President Carter redux

I'm watching CNN as the worst case scenario seems to be
unfolding in Japan. Once again the question is edging towards
"why isn't the US Navy there yet?", and the CNN announcer doesn't
seem to understand that the Pacific is freaking big, anything not
there in Japan won't be there for a few days.

The next story blinks up; Qkadafy is taking the city of Ras Lanuf,
and I really don't see how the rebels can win without outside help.
One side has more modern weapons and air support, the other side has
15 year old boys and 30 year old weapons. I'd ask again, where is the
US Navy?

Two big problems doom the rebellion in Libya by preventing outside
assistance (meaning help from the USA). The intervention clock has
been reset to 1990, it's a bipolar or tripolar world again and we need
the consent of Russia and China to work through the UN. (not happening)
We also have the 1990 post-vietnam(Iraq) perspective of we don't want
to get involved in something that probably would become a quagmire.

The other problem is Arab fatigue. We really don't know the language,
culture or beliefs of anyone there, and my give a fuck level is very
low with anything that happens south or east of Italy. Neptunus Lex
says it better:

It would be the profoundest irony if, after having broken our hearts and the bodies of our youth for nearly 10 years now in the Middle East we have come to the conclusion that “these people” cannot be saved at precisely the same moment when they finally became ready for salvation.

Because that’s what just happened, if you weren’t paying attention: We’ve gotten tired of them. We’re tired of their ululations, their savagery and their conspiracy theories. We’re tired of their backwardness, sloth, dependency and fatalism. We’ve gotten tired of trying to accommodate a modern day, pluralistic and tolerant society to the religious dictates of a military adventurer dead some 1400 years.

The same people that called me a facist motherfucker in 2003 are the same
dickheads saying we should intervene in Libya. My GAF level is low enough that President Carter's dithering over the problem doesn't send me writing emails
hither and yon to various congressmen that could be representing me. More of
a sense of a missed opportunity, we've recreated an enemy in Libya by Carter's calling for him to go, but didn't do anything to make him go. I don't think the current President Carter included "The Prince" in his extensive, elite education.

[just to translate from Joe to english: I'd support support the current
President Carter if he'd do his job and swat khadafy duck, and I think that
is a consistent position. Hussein was a dick and he made war on us, we made
war on him and now he's gone. Khadafy is a dick, and has made war on us off
and on for 30 years, he should be made to go, not told to go. Don't do a
powerful enemy a small hurt]