Destroying and Destabilizing...

heck, those are the easy parts. Anybody can easily tear down a neighbor, or have it arranged, especially a threatening neighbor, after all.*

(So much for America's most educated, and cooly cerebral president in recent times. Boy got played by Clinton & Co., me thinks.)

It's the building up after the destabilization. The proving that those who weren't even capable of taking out a leader themselves, now have it within them to rebuild -- leave the innocent people with something better in their day-to-day lives than what destruction and destabilizaton have wrought.

That's exactly why it was stupid to go in, guns a-blazin', to get that initial charge, not really caring how the people on the ground will fare once you've gone and pulled out, leaving the cleanup and the getting-back-to-normal in your wake.

Somebody benefitted by helping destabilize the Qaddafi. I'm just cynical enough to think: these actions weren't done with the everyday Libyan people in mind, and those doing the advocating won't give a second thought to how people there will fare for themselves now that the life they knew is gone, and there's nothing positive or beneficial to replace it. From what I've seen on the news, the "rebels" are sorely lacking at fighting, nevermind governing and making sure the innocents can meet their daily needs.

And at such a cost to U.S. taxpayers! Solely to destroy and destabilize...

----------------

* Sometimes, maintaining a balance of power keeps all parties in check. Helps assure that those who pay a high price for their actions aren't pushing the costs off to be born by innocent others. We learned zilch in Iraq, from the aftermath there, it seems.

ADDED:

U.N. Secretary General Expresses New Alarm Over Libya Strife
By DAN BILEFSKY


UNITED NATIONS — Secretary General Ban Ki-moon expressed deep concern Thursday about a possible humanitarian crisis in Libya despite Security Council steps to isolate and punish Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s forces, which have been ignoring warnings to stop a military campaign to crush a rebel movement seeking to end his long rule.

Mr. Ban said a new wave of up to 250,000 refugees and migrants could be displaced by the fighting in Libya, and said he was worried “about the protection of civilians, abuses of human rights and violations of international humanitarian law and the access of civilian populations to basic commodities and services in areas currently under siege.”

Hey now, none of that realism stuff, Mr. Secretary General. Kinda takes away from the "We Done Good!" huggy-huggy backpatting narrative that the libs are so keen to express right now...

"You love us. You really, really love U.S.!"* (and nevermind what you're thinking of our short-sighted destructive military action in the days, weeks, and months to come. We won't be around to cover that, short-attention spans and all.) But keep the hugs and short-term love coming, for now!

or,

"Still a man hears what he wants to hear. And disregards the rest ... Lie la lie..."

* Nicholas D. Kristof sez today:

This is also one of the few times in history when outside forces have intervened militarily to save the lives of citizens from their government.
...
Granted, intervention will be inconsistent. We’re more likely to intervene where there are also oil or security interests at stake. But just as it’s worthwhile to feed some starving children even if we can’t reach them all, it’s worth preventing some massacres or genocides even if we can’t intervene every time.

I opposed the 2003 Iraq invasion because my reporting convinced me that most Iraqis hated Saddam Hussein but didn’t want American forces intruding on their soil. This time my reporting persuades me that most Libyans welcome outside intervention.
...

“Men, women and children, they are ecstatic about the role of the coalition but worried that it may not continue,” he said.

ADDED FRIDAY:

“We should never begin an operation without knowing how we stand down,” said Joseph W. Ralston, a retired general who served as NATO commander and vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “We did a no-fly zone over Iraq for 12 years and it did nothing to get rid of Saddam. So why do we think it will get rid of Qaddafi?”

My comment, elsewhere:

Would Quaddafi really have killed so many civilians, had his back not been to the wall from the airstrikes, originally said to cripple and create a no-fly zone only? Would he have killed less innocents, had he been able to put down the revolution, and voluntary revolutionaries, more quickly? Can we admit that the most noble actions of the US and NATO -- well intentioned -- might indeed be causing more civilian (wm+children+elderly) to be killed, than would have had we not intervened? Dead=dead

.