Maybe it was last night’s Supermoon or maybe the coming Rapture on May 21 effecting my brain, but Michael Moore and I are close to almost being in agreement on United Nations intervention in Libya. Sort of. Maybe. For different reasons.
Okay, so I can retain my self respect a bit after reading his tweets and reasoning on the subject, since I don’t agree with his 9/11 and WMD and Daddy lunatic comments, but in general I have to add my voice to his in questioning why and under what possible justification we’re involved in attacking Libya.
More like the 1991 Gulf War than the more recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the action against Libya has real international participation and support from the United Nations … but why?
Libya has not attacked a neighboring country in any way. Yes, there is an internal uprising. Yes, I support the Libyan people’s right to demand change. Yes, Qaddafi [or however the hell the media is spelling his name this week] is a comical brutal, laughing-stock tyrant (despite his awesome taste in bodyguards).
But none of this changes that it is purely an internal matter for Libya. (Unless the bodyguards need liberating, in which case I’m signing up for the insertion extraction mission.)
The 1991 Gulf War involved Iraq invading neighboring countries.
9/11 was backed by the Taliban which, in my opinion, justifies giving that group something else to think about, such as a platoon of Marines lobbing grenades into their cave.
The 1991 Gulf War never actually ended (a cease-fire is not a peace treaty) and Hussein did not comply with the terms of that cease-fire, so 9/11, WMDs and Daddy aside, kicking his ass out in 2003 was simply the final consequence of 1991.
But none of this applies to Libya – and so, partisan politics aside, I simply don’t understand why we (the US) and the International Community feel justified in attacking Libya at this time.
There was no “no-fly zone” over Beijing after Tiananmen Square -- does the International Community only support popular uprisings in countries that don’t sit on the UN Security Council?
Oh … yeah …
But what about, say, Miami Cuba? There’s strong support for an uprising against Castro in South Florida, which is almost in Cuba, so do we only support the overthrow of dictators who don’t have strong ties to a country that sits on the UN Security Council?
Oh … yeah …
Okay, so maybe the conflict in Libya has escalated to the use of military weapons, which didn’t happen in 1989 at Tiananmen Square (well, at least for one of the sides).
And Cuba is fairly low-key as far as tyranny and oppression go … not a lot of air assaults going on there, after all.
So maybe it’s just the fact that the uprising and Qaddafi have escalated things to the point where truly large numbers of people are going to die, sort of like Rwanda in 1994 when the United Nations Security Council …
Oh … yeah …
So … why the fuck are we bombing Libya?
1 comments:
Why? Oil....
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