale as far as human rights violations goes. I also think the call to action was pretty clear given their imminent complete destruction, Qaddafi had no reason to negotiate because if he could've sacked Benghazi, then it there would have been no rebellion and no-one left for Qaddafi to deal with in any Western-sponsored negotiations.

It was an ideological and public relations bind, pure and simple. I mean we've let massacres that could fairly easily have been stopped go on before (Rwanda) but that falls to a matter of people not caring what goes on in random African countries, which is unfortunate, but the combination of ideology, visibility, and the tactical situation on the ground meant that inaction would have been a long-term diplomatic nightmare. Our action poses certain diplomatic problems, but nothing too outside the norm (pisses off the Russians and the Chinese and makes the Indians frown, but those are all fairly normal)