It is clear from the outset that it is our political establishment and not our military that are calling for interference in another nation's internal affairs. The Secretary of defense, Robert Gates has warned that a No-Fly Zone begins with a military attack on Libya's air defense facilities.
""Let's just call a spade a spade. A no-fly zone begins with an attack on Libya. That's the way you do a no-fly zone. And then you can fly planes around the country and not worry about our guys being shot down."
That is calling a spade a spade indeed. We need people like Gates to stop another war being waged against another nation that has not attacked us. Once the military option is used in any situation, it is hard to control. We have enough debt to deal with and even without intervention in Libya we spend 53% of our total Federal spending on defense (defense, really?) Politicians like John Kerry are calling for a no fly zone in order to stop Gadhafi from bombing his people. According to the Associated Press, "Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that despite media reports of Libyan aircraft attacking rebel areas, the Pentagon had not confirmed any air attacks."
How often are we going to allow the American military to act as the world's policemen? In the long run, we stand to gain nothing from interfering in the politics of Libya. This will only turn out to be another in a long list of military attacks on sovereign nations. The truth of the matter is that we would not be thinking of acting militarily against Libya if they did not sit on oil reserves estimated at over 40 billion barrels of high-quality crude. If Russia or China launched military operations against Libya we would be screaming at the top of our lungs.
The American people need to see this as what it is, and that is just another attempt by the United States to secure resources by force. We are already fighting a war in Afghanistan in order to stabilize the country so that we can build the Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Indian pipeline (T.A.P.I.). Our attempt to control the oilfields of Iraq has yielded no significant gains for the U.S. Sending America's military to Libya will be a grave mistake. Obama's entire presidency will be gauged by what we do in Libya and other potential trouble spots in the resurgent Middle-East. I don't want to be writing about what I wrote today years from now.