The only thing that bothers me is the hypocrisy.
Bush removes saddam. "ZOMGILLEGALWESHOULDNTBEREMOVINGDICTATORSITSNOTOURJOB"
Obama strikes Libya. No problems.
Major comparison fail. Nothing about the two situations are alike.
First off what was Iraq doing that was threatening the U.S. that we needed to invade immediately? Their involvement in 9/11? Nope, that wasn't them, that was the Saudi's and Paki's. Their WMD's? That turned out to be cherry picked nonsense. The Iraqi people weren't in open revolt being slaughtered via air strikes by Saddam. The Libya people are actively calling for international aid in setting up a no fly zone, an emissary was set to Britain a few days ago IIRC. The U.N. hadn't approved our actions in Iraqi, this time their organizing the response. The best comparison to Libya and Iraq would be after the first Gulf War in which we encouraged the people to revolt against Saddam, and when they did we left them to be slaughtered. So what about these two situations are similar again?
And for everyone frustrated that Obama didn't do anything sooner, I understand the sentiment but we couldn't afford to go this alone. Not politically, militarily, or financially.
1. We couldn't go into Libya with out U.N. approval or else it would have spurred talk of "American colonization of the middle east. Didn't want those accusation flying around. Heck apparently the Arab league is
already upset with how where handling the no fly zone. Imagine how much worse it would have been if we hadn't have gotten their go head.
2. Our military forces are stretched thin as is, no need to explain further to this group, but we couldn't do this alone; we needed a multinational force with U.N. approval for this to work out in the long run. Nor should we be responsible for every time a dictator has to be deposed but since we are the Brightest Beacon of Freedom in the world it would be nice to help out. Set an example for other countries to follow.
3. This has already been mentioned in the thread, but fighting a war ain't cheap, and we shouldn't have to pick up the whole tab to rid the world of an unstable dictator.
If you want to criticize Obama for his lack of leadership up until this moment, go ahead. You won't hear me defending him, because it shouldn't have taken the U.N. to decided that this is the "right" thing to do before he said something, he should have been pressuring the U.N. from the minute those civilians started getting bombed, be he didn't and that is a monumental failure on his behalf. But damn, Obama's damned if he does, damned if he doesn't, theres really no pleasing some people no matter what he does.
