I am having difficulty forming a coherent and useful opinion on what the US is doing with the UK and France in Libya. I have purposefully kept myself confined to facts and stayed away from opinion but I still can’t really get my mind around it.

On the one hand, enormous massacres of civilian populations by heavily armed militaries defending insane dictators are generally a bad thing from a human rights perspective. Especially when these massacres are broadcast on TV. This creates pressure to “do something.”

On the other hand, I have two major objections. The first is that this isn’t really clear that bombing Libya does anything to further US interests. I am certain it is important from an oil perspective but it’s unclear it is as important as, say, the mess in Yemen or the Saudis invading Bahrain to stop the protests or the rapid militarization of the Iranian government. Second: I have never believed that freedom can be given. I have always believed that it must be earned, even if it means horrible things happen without outside intervention. Freedom forced upon a people from without is just another word for oligarchy.

So what does the US involving itself in a Civil War between a brutal dictator and a bunch of people holing up in several towns with guns in Northern Africa do? I just don’t have a great answer. I’m not sure what the goal is.

I suspect there is no correct answer to Libya. Either you stand by and do nothing and watch the atrocity and listen as people scream that you do something (that ‘something’ being highly undefined) or you ‘do something’ and everyone screams that doing something isn’t the right thing/isn’t good enough/is too interventionist/isn’t interventionist enough. You half do something like firing missiles off submarines and that’s too much/not enough.

And after writing this small blurb on it I realize that there is no answer, it’s a crappy situation, and no matter what happens people who bear no responsibility for the decision are going to sit around and crow and point fingers and scream that so-and-so should do this/not do this/is weak/etc. I find I am personally not crazy about the decision to start bombing the place because either the locals oust Qaddafi or not and find their own way or not. At the end of the day, the locals have to live there tomorrow. It’s their home. And we get to change the channel.