EDITORIAL: U.S. action in Libya rational, justified
As U.S. military forces secure the United Nations-imposed no-fly zone over Libya, it is clear this is not the U.S. going to war with another Middle Eastern country.
Operation Odyssey Dawn, the U.S. participation in the enforcement of United Nations Security Council resolution 1973, is dissimilar in motivations, methods and attitudes to the country’s military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The operation has up to now consisted of firing Tomahawk cruise missiles at and dropping bombs on Libyan air defense forces, along with forces from Canada, France and the United Kingdom, to enforce a no-fly zone in the country preventing the Libyan military from carrying out air strikes against civilians and rebel forces.
This is not being done to protect American interests or expand American influence. The U.S. is simply, at this point, carrying out the U.N. resolution, which is a humanitarian one meant to prevent civilian deaths in Libya.
As part of the reason for the no-fly zone, the Security Council said in the resolution they are “condemning the gross and systematic violation of human rights, including arbitrary detentions, enforced disappearances, torture and summary executions.”
In his speech on the subject Friday, President Barack Obama stressed that this is not an act of war, framing the nature of U.S. involvement in Libya with concrete statements such as “We will not be deploying ground troops,” and “The change in the region cannot be imposed by the United States.”
These actions are measured and restrained. The acting nations are doing only what they must to protect the citizens of Libya from Colonel Moamar Gadhafi, the country’s controversial leader.
Compared to Iraq and Afghanistan, which the U.S. took action against for more or less national interests, its actions in Libya slightly go against national interests. In recent years relations between the two nations have come very close to amicable, with the U.S. taking sanctions and terrorist designations off Libya. Part of the reason for that is the U.S. alliance with Israel, a country Gadhafi never made an attack against.
The U.S. putting aside its own interests and acting in cooperation with the U.N. in the interest of humanitarianism and saving civilian lives is the most positive and rational American military action taken in years and, at least until the situation escalates or changes, should be supported.
