Yes, "forever" being 1990 or so. The "so what" is that your statement was inaccurate. Saudi princes supporting terrorists is irrelevant to this.
Twenty years is a pretty long time to wait to get him as a supporter of terrorists for, especially when
you already damn well got him for that. Not only that, Libya publicly paid back the victims of later terrorist attacks and accepted responsibility in 2001. By the time he was overthrown, Gaddafi was funding no terrorists and posing no threat to any other countries.
Meanwhile, Saudi princes in present day, who constitute the ruling class of Saudi Arabia, have openly supported terrorists quite recently, have gone by without ever bringing problems upon their country. This is hardly irrelevant.
Detainment of peaceful protesters six months ago does not equal a serious rebellion.
Again you ignore the actual uprising in Bahrain, in which the (arguably Iranian backed) rebels were brutally put down by the (definitely Saudi and American backed) Bahraini government and Saudi forces. Perhaps because it would be inconvenient to argue against the obvious case?
Besides that, I like how you trivialize it because they're "peaceful protesters" and not "rebels". Yeah, they haven't been able to get their hands on weaponry just yet; they're fighting a regime with modern, American supplied equipment and don't have the benefit of the CIA like the Libyans did. Public outrage and media coverage of Gaddafi's regime began LONG before the rebels started to fight back, as did talk of intervention. But on that note, it looks like
armed rebellion is literally just around the corner, if delayed.
All that happened before the ban, which was instituted in 2006 if I recall correctly.
Incorrect.We were assisting a preexisting rebellion in Lybia, and not even all that much either. They did the heavy lifting, NATO just kept Gaddafi from employing air supremacy against the rebels.
CIA training and support alongside near constant airstrikes on strategic targets don't constitute "heavy lifting"?
Might I mention that the war in Afghanistan was carried out almost entirely in this fashion, but no one would argue that that wasn't an invasion (hence the silly "Obama didn't need a declaration of war/permission from congress" arguments), nor that it was the Northern Alliance doing the heavy lifting.
You see, the bit you didn't address is "The intervention clearly saved lives and was actually wanted by Libyans and the international community". So I feel like my point about slavishly following the constitution at the expense of actually doing good stands.
Okay, well, first off, this assumes that the Libyan intervention was "good", which is incredibly tenuous to say the least considering all the nasty things that have happened in Libya since then as well as the flagrant violations of human rights/the Geneva Convention by the rebels. Second, this justifies an American military presence just about everywhere since there are many dictators out there to be overthrown. Third, you're ignoring the entire reason that clause of the Constitution exists, which relates to the separation of powers. Regardless of whether the Libyan intervention was good (and it wasn't by any stretch, as interventionist wars tend towards being), there is such a thing as Rule of Law in the US which you don't bend just because the end result is good. If you have a problem with the president not being able to unilaterally go around supporting "FREEDOM" and "DEMOCRACY" with bombs and violence then get your congressmen to sign a Constitutional amendment to give him that power. Otherwise, it isn't justified under the law regardless of the end results.
Being vague doesn't disguise the slippery slope fallacy.
A legitimate slippery slope, however.
Author
Topic: American Election Megathread - It's Over (Read 764816 times)