Why the US must not intervene in Libya

[CHIMO]

The urge to intervene around the world may truly have become hardwired into the American psyche. How else to explain the seriousness with which some in Washington are suggesting that the United States take sides in the unfolding civil war in Libya?

The US is fighting two wars in Muslim countries. Since the results have included thousands of dead Americans, a near-bankrupt treasury and a surge in anti-Americanism in the world's most volatile region, launching a third war might seem unwise. Intervening in Libya would require the US to take sides in a highly obscure conflict. Any group the US helps bring to power would be heavily tainted, and Americans would have to defend it in an explosive environment.

And few people in the Middle East, or anywhere else, would believe that the US had intervened in an oil-rich Arab state without being interested in securing its oil.

Intervention in Libya has all the makings of another Middle East quagmire. The urge to intervene there, however, is not driven solely by factors related to Libya. Sure, there is genuine outrage at the brutality Muammar Gaddafi is inflicting on his people. No doubt, some American strategists have their eyes on Libyan oil, and others are looking for a new platform for US power in the Middle East. But beneath it all is the deep belief that when there is trouble in Libya – or Liberia or Lesotho or Laos or Lithuania – the United States needs to take a decisive stand and push to impose the solution it finds best.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/mar/09/libya-usforeignpolicy

[fittosurvive]

1. Because it is their war, not ours.

[swilton]

2. US special forces are probably already in Libya