Libya Update

So it seems that NATO bombs have killed one of Qaddafi's sons and a few of his grandchildren.  There are denials from NATO that civilians or the Qaddafi family are targeted, so maybe the whole thing is propaganda.  But at least we're keeping the bombing of Libya in the news a bit, now that the Royal Wedding is over (oops, sorry, no blog post coming on that one).

One of my conservative correspondents over email has criticized the government for failing to just "take him out", i.e. kill Qaddafi and be done with the whole thing.  He wrote to our group:

You may recall a few weeks back I said "go after Qaddafi". The civil war that has killed and maimed countless innocent men, women and children since then would likely have ended as soon as he was killed.

Now this is just stupid.  Killing the leader there would be the start of our problems, not the end.  Do people think about what would happen next?  Haven't we learned anything from our Iraq and Afghanistan experiences?  Look, I'm not saying we should never intervene anywhere internationally, but we certainly need to have a clear-eyed sense of what we're getting into.  It's been proven over and over and over again that a targeted killing or a well-placed bomb is not going to offer a simple solution to an international problem.

Qaddafi looks like he's not going away quietly.  We're not going to bomb him into submission.  The rebels don't look like they're organized enough to take him down.  Even if they can take him down, the next likely stage would be a civil war for power, not an easy transition to Democracy.  The USA has no stomach for another long occupation ending in another few million people hating us.

Sorry, the only option is to leave them alone.  That stinks too, by the way, and leaves Qaddafi in power wiping out the rebels and committing atrocities.  But that outcome isn't on us- we're not doing it.  And we can only postpone the bloodbath, not stop it.  Time to get out.