Fred Kaplan with a pretty sensible article in Slate about what the international community might do about Libya.

I agree that the UN is unlikely to take any really meaningful steps to enforce a no-fly zone and meaningfully intervene (though it is debatable, whether this would be actually effective and/or make the situation any better).

I think if we agree that the idea of a no-fly zone is a good one, then I think that a US/NATO enforcement of one would be a good step, if it was pretty much limited to that, and maybe taking out tank deployments if Gaddadi chose to deploy them. Any ground presence should be completely rejected, like Kaplan said I think, as it would make the situation worse. So under those constraints, I think I could support a US/NATO-enforced no-fly zone, and some very limited, conditional operations attacking Gadaffi's ground capacities.

This could be a real help to the Libyan protesters, and (a much less important point, but still worth pointing out) be a possible big shot in the arm for Arab and Muslim views on the United States and the West.

Oh!

Yeah, I agree that ground troops are most likely to cause more harm that good, even given the slaughter currently.

AJE reporting that Benghazi and Tobruk are under complete control of the protesters. They now have live video in both cities. Sadly, I'm at work and can't watch anymore.

Obama should attempt to get a few Euro allies on board with a no-fly zone and impose it.

The Brits hate Gaddafi so that should be an easy one.

NPR this morning was saying that the eastern part of the country is controlled by the protesters. Well-armed after raiding police and military armories. By "eastern part" I'm guessing that they're talking about Cyrenaica in the northeast in that hardly anybody lives in the east-central or southeast arid parts of the country.

Yeah, aside from the fact he is a crazy, farcical, murderous dictator in his own country, he also murdered a female police officer in cold blood from the Libyan embassy here and withdrew the offenders, blew up a plane over my country killing scores of my countrymen and hundreds of innocents from other nations, and also threw a lifeline of arms and money to the Provos when they were going through some really hard times, which probably led to a continuation of their campaign of terrorism for years longer than it might have done otherwise, and contributed enormously to the murder of hundreds and the mutilation of thousands of my fellow countrymen (including a number of people close to my friends and family), both in Northern Ireland, and on the British mainland, and elsewhere.

I hope the Libyans catch him and slowly feed him into a rusty woodchipper feet-first after applying tourniqeuts to his limbs so he doesn't bleed out too soon.

Bookmarked ,for the next time you start bitching about capital punishment.

There is a difference between defense and capital punishment.

NIMN,

You sound pretty mad.

I just have this funny thing against people who blow up planes and fund terror groups in this country is all I'm cool though, I certainly wouldn't say I hate him though. What I feel is beneath hatred, more like contempt or something like that

Aren't you a pacifist?

U.S. arms the world for decades, things start going boom, U.S. citizens blame brown people

sounds pretty standard

Yeah, without the US, there wouldn't have been any weapons!

lol

Advanced weapon systems for free? Probably not.

No, certainly not.

I went through some weird political phases a year or two ago, so you might be thinking of that, but I'm not a pacifist and haven't been for quite a while (I never really was, I used to be a kind of libertarian anti-interventionist, but not in ages).

Edit: Unless you're talking about my man B Russell, and I've just completely missed the point.

Bin Laden wouldn't have been given $3+ billion, and Hussein wouldn't have been given weapons to go after Iran, that's for sure.

I can go on, but if you believe it's irrelevant than I'll stop here

lol, no. Just no.

The US was actually one of smaller arms suppliers to Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war. iirc the US was below China, Russia, France, a couple of Arab countries, and possibly the UK (it was a single digit % number anyway).

Yeah, we concentrated on the intel side of things such as, iirc, using satellites to help the Iraqis more efficiently plan poison gas attacks against Iranian positions.

Iraq thread redux

Indeed. And more shame us (well, more shame the US government back then, since I don't think you had anything to do with it, and I either wasn't born or was a baby). The facts surrounding this issue reflect badly enough on the US, people should let the facts speak for themselves, rather than trying to make it look even worse by making distorted, inaccurate or downright false statements.

I have a loathing for all dictators, Castro is and has always been one.

All that said, I do have a thing for IRA propaganda songs. How can you not like Irish tunes like this (just ignore the bit about ****ing up the Brits imo):

Come Out Ye Black and Tans