vitalwholeness

I confess my ignorance. I have no idea why the U.S. military is intervening in Libya’s civil war. Of course, Gadhafi is no sweet guy; he is a totalitarian dictator. In the wave of Northern Africa protest movements bad guys are falling left and right and largely non-violent protests have taken the day. But Gadhafi is not going quietly. And the rebel movement is armed and there is open warfare.

So, do we normally intervene – other than in peace-making diplomacy – in every armed civil war taking place in other countries around the globe? We never thought of that kind of response in Egypt, even if it got nasty. Why snuggle up to the rebels in Libya? Is it our dear love of democracy? Neutralizing some terrorist network?

How jaded I’ve become. It actually occurred to me that all this just might have to do with the gigantic oil fields under that Libyan sand. And we might just be betting on the horse we believe win this struggle for power, the one left standing at the end of the day, our good friend flying his flag right over the oil fields.

Why else intervene? Can you think of one viable reason? Before you play the freedom card and say we’re just helping to liberate those poor Libyan people from the shackles of tyranny, you have to first scan the long list of all the other countries submerged in civil war where we did not intervene, every country that didn’t have one drop of oil to its name.

But, of course, I could be very, very wrong.

Why are we lobbing our cruise missiles their direction?