Thursday, March 24, 2011

The Best (Realistic) Possible Outcome In Libya

I'm hoping that Gaddafi runs away or is removed and then we quit, ignoring whatever we leave in our wake. Originally, I was hoping we would go after Gaddafi at the start of the rebellion, sending the message that we'll support any uprising against any anti-American government. We're now involved in a surreal, Ivy League faculty lounge thought exercise of how to protect innocent civilians from the air. The best we could seem to hope for is to extricate ourselves as quickly as possible while having some kind of success to point to, claiming that was what we wanted all along.

Installing a stable, liberal democracy seems out of the question. Here's the side we're (sort of) supporting:

Go team!

2 comments:

Jeff Burton said...

I've seen these kind of pictures on various blogs with captions like "meet our new allies." I think that's unfair. I don't think the ragtag visuals say anything about who they are or the prospects for democracy.

That said, I'm still pretty pessimistic about the prospects for democracy in Libya.

K T Cat said...

That's a good point, Jeff. I just see these and am concerned that such a heavily armed, disorganized, unprofessional group is going to lead to bad things if they win. I don't want us to get sucked into building a nation in Libya out of the ingredients for Somalia.