It is actually because I pay attention to the news from so many sources that I believe the military action in Libya was driven entirely by politics. The Obama administration didn`t have any coherent position or policy in place until more moderate and Democrat friendly press and pundits started to become increasingly critical of Obama’s mishandling of the uprising in Libya. 

Of course: it's a public relations thing: how would it look if we let these people, hungry for Democracy (though i'll grant dib8rman's point about the brand of democracy they want not being congruous with our ideals) get slaughtered at the hands of a professed enemy of America, when we could easily have prevented it?

let's be straight: it's all about oil.

it's true that gheddafi is a cruel dictator and it is very likely to kill everyone in his way, but tens of genocides are ongoing in this moment all over the world and nobody cares.

but libya has got oil. i think it's the biggest african oil productor.

and up until now 60% of the libyan oil was sold to italy, due to historical reasons (libya was once an italian colony, there are italian oil companies in libya) and political reasons (berlusconi is not the first italian leader to be a personal friend of gheddafi).

whe the revolt started france and england supported the rebels because they hope to get a bigger share of lybian oil in compensation. italy is in because we don't want france and england to take all of the oil, and i think USA is in because when  gheddafi started winning against the rebels he said he was displeased with the western countries and maybe he should have started selling libyan oil to india, china and russia, which i don't think is in the usa's interest.

I'm not saying that you shouldn't criticise Obama's handling of the Libyan crisis.

I'm saying that your statement "Being that every reason to "go to war" in Libya could also be used to justify "going to war" in several other countries in the region" simply isn't true. Libya clearly is a very different situation to any of the other countries in the region.

If the US can or should or must start invasions because the public want's to use her military to satisfy their concience or convenience then I think it's time for the US to reinstate the draft or for the UN to begin one. Again what's the point of helping people that want to bring in a form of radicalism that will make Khadafi seem tame and timid.

For all Libya was we could always say at least it wasn't as bad as Afghanistan or Lebanon.

I should mention something about Libya that may be getting a bit over looked, Libya in itself was always two countries until it was formed into Libya, the sectarian divide between east and west Libya has been there long before the US ever touched that soil and it seems to have divided itself again in East and West. Tripolitania and Cyrenaica are again in play and as if things couldn't get anyworse the people over there think the other a radicalist.

That's just a little detail.

However Misrata and Zawiya have shown that there is hunger in at least some parts of the west for Gadaffi to go.

*wasn't,* certainly. Qaddafi had become a stabilizing force in the region after the Libyans disavowed WMDs, but currently it isn't stable, and people are dying, people with whom we are, to a certain extent, aligned, whether we wish it or not.

It's a trap, but one we could not avoid

Don't give me that crap, the rules of the conqueror may be old but they aren't forgotten, it's the conquered’s duty to remain subjugated or remove their conqueror. The international community has laws set in place to recognize this one fact, when Madison said the cost of freedom is war he didn't mean American blood had to be spent for the world to have it's freedom.

There would be no objection if these people wanted a democracy but as it stands they don't, they keep saying they do but they don't. I will probably go to the grave not being able to understand why folks can't see centralizing power as the cliche of totalitarianism, why folks refuse to see that the world view they hold is flawed for that reliance on theocracy - democratic or not.

I honestly believe a draft is needed again proving Friedman's presumptuous wrong about societal rationality.

But what get's me is that American dollars are being spent on a issue we should have been finished with over two hundred years go.

Unless Obama comes clean and explains how this is in American interests then it's callous burden on the tax payer.

Right, and we've been fine having a hands-off approach to various revolutions, but in this case the revolutionaries needed assistance of a limited nature (namely, destruction of the regimes air defenses)

We're not talking about doing it for them, they had the will and the initiative (at least for a time), but were hedged in by their superior-equipped foes.

It's all about knowing *when* to intervene, and i would guess on this point that this disagreement will not be resolved on our end, but i maintain that this was an ideal situation to intervene in, and a situation that the USA had to intervene in due to compelling public relations interests