10-26-2012, 11:20 PM
The United States violated diplomatic protocol and essentially committed an act of war when it sent an armed invasion force into Pakistan to get at Osama Bin Laden. Obviously we are willing to do that when the situation is warranted, is well defined, and when we have a plan that allows us to get our own troops back out. Mounting an armed incursion from a carrier task force is a little more complicated than blowing a bugle and yelling, "Charge."
In brief, will the Swampy persona (I think it is actually an adolescent male, at least in terms of intellectual age, but I'll leave that to the rest of you to speculate) explain exactly how this intervention was supposed to work, what the acceptable casualty figures would be, how much preparation time would be required, would ground troops such as the Marines be involved, how much territory they would have to control and for how long, and how many Libyan dead would be acceptable (bad guys and others). Then we can have a more reasonable discussion.
There's one other point, which the righties won't accept, and probably won't even comprehend, which is that sometimes the long term strategic and geopolitical implications of taking action rule it out, even when those in charge would very much like to ride in to the rescue. The long term implications of an armed American assault on Libyan soil would of course be extremely negative. Up until the moment that the American diplomats were killed, there was no way of knowing that this was anything other than one of the chronic, dreary protests against our existence.
Shorter version: Hindsight is easy. What was the state department doing to protect our diplomats in Malaysia or Georgia at the same exact moment? And how do you know?
In the meanwhile, I think I'm going over to Carrows for a late lunch, which is what I should have said at the beginning.
In brief, will the Swampy persona (I think it is actually an adolescent male, at least in terms of intellectual age, but I'll leave that to the rest of you to speculate) explain exactly how this intervention was supposed to work, what the acceptable casualty figures would be, how much preparation time would be required, would ground troops such as the Marines be involved, how much territory they would have to control and for how long, and how many Libyan dead would be acceptable (bad guys and others). Then we can have a more reasonable discussion.
There's one other point, which the righties won't accept, and probably won't even comprehend, which is that sometimes the long term strategic and geopolitical implications of taking action rule it out, even when those in charge would very much like to ride in to the rescue. The long term implications of an armed American assault on Libyan soil would of course be extremely negative. Up until the moment that the American diplomats were killed, there was no way of knowing that this was anything other than one of the chronic, dreary protests against our existence.
Shorter version: Hindsight is easy. What was the state department doing to protect our diplomats in Malaysia or Georgia at the same exact moment? And how do you know?
In the meanwhile, I think I'm going over to Carrows for a late lunch, which is what I should have said at the beginning.