[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote: Even if you’re someone who favors this intervention, what’s the rationale for not requiring a debate and vote in Congress over whether the President should be able to commit the nation to a new military conflict? Candidate Obama, candidate Clinton, and the Bush-era Democrats all recognized the constitutional impropriety of unilateral actions like this one; why shouldn’t they be held to that?
The rationale is fairly straight forward and simple unless one is willfully choosing obstinance. This is multi-national enforcement of a U.N. sanctioned cease-fire which was blatantly breached by Gaddafi. The debate and vote in Congress was over whether or not to participate in the U.N.
[quote]MaximusB wrote:
You gotta love Ghadaffi on this, trying to spin this as him taking out Al Qaeda, and that his people love him. The dude is no longer on planet Earth anymore. [/quote]
The dude is more entertaining than 99% of what is on TV
Don’t try and squirm out of your horseshit post re: “2003 invasion of Iraq, darkest hour” nonsense. When intelligence turns out to be wrong, it isn’t necessarily bad when it was believed to be right at the time.[/quote]
Wow you take issue with THAT–the fact that in my opinion the invasion of Iraq was our darkest hour in contemporary history? Because I consider it dark when thousands of young Americans are sent to their deaths in a country thousands of miles away? Because I consider it dark when trillions of dollars are spent on a bullshit war? Fuck you.
[quote]smh23 wrote:
And, for the record, support for the intervention in Libya is not as you say “blind acceptance for this administration.” The Obama White House has exuded reluctance in discussing ways to deal with this issue. This is not “Obama’s” in the way that the invasion of Iraq was “Bush’s”.[/quote]
Reluctance or sold, Bush pulled trigger, Obama pulled trigger. Commander-in-Chief owns the decision whether gung-ho or reluctant.
Un-fucking-real.
Are we at war with Libya now? I didn’t read where Congress declared war on a sovereign country.
Is the US in the business of just lobbing missiles into countries now?[/quote]
We agree on many of these points. My point has all along been merely that there are a number of fundamental differences between this and Operation Iraqi Freedom.
The rationale is fairly straight forward and simple unless one is willfully choosing obstinance. This is multi-national enforcement of a U.N. sanctioned cease-fire which was blatantly breached by Gaddafi. The debate and vote in Congress was over whether or not to participate in the U.N.
Simple stuff, really. [/quote]
A preposterous response. Participation in the UN doesn’t trump constitutional requirements for declarations of war, and never has. At no point has Congress ceded its constitutional war powers to a decision made by the UN.
Wow you take issue with THAT–the fact that in my opinion the invasion of Iraq was our darkest hour in contemporary history? Because I consider it dark when thousands of young Americans are sent to their deaths in a country thousands of miles away? Because I consider it dark when trillions of dollars are spent on a bullshit war? Fuck you.
4,439 Americans dead. That is “dark” in my book.[/quote]
No, I take issue with your atrocious revisionism as to the Iraq war’s “illegitimacy”, and I told you so.
Have whatever opinion or emotional reaction to the Iraq war you want, just don’t lie your way to your conclusion and then try and pass off these lies as truth.
[quote]smh23 wrote:
And, for the record, support for the intervention in Libya is not as you say “blind acceptance for this administration.” The Obama White House has exuded reluctance in discussing ways to deal with this issue. This is not “Obama’s” in the way that the invasion of Iraq was “Bush’s”.[/quote]
Reluctance or sold, Bush pulled trigger, Obama pulled trigger. Commander-in-Chief owns the decision whether gung-ho or reluctant.
Un-fucking-real.
Are we at war with Libya now? I didn’t read where Congress declared war on a sovereign country.
Is the US in the business of just lobbing missiles into countries now?[/quote]
We agree on many of these points. My point has all along been merely that there are a number of fundamental differences between this and Operation Iraqi Freedom.[/quote]
What your responses tell me is that you believe the US should be the world’s police.
The rest of the world can’t deal with Libya?
I was actually giving Obama the benefit of the doubt on this one. He campaigned as a peace hawk and anti-intervention abroad, and now he’s just stepping in line. Hell, he’s not even leading, he’s following.
I’d have much more respect for the man if:
He said “Libya (and/or the rest of the world) needs to sort this out”
or
Asked Congress to declare war and gone in gunz-a-blazing. Of course, number two is preposterous, but at least he’d finally be a leader.
[quote]pittbulll wrote:
I think the point is boots on the ground [/quote]
Please expand.
I read this is that it’s OK for the United States to lob missiles into Libya and take steps toward aggression (US is not threatened or invaded) toward another country so long as no ground troops are committed? Can we just start lobbing missiles into Iran willy-nilly, too? Egypt?
Apologies if I’m interpreting your response incorrectly.
[quote]Mufasa wrote:
As you probably already know; U.S. submarines and Destroyers have now launched more than 100 Tomahawk Cruise Missles against Muammar Quddafi’s Air Defense grid.
The grid appears to be of old, (but effective) Soviet Design (similar to what was in Iraq).
Damage assessments are now being made.
Quddafi “appeared” to be “calling the U.S.'s bluff” as he continued an assault on the port city of Benghazi. However, there are many who feel that he is a madman ready and willing to die as a “martyr” at the expense of his people.
Hell, he’s not even leading, he’s following.[/quote]
This is the key and is unprecedented territory. Any military action like this that is somewhat questionable in terms of procedure (like Kosovo) has usually been done with the US as “moral leader”. Here, for the first time I can remember, we’ve got this kind of military commitment with the US as a junior partner.
Hell, he’s not even leading, he’s following.[/quote]
This is the key and is unprecedented territory. Any military action like this that is somewhat questionable in terms of procedure (like Kosovo) has usually been done with the US as “moral leader”. Here, for the first time I can remember, we’ve got this kind of military commitment with the US as a junior partner.
Whatever it is, it’s new.[/quote]
But we shouldn’t be surprised as it does fit the Obama doctrine. Remember, we are not special, better or different in any way.
[quote]smh23 wrote:
And, for the record, support for the intervention in Libya is not as you say “blind acceptance for this administration.” The Obama White House has exuded reluctance in discussing ways to deal with this issue. This is not “Obama’s” in the way that the invasion of Iraq was “Bush’s”.[/quote]
Reluctance or sold, Bush pulled trigger, Obama pulled trigger. Commander-in-Chief owns the decision whether gung-ho or reluctant.
Un-fucking-real.
Are we at war with Libya now? I didn’t read where Congress declared war on a sovereign country.
Is the US in the business of just lobbing missiles into countries now?[/quote]
We agree on many of these points. My point has all along been merely that there are a number of fundamental differences between this and Operation Iraqi Freedom.[/quote]
What your responses tell me is that you believe the US should be the world’s police.
The rest of the world can’t deal with Libya?
I was actually giving Obama the benefit of the doubt on this one. He campaigned as a peace hawk and anti-intervention abroad, and now he’s just stepping in line. Hell, he’s not even leading, he’s following.
I’d have much more respect for the man if:
He said “Libya (and/or the rest of the world) needs to sort this out”
or
Asked Congress to declare war and gone in gunz-a-blazing. Of course, number two is preposterous, but at least he’d finally be a leader.
Can’t have yellow cake and eat it, too.[/quote]
Once again, I agree with you on many of these issues. I just don’t think this situation is directly analogous to the invasion of Iraq.
That doesn’t make it good in my book. I’m just saying there are fundamental differences between the two.
[quote]pittbulll wrote:
I think the point is boots on the ground [/quote]
Please expand.
I read this is that it’s OK for the United States to lob missiles into Libya and take steps toward aggression (US is not threatened or invaded) toward another country so long as no ground troops are committed? Can we just start lobbing missiles into Iran willy-nilly, too? Egypt?
Apologies if I’m interpreting your response incorrectly.[/quote]
Wow you take issue with THAT–the fact that in my opinion the invasion of Iraq was our darkest hour in contemporary history? Because I consider it dark when thousands of young Americans are sent to their deaths in a country thousands of miles away? Because I consider it dark when trillions of dollars are spent on a bullshit war? Fuck you.
4,439 Americans dead. That is “dark” in my book.[/quote]
No, I take issue with your atrocious revisionism as to the Iraq war’s “illegitimacy”, and I told you so.
Have whatever opinion or emotional reaction to the Iraq war you want, just don’t lie your way to your conclusion and then try and pass off these lies as truth.
EDIT: typo.[/quote]
I said that in this case the international community has a different attitude toward the intervention–not too controversial I think.
I said that in 2003 the will to act came mainly from the US government (which in this case is not true) rather than an international call for military intervention–not too controversial.
I said that extant, finished-product WMD, which were sold in 2003 as the chief justification for military action, were not found. Not controversial at all.
I am against the war against Libya, I don’t care what the UN says. We are not the UN’s enforcers. Our involvement is unethical and unconstitutional, and we need to get out. It doesn’t matter what the world’s opinion on it is- if the whole world thought it was okay for me to unprovekedly kill somebody, it doesn’t make it morally right to unprovokedly kill somebody.
Don’t try and squirm out of your horseshit post re: “2003 invasion of Iraq, darkest hour” nonsense. When intelligence turns out to be wrong, it isn’t necessarily bad when it was believed to be right at the time.[/quote]
Wow you take issue with THAT–the fact that in my opinion the invasion of Iraq was our darkest hour in contemporary history? Because I consider it dark when thousands of young Americans are sent to their deaths in a country thousands of miles away? Because I consider it dark when trillions of dollars are spent on a bullshit war? Fuck you.
4,439 Americans dead. That is “dark” in my book.[/quote]
Oh noez, 4400 Americans died that decided that they wanted to serve the Leviathan?
Well, that is a downright tragedy.
The few hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, not so much.
Could this be another Somalia, i.e. Blakchawk Down moment…where we as the US are tepid in our response and very careful and at the first sign of danger we pull out? I heard on the news today that in a matter of a few days we will turn over control and command of all military actions to another country. Is that being indecisive by our commander in chief?
