We Are At War, Again.

I am not sure if you have noticed it or not, but about a week ago our great nation (along with a few other nations) decided to bomb Libya. Now this was started due to a “revolution” in the country and the Libyan government under orders from the dictator Moammar Kadafi began fighting back against the “rebels”. And somewhere in the process the Kadafi forces starting bombing and killing the “rebels”.

This process of killing of the rebels went on for a few weeks until the United Nations took up the issue and decided to implement a “no fly” zone under a UN Resolution. The no fly zone was designed to keep the Libyan jets from bombing and strafing the “rebel” forces. This is where we started bombing Libya a week ago, along with the French and the British. This action was supposed to be a “humanitarian” mission in order to keep the Libyan people from being killed by Kadafi’s forces.

Now normally I don’t have a problem with some conflict like this as long as it honest and justified. In conflicts/wars during my adult life, I was for the first Gulf War, I was for the war in Afghanistan even though it was done wrong (a subject of a future post), and I was against the second Gulf War (also subject of a future post). However I do have some concerns over the United States role in this “humanitarian” mission/conflict/war.

Who are these rebels? I mean seriously who are they and who is supplying them with weapons, money, and support? What are they rebelling over? What would they do if they did get Kadafi out of the country and were able to set up a government? What if the rebels gain control and turn out to be worse than Kadafi himself? It would not be the first time that this has happened. I think these things need some seriously looking into rather than bomb first and ask questions later.

The government has said that no ground troops will be used in this conflict. And as soon as the no fly zone was established all of Kadafi’s jets quit flying. Kadafi then started using ground forces with tanks to try and squash the rebels. And we all know you can’t stop this kind of thing solely by using air forces alone. So at what point in the future are ground troops going to be used since Kadafi is not stopping using his ground forces? Remember this whole shindig is to stop the deaths of the rebels and civilians.

Why are we helping only Libya out? The same exact thing is happening in Syria, Yemen, and Bahrain where their respective governments are killing civilians who are rebelling. And our country is not doing anything there. So does this mean we are going to help those countries as well at some point in time? Why aren’t we helping them already? I am not sure of the answer but I am pretty it has to do with the fact that none of those countries have oil in the large capacities that Libya has. And we all know that the oil has to keep on flowing or this planet will look like a damn zombie movie fairly quickly.

Where are all of the anti-war protestors and Hollywood types that railed George Bush for the war in Iraq? Where are all of the Democrats who so vocally opposed the Iraq war? They are so silent today over this latest military action that I can hear the summer time crickets. The media used to bash Bush daily over the war in Iraq and yet are SILENT on this in terms of speaking against it. Yes they are reporting about the conflict, but they are not against it in any form that I have seen so far.

Why did our President wait until later today (almost a week and a half) to speak to the American people? Most of the time when a President has committed our men and women of the armed forces to missions like this they normally get on tv and address the nation. I know he has been busy but damn this is an important thing to do. Especially considering that we have got mixed messages as to what is going to happen here. One part of our government says this is only limited and we will not be removing Kadafi and other parts of government have said that they will not be happy until Kadafi is gone.

Why with all of the shit going on in our country are we committing ourselves to another conflict? We are already fighting two wars and now we are diving head first into another one. And that is not even the financial mess that our country is in right now. I have heard on the news that it is going to cost somewhere around 200-500 million to set up and then a million per day that we are involved which I highly doubt that we are going to get that money back.

Why does our country have to keep meddling in the affairs of everyone else on the planet? We have a long history of getting into another countries business or supporting one faction over another. Cuba, Vietnam, Korea, Afghanistan, Iraq/Iran, and countless others are all examples of this. Can’t we just let the idiots fight things out for themselves for a change? We are already hated in the middle east so why do more of the same shit that has gotten us hated in the first place.

I guess I just want some of my questions and concerns answered before we commit our men and women to battle in another foreign land.