Here I've been defending liberals and progressives on this site, answering some posters who say they're bad because they're not far enough left. I've been saying that they're good because they lean in the right direction even if sometimes not as far as some might like.

Now there some of them go, defending this unconscionable use of military force. To those who hold this view, you're wrong wrong wrong this time.

I wish I knew how to go about "holding our leaders accountable for their crimes" and getting control over them. Only large campaign contributions seem to exercise any control over them. I know they don't listen to me.

Spot on! Obviously, those supporting war number III and its perpetual funding (in the last two years) are not really progressives at all. They are lip service liberals married to the oligarchy just like their hero, Barack.

Gaddaffi has been oppressing, killing, and torturing his people for decades; and now that the oil fields are in question, well you get the picture. How many more wars are we going to be embroiled in? No money for Single payer or public option; no money for sustainable energy outcomes, no money for job programs for the poor, home heating assistance, or Head Start, but when it comes to War, murder, killing, suffering, the military industrail establisbment gets a blank check.

Social security is history as we know it today.

Greenwald says it all:

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/03/23-9

Thanks for the p.o.v.

I'm one of those progressives you are talking to, in that I don't have a huge problem with the actions being taken by the coalition of countries in Libya. I believe it should be limited to disarming Gadaffi of the weapons he is using to murder his own people. And I'm wary of what advantage the US in particular might seek, opportunistic devourer of oil that it is. But I'm willing to listen to a cogent argument that the use of force is justified in the removal of this vile man.

You offer two salient points:

"A dictator falls out of favor with the West and, after quietly supporting him for years, we are suddenly told that "we" must not tolerate him (and only him) a second longer."

While I won't defend the hypocrisy of the major powers (except to say that absolute purity of motive and action are pretty rare in this world by anyone on any side of an argument), I do think Libya has done more here than merely 'fall out of favor with the West'. He is attacking his own people on a massive scale. Through his own words and those of his son, has promised to basically massacre anyone who gets in the way, even if he has to destroy entire cities and populations to do it. Never mind the West, I don't think anyone would tolerate this behavior, and even non-Westerners appear to believe this, as demonstrated by: a) the rebels request for a no-fly zone b) Arab League support and c) the abstention of the USSR and China at the UN, which is tacit support for what's going on.

As to your other point:

"Should we want to stop Gadaffi from killing people? Of course, but why only Gadaffi? Why not our own governments and their allies who have done so on a much larger scale and not only through war?"

To which I say, well which is it? You say of course we want to stop Gadaffi from killing people, then turn your argument on the point that we shouldn't do it because we are apparently not willing to stop others who are undertaking or have undertaken objectionable actions that are, in your mind, similar.

It seems an odd contortion for you to believe we should stop all murderous dictators except the first one. To follow your logic, you have to start somewhere, and from the point of view of the average Libyan, Gadaffi is a good place to start.

There was a town hall meeting in my city last night, broadcast live on the radio, at which many Libyans begged people to support the actions of the countries that make up the coalition. They begged the audience to see it through and remove the murderer Gadaffi once and for all. They warned of apocalyptic consequences for the people of Libya if this is not done.

Finally, you equate Gadaffi's actions with those of "our own governments". Please tell us which governments you are talking about--governments that have oppressed their own people with secret police and torture for decades. Governments that have never in 40 years faced either an election nor any meaningful dissent owing to their murderous means of suppressing democracy. Governments that, when finally opposed at first by protests, decide that the best course of action is to massacre thousands (and if left unchecked, perhaps hundreds of thousands) of its own citizens.

Western governments can be opposed openly and robustly and without violence though the ballot box. Yes it's hard to effect change in the US. Yes, you can argue that the voting system is unfair and that it promotes the status quo. You can make all kinds of arguments that things could be better. And you could certainly make the argument that the US and its allies have often behaved badly, even to the point of propagating evil in many countries around the world.

But you can't equate Obama (or Bush or Clinton or Bush or Reagan or even Nixon) with Gadaffi.

And you can't ignore the fact that in the US there is freedom of speech and the ability to oppose bad governments and bad leaders at the ballot box.

So, a bit of perspective, please. Your note to this progressive is unconvincing.

What we are witnessing is the dismantling of America--and endless wars play a vital role in this deconstruction of our country.

Endless wars enrich the military-industrial complex, do the same for multinational corporations that could care less if we survive as a nation (in fact they resent our government's ability to put any kind of restraints on their activities), and funnel the money into right wing politicians who start the vicious cycle all over again.

Most importantly, endless wars lend credence to the argument that we are bankrupt. Thus, they justify the further dismantling of our country by enabling these same politicians to argue that there is no money for schools, roads, and other pressing infrastructure needs.

Is the action in Libya a necessary military intervention, as opposed to our interventions in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan and other nations that posed absolutely no threat to us--and resulted in the loss of millions of human lives and billions of dollars we desperately needed to invest in our own country if we are to have any kind of future?

I would say the jury is still out on that one. However, keep a close eye on events in Libya over the next few weeks. I would predict the corporate-owned media will continue to report that we are planning to pull our military presence out of Libya, while our government surreptitiously strengthens a permanent military presence in yet another oil-producing nation.

One thing is absolutely certain: the far right will use these latest military expenditures as reasons why we must further cut every domestic program that serves the American people directly.

Read Will and Ariel Durant's studies of the rise and fall of great civilizations over time. The patterns are always the same, and our political leaders are taking us down the same path that has relegated so many earlier civilizations to the dust bins of history. Ultimately, these endless wars will cause our nation to implode internally.

We have reached the point where any further military actions, regardless of how justified they might be, will contribute to the further dismantling of our country.

Good editorial!

Unfortunately, no reasoned analysis or argument will persuade those who are enthralled by the simplistic, reassuring interpretation that government actions like the multi-lateral military operation against Libya's supposedly wayward ruler is fundamentally a right, proper, and laudable exercise in humanitarian altruism.

The repugnant reality that foreign policy is essentially a harsh, amoral exercise of power undertaken solely to further the vested interests of a nation's ruling overclass, or power elite, is too easily displaced by an alluring and reassuring high-contrast, black and white morality-play scenario.

The fictitious moral scenario is powerfully seductive, especially in dark and desperate times. It provides a heady rush of satisfaction and vindication, the stuff of myth and Hollywood fantasy; in 1978, watching the blockbuster film "Superman", audiences spontaneously leaped to their feet and cheered when Superman swooped out of nowhere to rescue Lois Lane, apparently falling to certain death from the top of the "Daily Planet" building.

And, "The Alamo" and Custer's Last Stand notwithstanding, there have been endless thrills generated by variations of the calvary riding to the rescue in the nick of time. That's why it became a cliché.

Here, framing the Libyan intervention as the Western nations "doing the right thing", even for the wrong reasons, is the macrocosmic version of the heartwarming, fist-pumping scenario of a clean-cut, outraged varsity football team charging from the nearby high school practice field onto a neighboring schoolyard, to administer a well-deserved thrashing to delinquent hoodlum bullies beating up helpless little'uns and stealing their lunch money to boot!

Once one buys into this perspective, they're bound to reject and scorn even the most lucid, dispassionate countervailing view. Their hostility ranges from fist-shaking righteous anger to elaborate rationalizations, according to the idiosyncratic mechanisms of cognitive dissonance they've already employed to process their internal conflict.

This is part of what Chris Hedges meant when he wrote "War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning". It even applies to those of us sitting way up in the Peanut Gallery, watching events from afar. There's a fatal compulsion to invest redeeming virtue in the exercise of violent military mayhem, because-- often in a subtle, roundabout way-- it allows us to feel better about ourselves.

"is analogous to the police within a typical capitalist country - guilty of grave double standards in its behavior, no doubt, but still necessary to protect innocent people. The analogy fails completely because it grossly understates the criminality of Western governments internationally."

I think the author of this article "grossly understates the criminality of Western" police agencies (Officers of the Court). We have over 2 million people in our Police State (in)justice system because of the grossly understated criminality of Western Governments and their police enforcers.

RE: ...we must not let the corporate media control what we think.

In years of reading and posting on CD this is the first time I have ever read something so direct. Well done Joe Emersberger!

Corporate media serves corporate interests and corporate interests are state interests.

Difficult issues like this one should be put to a fair referendum.

RE: The corporate media has, again, succeeded in getting many well intentioned progressives to think within its box.

Who are those "well intentioned progressives"? Here's a couple:

1) Immanuel Wallerstein: (quoting Wesley Clark) "Libya doesn't meet the test for U.S. military action." So, despite the call of the hawks for U.S. involvement, President Obama will resist.[Wallerstein was pretty wrong about that]. Wallerstein: Qaddafi is a major obstacle for the Arab, and indeed the world, left. [No, the major obstacle for the world left is NOT Qaddafi, but Western imperialism, period.]

http://www.zcommunications.org/libya-and-the-world-left-by-immanuel-wallerstein

2) Believe it or not, Michael Albert (defending Wallerstein): "Good, insightful people can have conflicting views about Libya, the Mideast, and North Africa, and the UN and U.S. role there."
[About the "U.S. role there"? Come on, you weren't born yesterday!]
http://www.zcommunications.org/very-elementary-thoughts-on-thinking-about-now-by-michael-albert

Are anarchists radicals or progressives (aka liberals)?