There is current a diary called No, Obama Has NOT Crossed the Line on Libya which attempts to explain why President Obama was not wrong to order the bombing of Libya. Interposed into the text of Pres. Obama's speech was this attempt to gain the moral high ground:
When you see the barbaric behavior of Qaddafi to killing peaceful demonstrators indiscriminately and when more than 8,000 of them dead before the UN intervention, what kind of "moral math" can justify to seat on the side line and watch genocide continue until we call it for what it is? Should we be waiting 100 days like in Rwanda or three years and 200,000 lives later like in Bosnia or may be we should just watch 100,000 or 300,000 or 500,000 or 1,000,000 die while some continue to politicize the intervention.
This is the very definition of the slippery slope argument and the exact same behavior that was satirized in the movie Team America: World Police.
Global Security provides an interesting map - World At War Map, which gives an overview about which countries have hot (or nearly hot) conflicts at this time. My question to the war supporters is why aren't you advocating for US bombings on all of these countries?
A casual overview of the Human Rights Watch web site will find you country after country after country full of deplorable, horrific human rights abuses. Why aren't you advocating for US bombings on all of these countries? What makes Libyans so special that they receive our extra special bombings?
And what is the threshold for bombing interventions? 10,000 dead? 1,000 dead? 1?? I never see this addressed, where are you all making the cut off at? Based on what I've read about this, apparently the cut off is whether or not the country contains oil.
The only rationale I can get out of these lines of arguments (when not extended to bombing all countries) is that some people are supporting this war because Pres. Obama has ordered it. This is exactly the same type of argument that the Tea Partiers are making in regards to government spending now: mums the word when someone the like is in power, but when someone they don't like is in power, their all pissed.
And when are we going to bomb America? After all, didn't we just invade 3 countries in the last decade? Aren't we torturing people? Illegal detentions and massive, illegal wiretappings? What kind of murderous, barbarous people are we? After all, according to this Map of Human Trafficking, America is right up there with some sweet company? Here's another Map of Human Trafficking, no bombs for slavery??
What about the top 10 refugee-producing countries? I mean, they are refugee's for a reason, no bombs for these countries?
Please, War Party, what are you indicators for war? If your going to actively promote war and, at the same time, attempt to shame the Peace Party into support for war, can you at least let us know a country has to do in order to be bombed, invaded, policed, etc??