Libya Ya Ya

Growing up, I had a distinct, even physical, intolerance for bullies.  I remember in sixth grade  having to jump up just to graze one on the chin. He was so shocked that he left the field, befuddled. (Probably saved me a beating– shock and awe, baby!)

In my later years, this predilection grew naturally into a reflexive support for humanitarian interventions like the one we find now unfolding in Libya. During Bill Clinton’s presidency, I was pissed at him for not intervening in Rawawanda, where some 600,000 men, women, and children were slaughtered. And for dragging his feet for over a year before intervening in Kosovo.  Like most people, I can’t abide psychopathic dictators who think nothing of slaughtering their fellows if it means gaining or holding on to power.

Then along came  the Iraq fiasco, which The Texas Village Idiot claimed was just such an intervention  (after failing to sell his WMD, Al Qaeda lies), muddying the moral waters. This has made intervention in Libya a harder sell, contributing mightily to the confusion in the public’s mind about the wisdom of President Obama‘s decision to intervene.

I still haven’t sorted out how I feel about all this. For the single reason I think intervention is a good idea, I can think of ten why it isn’t, not the least of which is: Can we really afford a third war, and against yet another natural resource rich Muslim country? Al Qaeda must be dancing in the streets.

Meanwhile, Jon Stewart tries to de-obfuscate the debate thus far.  In Part One, Stewart reviews Obama’s speech in which the president tries  to explain the nuances (contradictions?) of his decision. The clip above is from Part 2, where among other things, he tries to make sense of Sarah Palin‘s designation of the Libya action as “a squermish.” And in Part 3 below, he translates a Defense Department insider’s rather uncouth description of the action as “a turd sandwich”,  preferring to call it  “a bread based feces containment operation.” You get the idea.

To be continued.