Reply #131: Well, that's an easy question. No, he didn't threaten to slaughter "everyone in his country."

[JackRiddler]

Speaking of "cartoonish"!

It's been established by the likes of Amnesty and Human Rights Watch and even accepted by the media that the pre-attack stories of Gaddafi atrocities were fabricated or exaggerated. There were no "foreign black mercenaries" or "Viagra-fueled" rape campaigns.

Meanwhile Assad is doing much worse than Gaddafi. Even worse from a US perspective is its support for the Saudi invasion of Bahrain to save the regime there, despite the atrocities there. And in Yemen the US is killing people based on Saudi intelligence. The US has joined the fight to save the oil kingdoms from the uprisings, while bombing Libyans (and turning them against the US and for Gaddafi) supposedly to support the uprisings.

Yemen, Syria, Bahrain, Libya: these are as close to a controlled experiment as foreign policy can provide. Four Arab nations facing democratic uprisings at the same time, each engaging in brutal crackdowns against the rebels. The different US responses in each case illustrate that USG policies have NOTHING to do with the high rhetoric and moral claims. In each case, it's whatever is convenient to USG interests.

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