The situation in Libya while not completed yet does appear at the moment to be moving in a fairly positive direction. Personally I don't think anything remotely like victory can be declared until Quadaffi and sons are either dead, or in custody (I'd like to think we've learned our lesson from Napoleon that exile is no substitute for either of the other two) but there certainly are some positive signs.
A great many of the more vocal Pro-Obama Progressives are using this situation as it stands now to declare that Obama was right to involve us in Libya, and that he did it in the right way, and for the right reasons. However there are a great many who are still deeply uncomfortable with this situation for a great many reasons. I will touch briefly on a few of them and then focus on the main one alluded to in this articles title.
First of all there is the fact that historically this country tends to support whatever group in a country that will benefit our interests. If that group is the one in power then we will help them suppress rebellions, painting them as Democratic, and benevolent. If the group is the one out of power then we will help them overthrow the existing government, painting them as plucky underdogs who only want throw off the shackles of tyranny. Now I'm not saying that this is automatically the case in Libya, but more than a few people in the Hard Left media have noted Libya's resources and how quickly we were to intervene there, and how we have gone out of our way to avoid intervening in other places that aren't as resource rich.
Second of all there is the almost Clintonesque obfuscation that Obama engaged in to keep us involved in Libya. When he ran up against the ceiling established in the War Powers Act, Obama glibly stated that the Act did not apply since we had no troops on the ground. A statement that is open for debate since we do appear to have special forces teams on the ground in Libya.
But I think that the most important point against involving ourselves in Libya, or most anywhere else in the world excepting to deal with credible immediate threats to our domestic security is one of timing.
If this country were stable economically, and we had not spent the last decade engaged in ongoing and fruitless conflicts in both Afghanistan and Iraq, then even though many would still be troubled by our involvement in Libya I think there would be less resistance and less vocal resistance.
But neither of the aforementioned circumstances are the case. Instead we have a country that seems to barely be able to take care of its infrastructure, has no meaningful social safety net, and is now casting a hairy eyeball upon things once thought not only beyond touching but beyond even beyond thinking about touching like Social Security.
Meanwhile we are told time and time again that not only is military spending sacrosanct but must be increased.
Resultantly we are becoming a country that not only cannot feed, and house, and educate it's people, nor help them to move into a position to do it themselves eventually but with the refusal to tax the rich and super rich it is becoming less a matter of can't and more a matter of won't.
So bottom line until our problems here in the US are being dealt with and not just ignored, we must resist the urge to involve ourselves in other countries conflicts. No matter how urgent the problem, no matter how pure our motives, and no matter how clever and effective our strategy.
It's bit like someone who has spent almost all their money on two clunkers and now have found the perfect car. But that would leave them nothing to pay the rent or buy food. The Right, and increasingly many on the Left like to hold the government up to the standards by which a family must live. But it only shows their constant and consistent hypocrisy that they do not extend this admittedly shaky metaphor to the realm of paying for foreign wars.
Keep The Faith My Brothers And Sisters!
(This article originally appeared at The One About...)