The Libyan Revolution has reached a critical point after Western coalition began military attacks that exceeded the goal of a no-fly zone over Libyan airspace. As a veteran who severed two tour in the Persian Gulf it seem to be remarkable timing that comes around the same time as the with the anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003.
United States, France, the U.K., and other nations began striking the regime’s military assets on Saturday as part of an effort to enforce UN resolution aimed at protecting Libyan civilians.
The Arab League is soon expected to reiterate support for a no-fly zone over Libya, the countries involved in enforcing the zone had linked their participation to regional backing.
Three days after an international military coalition intervened in Libya, the cost to U.S. taxpayers has reached the hundreds of millions of dollars and continues to climb. U.S. and U.K. ships and submarines in the Mediterranean have unleashed at least 161 Tomahawk cruise missiles from their arsenals to the tune of $225 million, the Pentagon said.
U.S. warplanes have dropped dozens of bombs with price-tags of tens of thousands of dollars apiece. Now taxes payers have a $30 million F-15 to replace and cost are predicted to be in the billions by the end of the month.
The UN and the U.S are calling this a humanitarian crisis, but why was nothing done in Darfur years earlier when hundreds of thousands of people where being killed and strive to death? And why was nothing being do when Egypt was in it turmoil? It is nothing more than the price of gas that controls our military interest and this is yet another reason why we need to step away from our depends on fossil fuels.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2011/03/rhetoric_intervention
http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/02/whats-happening-libya-explained
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/23/world/africa/23libya.html?_r=1&hp
I am a person that usually knows only what I need to about our military and from what I do see as a trend is the military and their interest in gas prices. I do agree that we need to get away from fossil fuels! It would solve a lot of our military reasoning. This would also save us money by not having to go to war for fossil fuel reasons.
ReplyDeleteIt is sad that we pick and choose our wars based off which countries carry oil or not, but this is the world we live in. Ever since I was in the Gulf I wonder why it was that we were there in the first place, but it wasn't until long after I got out that I realized the truth. It just plan sad.
ReplyDeleteYou make a lot of really good points. I only know the bare minimum on the Libya crisis but I do know a lot about Darfur where conflict is still present. How do you choose who to help and who not to and when will we focus a little more on our country and less on others. I mean i am all about helping people but we need help to. We are still rebuilding from Hurricane Katrina and we are in our own war and about 1000 other things that are problems in our country.
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