Libyan Indecision

I'm finding myself in the same frame of mind that I was in sometime in 2002 during the runup to the Iraq War. I find it hard to take a strong stand on these types of foreign intervention.

On one hand, we have a humanitarian crisis brewing, with Qadafi using American-made weapons to kill his own people who are making legitimate democratic claims.  On top of that, the guy is a certified nut-case, responsible for a great deal of terrorism back in the day including the downing of Pan AM 103 over Lockerbie.  Although he has come back to the community of nations a bit since then, he's obviously not one of the Good Guys.

On the other hand, bringing ground troops into Muslim countries hasn't been going so well lately, and it's really not clear what sort of strategy we'd have.  We could just do the No-Fly Zone, but Qadafi could still defeat the rebels with ground troops.  Or there could be a stalemate and long civil war.  If we put boots on the ground in a really big country, I don't see how we get out.

On the other other hand, the Arab League has asked the UN to do something, so there's much more legitimacy this time than there was in Iraq.

On the othe other other hand, there's no guarantee that Qadafi's replacement will be any less crazy than he is.

I'm out of hands, and I still don't know what to do.  I guess this is why governments tend to dither sometimes- none of the options look appealing.