Libya pulls us in

Perhaps the best thing about the revolutions in Tunesia and Egypt were that they were homegrown, with no serious outside agitation and certainly none of the old East versus West that in the past has dominated these events.

As the seed of revolution spread to Libya the United States ( and other countries) assuming that Khadaffi too would go the way of Mubarek et all proclaimed that he could not survive. However Khadaffi played from a different rulebook and was not above using every weapon at his disposal to stay in power including mercenaries and indiscriminate violence against his enemies as well as civilians caught in the middle. What is most shocking is that we in the west were shocked at this. Truly Mubarek for all his faults, and there were many, actually behaved in a fairly restrained way by leaving office the way he did. Khadaffi is following the normal course of despots.

Whatever happens in Libya be it Khadaffi or some primevial attempt at Democracy do we really need to be involved. This is not to say that I do not feel for the women and children I do. We all should. However, all over the world events like this happen everyday. Sudan, Etreia, Bahrain, and now recently it appears Syria is having a groundswell. How do we choose to involve ourselves.

Can an argument be made that attacking Libya even as part of a multinational force makes our position better in the world. Why is it that only Western countries are part of this. Surely Saudi Arabia, Jordan and other counties that are nominally pro Western and assumingly anti dictator could have taken part. With no clear objective in this mission and with the ring of colonialism always hurting Western efforts in Africa the longer this goes on the more it will turn against us.

We have 15 percent ( or more) real unemployment in this country. I am not an isolationist but one has to wonder the merit in our being involved in this event. This cannot be a positive for the United States in the end and if we are getting involved due to a human interest issue then we are cherry picking at best.

For a President who promised to have us out of Afghanistan and has no realistic timetable to do so and with all of The Middle East under revolutionary temptation right now how do we decide Libya is worth deposing a dictator while we turn the other way while Saudi Arabia supports the King against protesters in tiny Bahrain.

I understand our decision as relates to Saudi Arabia ( oil ) and Bahrain ( the U S navy bases ) but to then get involved in what is now a Libyan civil war is just terrible hypycrocy. This is a failure on Obama's part and a noose the Reublicans will hang around his neck should it go bad as it is likely to do.