Everyone has an opinion on Libya, and everyone seems positive that they know best. I don't know what I think. What I do know is that it's very easy to sit on the sidelines and make proclamations. I'm not sure that President Obama could have made a single decision without upsetting a huge portion of the population. If he intervenes, he's stupidly starting a horrible war. If he stands aside, he's horrible for allowing human rights violations to occur. If he takes too long, he's dithering. If he acts too quickly, he's being rash.
Personally, I at least agree with his sense of timing on this one. He waited for UN and NATO support (a crucial difference between Libya and Iraq; why does everyone keep comparing the two?). Once he had the support, he acted swiftly. What happens in the next few days and weeks will largely determine the future safety of Libyan citizens. I sincerely hope things go well, although I have many doubts.
Maybe intervening in Libya was the correct decision. There were certainly atrocities occurring there, but there are atrocities in hundreds of other places too. So why not intervene elsewhere? I heard one explanation that made some sense to me, which stated that a no-fly zone can only be effective if:
1. There are mass civilian deaths occurring within a region
2. Major objectives (that will decrease the civilian deaths) can be reasonably achieved with a no-fly zone
Libya meets these standards. Gaddafi (wow everyone sure spells that name differently) was using tanks and airplanes to kill civilians from far away. We can eliminate these weapons using our own bombs. There is minimal risk and it's quite effective. It's much more difficult to use air forces or a no-fly zone to end a ground battle between minimally-armed groups. We can't intervene in every single civil war.... but maybe we can intervene in some of them, and maybe we can help occasionally. I don't know. It's not easy playing Supercop for the whole world.
***
I really don't know where I stand on Libya, and maybe that's the point. There was no right answer for this problem, no risk-free option. It was always going to be messy, and too many people were always going to die.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Scott Walker is gross
Still stunned over the oh-so-sketchy passing of the anti-union bill in the dead of night by 18 Wisconsin Republicans who took all of 30 minutes to heavily damage public workers' rights.
What on earth is the point of this bill?? It has nothing to do with the budget. Nothing! The unions made the (ridiculously enormous) concessions on the budget ages ago. They already agreed to cut pay and benefits. Why this fanatical obsession with destroying union rights? How is this helping?
I have a very difficult time listening to Governor Walker drone on and on about the deficit, and the budget crisis, and how "everyone has to do their part." I'm sorry, and the rich did "their part" when exactly? When they refused to accept a measly 3% raise in taxes?
When did we decide that the budget crisis is the fault of the public sector worker? Wall Street got away with murder, the average CEO of a Fortune 500 company makes a salary 135 times greater than his average employee... but NO! It's the teacher with the $50,000 salary who destroyed our economy! Somehow, despite all evidence to the contrary, people have come to the conclusion that greedy greedy public sector workers take all the money and make millions of dollars more than private workers. Doesn't matter what actual facts say. If Mitt Romney declares that "the average government worker makes $30,000 more than the average private sector worker" it must be true.
It truly makes me sick.
I try very hard not to be overly partisan. I want to believe that there are good, smart folks on all sides of the issue. But it honestly does not seem like it. It's nauseating enough that the superrich were able to obliterate the economy and get away with it. But now we want to blame the average, middle class government worker for our economic woes? I cannot come up with any justification for that.
What on earth is the point of this bill?? It has nothing to do with the budget. Nothing! The unions made the (ridiculously enormous) concessions on the budget ages ago. They already agreed to cut pay and benefits. Why this fanatical obsession with destroying union rights? How is this helping?
I have a very difficult time listening to Governor Walker drone on and on about the deficit, and the budget crisis, and how "everyone has to do their part." I'm sorry, and the rich did "their part" when exactly? When they refused to accept a measly 3% raise in taxes?
When did we decide that the budget crisis is the fault of the public sector worker? Wall Street got away with murder, the average CEO of a Fortune 500 company makes a salary 135 times greater than his average employee... but NO! It's the teacher with the $50,000 salary who destroyed our economy! Somehow, despite all evidence to the contrary, people have come to the conclusion that greedy greedy public sector workers take all the money and make millions of dollars more than private workers. Doesn't matter what actual facts say. If Mitt Romney declares that "the average government worker makes $30,000 more than the average private sector worker" it must be true.
It truly makes me sick.
I try very hard not to be overly partisan. I want to believe that there are good, smart folks on all sides of the issue. But it honestly does not seem like it. It's nauseating enough that the superrich were able to obliterate the economy and get away with it. But now we want to blame the average, middle class government worker for our economic woes? I cannot come up with any justification for that.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
