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RE: The friendship of George W. Bush and Michelle Obama (CNN)
Kosovo was with the backing of the international community, and in response to clear acts of genocide. So no. Libya was going to collapse either way, probably best for us to stay out, but we were trying to buy brownie points with whoever came into power after. Compared to other failed stayes, Libya isn't "as" bad, and American influence has helped cobble things together.
Going on genocidal wars clearly isn't the answer, but neither is burying our heads in the sand.
We were told that Kosovo was genocide committed by one side, the evidence for that is scant at best. So calling them "clear acts" is simply parroting the media hype before we went in and indiscriminately bombed people. Libya is a huge mess, we have created a hotbed of radicalism and saying it was "going to collapse either way" is simply not true. Gaddafi was in no danger of going away.
It is not burying your head in the sand when you avoid entangling alliances with terrorists and shun waging war on people you have never met. Our foreign policy is a policy of meddling and wrong. The fact is that there has never been a war that Hillary Clinton did not support or encourage. Saying one party has a penchant for war is absolutely incorrect, they both do. Historically the Democratic Party is America's War Party, recently (in the last half century) the GOP has joined them in their never ending quest to police the world. Do not mistake my position as support for either party, they are equally corrupt and worthless.
@bmwrider Hmmm... Evidence of war crimes have been found by numerous neutral authorities. Whether or not it was a genocide or acts of genocide with a different goal in mine (i.e. forcing migration rather than eliminating a group) is debatable. Given that both Kosovo and Serbia are relatively stable countries, that have enjoyed progress in regards to their economies and overall human development indicators, I can't feel overly terrible about that. Not the United States or anyone else can act as the world police. The KLA were terrorists, IMO, but that doesn't mean that Serbia should have been allowed to commit war crimes.
Gadaffi had already lost most of his support before the U.S. was seriously involved. Remember, the Arab Spring swept away the Murabak regime, which we were generally quite friendly with. The regime was collapsing before the U.S. got involved. More likely, the motive for involvement was to have a seat at the table after it was set and done.
Does that make intervention worth it? Not IMO, but there's a huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, gap between the Iraq war and aerial bombing campaigns in both Kosovo and Libya, with both having broad international support, and neither a conflict that we picked and started.
The Iraq War that was a bi-partisan boondoggle. Sitting it at the feet of either party is simply gamesmanship. The fact is that the CinC could have pulled American forces out of Iraq 7 years ago. Today there are American military forces in Iraq (as well as Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Qatar, and Northern Africa just to name a few places) but the American public is fed the myth that the war is over. Interesting because American military men and women are still dying there.
I think your opinions on Kosovo and Libya are based on incomplete information or on the misinformation that was perpetrated by the media prior to the conflict, hence the reason why I provided you links for further information. What the media tells us and truth are usually mutually exclusive.
If as you purport the idea was to have a seat at the table when the conflict was done, that did not work out at all. Your huge gap is simply seen as huge because the value of life between locals and Americans is huge, huge, huge. I am not saying you are right or wrong, but the deaths of Libyans at the hands of extremists who the American government funded and encouraged is criminal. It happens all over the world. The last two administrations have left a path of death and destruction internationally, the fact that a current candidate for the Presidency is the architect of much of that death and destruction tells me a lot about the party that nominated her and the people who support her.
I will conclude by stating I simply do not care that governments across the world endorsed war, the fact is that government is responsible for more murder than all other forces on earth combined. Just because the "international community" endorses it (the same international community that endorsed the Iraq War no less) does not justify it or make it right. Your willingness to believe the Clinton spinmeisters regarding Kosovo (which resulted in widespread atrocities committed by the ethnic Albanian forces) while rejecting the Bush spinmeisters is interesting. Me, I reject them all.