more faulty foreign policy

For the past week, I've been following the American intervention in the Libyan civil war by imposing a no-fly zone, and enforcing it with bombings. There are three fundamental flaws that I see with this style of intervention. Since I've posted it on facebook before, I'll simply copy and paste them here.

‎1. First of all, if we're talking about American dollars and (soon) American lives, it should be in the American people's interest. Anything else is an initiation of force without just cause.

2. It also is not in Libya's interest. In order to establish a deterrent in Iraq and Afghanistan, we had to create a long-term presence, and it still didn't work. Karzai's government is ridden with corruption. Of course, this is nothing new, as we saw in Vietnam, Korea, etc.

Force and guns do not create sustainable societies. Only trade, diplomacy, and setting an example can.

3. There is also the concept of Blowback. Our meddling in the affairs of others has not helped the image of America in the Muslim mind as an imperialist superpower, which was further not helped by the fact that we supported these regimes (Mubarak and Qaddafi) for decades. Al Qaeda's stated goals were the removal of these dictators and the removal of the state of Israel.

The political side shows even more hypocrisy as pundits on the right question the prudence of this war (even though they supported similar intervention under Bush) and pundits on the left who support the war (even though they opposed similar intervention under Bush).

What this conflict shows, however, is the left, just like the right, has no interest in a true non-interventionist foreign policy, which they demanded from the Republicans. Congressmen Kucinich (D-OH) went on Fox News and quoted a candidate Barrack Obama saying the following:


"The president does not have power under the constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation."
Libertarians: still waiting for a true anti-war movement.