Those who have been keeping an eye and an ear on the news may have noticed that there seems to be a large increase in rebellion on the middle-eastern part of the globe. The attention focused on the protests in Egypt has recently switched to the full-scale rebellion in Libya. That is what I want to talk about today.
Libya, currently under the control of dictator Muammar el-Qaddafi, has reached a breaking point. A large percentage of the population lives in poverty, while el-Qaddafi has billions of dollars hidden in foreign bank accounts. The citizens took to the streets and have launched a civil war against Qaddafi. This is well deserved and long overdue, but for some reason the US will not back them up.The USA has continually avoided the topic of Libya. They ignore the request for a "no-fly zone," which would help the rebels enormously, and when forced to speak they only encourage the Qaddafi to leave. No threats.
Many believe that this is because we don't want to lose Libyan oil. But to me that is no reason to not make a stance. At what point does oil become more important than human life? It is inhuman to intervene on other topics when we are not involved, and then completely ignore the situations that we actually do have a stake in. I think we should back the rebels immediately because if we do and they win, we would be in a very good position with their new ruler. So what do you think? Is this something we get into? Or have we intervened on enough things already?
Andrew-
ReplyDeleteSuch an interesting post! Yes, if the rebels win, then America would have good relationship with Libya. That way, both the Oil-Greedy and Humanitarian Americans are satisfied. To play the devil's advocate- what about the fact that children are going hungary when there school doesn't provide meals, or that people are out of work? I don't think America is in the position to intervene right now, however, if the we teamed up with other countries, like members of the UN, we would not have the heavy burden of "fixing" the situation. If it were 10 years from now when the economy improves and we are not fighting a war, maybe it would make sense to intervene. I am in no way meaning to belittle human lives; I also will not belittle logic. Logically, we have enough on our plate and are not equipped with financial or citizen support of entering another war. Ideally the Libyan ''rebels'' will overthrow the dictatorship soon and blood will not be shed in vain.
One thing I'm curious about is that are other countries intervening? I know that being a bystander and not doing anything is wrong however I haven't heard of another country intervening. It seems to me like suddenly the US has become the police of the world and also that we now expect ourselves to be.Why can't we just sit back? I know that we need oil but I really don't think that the cost of intervening would be worth it especially since we are not in a good economic situation and we are also in too many wars already. Lets finish what we've started before we take on something new.
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