Libya Obama Strategy Your Opinion

I think this is the way forward in the Middle East. NATO with U.S. help assists local fighters to win their own liberty. I think the plan was masterful and prevented us from being bogged down in another war in the Middle East. This is a reason to applaud Obama.

 

That sounds more like a "Vietnam" strategy than anything else. I think we should applaud the Libyan citizens who possessed firearms and other munitions and used them against their oppressive government. Please tell us why we should applaud Obama for unleashing our military might against a sovereign country who hadn't attacked us and killing its citizens (along with little babies).

 

No problem! Initially we stepped in to prevent a slaughter that was hours away from taking place. But you knew that. You can't say that we have not been attacked by Libya. They bombed a night club in Germany killing US servicemen and they blew a passenger plane out of the sky killing many US citizens. But you knew that too.

The real point was that we accomplished this victory without hundreds of thousands of troops, billions of dollars, thousands of American lives, and years of occupation. I think that this is the model to follow in the future. For this I do applaud Obama. Brilliant!

P.S. And without landing on the deck of a carrier to claim a premature victory.

But go ahead and find the dark cloud in the silver lining. It’s what the Right-wing does these days.

 

* The cost of military operations is difficult to determine, since the Pentagon has not been forthcoming regarding Libya. Nevertheless, five data points are available either from official releases or media leaks that can be used to extrapolate current expenditures: March 30, $550 million; April 11, $608 million; Mid-May, $664 million; June 3, $714 million; and June 30: $820 million. It is unclear if these numbers include replacing known aircraft loses, including the crashes of an F-15 on March 21 (roughly $30 million) and a MQ-8 Fire Scout on June 21 ($9 million). However, it can be assumed that U.S. military operations costs in Libya per month are between $60-$80 million, with total current costs around $1 billion.
(source: Council on Foreign Relations).

 

I think we should have stayed out of it completely. We had enough wars to be involved with.

And for the consequences of the effort, we will need to wait 6 months to a year to see if this is a classic case of 'The enemy of my enemy is not my friend' or not. Libya is not like us. They are another tribal society like Afghanistan. Only without a western troop presence to try and keep their historical, natural tendencies in check. Claiming any kind of 'Victory' now might look rather foolish if there is a civil war or a good dose of cleansing in the power vacuum that is going to be left.

 

I agree I dont think we should have been involved at all and I hope to god we dont get involved in the Syrian mess
The last thing we need at this moment in time is to be drawn into another "Policing situation" let the Arabs sort it out themselfs

 

They just had a civil war. Libya is in no way Afghanistan. I think the victory here is that Kaddafi is gone and no Americans were killed. Try and say that about Iraq.

 

But that is exactly what just happened. They did the fighting for their own freedom. We supplied them but that probably bought us a their goodwill since we didn't support Kaddafi. In most cases we were propping up the guy that gets overthrown until we aren't. Saddam comes to mind.

 

Without our close air support they woudnt have got anywere sorry but it is not our fight, I disagreed with Iraq as well as far as I am concerned they cost to many lifes of my countries service men (and yours and for what?) I doubt very much if they will remember our support for long I dont see much good will eminating from Iraq or Afghanistan do you?
Afghanistan I agreed with they aided directly those who attacked both your country and my own, Ghadaffi had actualy come in from the cold and renounced support for terrorism (my argument might have been diffrent if we had done it before that happend)
The other problem is of course Ghadaffi has not gone he is still there and they are still fighting not just in Tripoli but also in other parts of the country

 

Thank you for proving what I said! Maybe 1 billion as opposed to the trillions Bush spent on 2 wars.

 

I think it's quite ironic that Obama is now known as a hawk. I wonder what his leftie, pacifist Hollywood friends think of his military onslaught and wholesale murder of the citizens of a sovereign nation. I suppose they, too will twist his actions in Libya into a rallying cry for more military intervention around the world. It's funny how you perceive things when you're looking through rose-colored glasses.

 

Are you under the influence of mind-altering drugs? I responded to your assertion that "billions" weren't spent in Libya. So far (no thanks to the withholding of information from the Pentagon regarding Libya) at least $1B has been spent that we know of. When all is said and done, the true cost will certainly skyrocket. How in the world did you drag Bush into Obama's war?

 

Well the UK has spent approx £260 Million (about $428 million) so far and that is not including any aid we have sent to the ant Ghadaffi forces, sorry but this is cash we can ill afford Cash that could have been better spent improving things here at home

 

All jibes aside, I'm extremely pleased to see that the Libyan people stood up for themselves, armed themselves and fought against the Ghaddafi regime. I think Thomas Jefferson said it best when he said, "The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government."

I don't believe Jefferson meant only American people, but the people of all the world. If the conflict in Libya has taught us anything, it's that Jefferson was right and that citizens must bear arms as a force against tyranny.

 

No! The CFR is estimating that 1 billion was spent. We do not actually know anything. Give me an Obama "war" over any Bush war.

 

I think we lefties like that fact that it is not our men on the ground doing it.

 

Personaly I would prefer it if you dint give me any ones war

 

I liked one of your other posts (#14) but have to disagree for part of this one (in red above). While it's true that Libya (under Ghadafi) has never launched an all-out war on America, it has been aggressive in the past... most notably through the sponsorship of terrorism against American citizens, and we HAVE retaliated in the past (using missles).

 

They had an assisted revolt. Not a civil war. A civil war will be if the 140 tribes start settling feuds amongst themselves in a bid for power or money or oil or autonomy or land or history or honor or whatever. Mix and match them as you wish. Old Man Gadfly will be gone. No doubt. But this country is a lot more like Afghanistan than not. And it won't even have the advantages Afghanistan had in trying to build a cohesive society. Get back to me in a year. I wish them well but it is far from certain that it won't be a bloody mess instead of a victory. The "Road To Hell..." and all that.

 

By your definition, the American Revolutionary War was an assisted revolt. Eh, you say potato I say potat-o...

I don't know how things could be worse than they were under Gaddafi. If the Right-wingers believe that it was worth taking out Saddam in Iraq who never committed an act of terrorism against this country, surely they believe it was worth taking out this Libyan nutcase.