Symmetry wrote:
1) Do you really think the conflict would have gone the other way without the very minimal intervention on one side from the US?
2) How strongly do you think the US is involved in the reconstruction efforts? It's not even over yet... where did you get that from?
3) I'm pretty sure the price of oil has been looked at pretty heavily by the western nations involved, and might not be an "unseen cost".
4) Kind of seems "right" to defend the moral principals of your nation when it comes to civil war between a side that advocates those principles, and a side that would torture and kill anyone who advocates those principles, but give you a good price on gas in exchange. Would kind of sound like those principle weren't so important that you couldn't be bribed out of them, no?
1) The current US intervention is not minimal. It's significant.
Had the US not intervened at all, Gaddafi would've very likely crushed the resistance, and if France and the UK intervened, the casualties would have been cost-prohibitive. The loss in logistical, intelligence, and military support from the US would've been so enormous that the effectiveness of the France and the UK's mission would've been drastically reduced, and the loss of US approval via NATO would prevent France and the UK from using NATO to easily garner additional support from the cause.
Expenditures:
Going on wikipedia and various news article, the US ranks #1 at $600m to $1bn. UK has spent roughly $300 to $400m. France: $250m. These costs don't include the reduced transaction costs in creating a multilateral effort (thanks to US participation), and it's dubious that they include (1) the CIA's (and other non-western groups like Mossad's) clandestine money and armament transfers to various rebels, and (2) other costs of services rendered by the US intelligence community (NSA, National Reconnaissance Agency for the cool nifty maps and locations which show where the Gaddafi forces actually are, etc. etc.)
2) How strongly do you think the US is involved in the reconstruction efforts? It's not even over yet... where did you get that from?For many areas of Libya, the fight against Gaddafi is over. For very few areas, it isn't. In some areas, "reconstruction" has already begun as rebels turn against each other--politically or militarily. Overall, pro-Gaddafi forces will soon be routed, but more importantly, those forces are incapable of shaping the outcome of this war.
For the US and others, reconstruction efforts have already begun. The CIA and the State Department have been selecting pro-American rebel factions in Libya, and the US has sponsored the NTC, and if i recall correctly, the US has granted them the rights to the $30bn frozen assets. The winners have already been picked.
If the NTC is guaranteed the money, various political groups within Libya will fight to gain NTC support in order to get the spoils. There's more, but all of this involves reconstruction efforts.
3) I'm pretty sure the price of oil has been looked at pretty heavily by the western nations involved, and might not be an "unseen cost".You'd be surprised at how poorly governments project future costs--especially if those costs don't directly affect them. If the governments were so great at projecting future costs, why don't they nationalize the futures markets? (....) I thought I was clear about this with spurgistan, but the unseen costs deal with the peoples' perception--not governments. Many people are simply unaware of the costs incurred by the unintended consequences of previous actions.
4) Kind of seems "right" to defend the moral principals of your nation when it comes to civil war between a side that advocates those principles, and a side that would torture and kill anyone who advocates those principles, but give you a good price on gas in exchange. Would kind of sound like those principle weren't so important that you couldn't be bribed out of them, no?War is difficult, and the future is uncertain, so nothing is guaranteed. One can proclaim, "we must defend freedom for everyone by bombing people because that's morally correct," but as I already mentioned, these moral considerations only calculated the perceived costs of a Gaddafi retaliation in Benghazi and weighed them against the perceived benefits of "democracy in Libya." Given the US record of bombing people in the name of liberty, is that perceived benefit likely? I highly doubt it.
But let's extend the moral problems. Factor in the perceived costs of NATO's bombing civilians, the costs to Libyan welfare from extending a civil war, and the very likely chance that democracy won't happen in Libya because the basic requirements are missing. 40 years of a dictatorship creates coordination through brute force. Coordination from informal institutions as found in liberal democracies (e.g. US, UK, France, German, etc.) don't spring up overnight. So, more Libyans and their wealth will very likely be destroyed in the aftermath---assuming NATO or the UN doesn't occupy the country (and that's had a piss-poor record in creating liberal democracies).
One can't bomb another's way to freedom with such rashness. Better planning is required to turn Libya into a lasting liberal democracy, but that opportunity has been destroyed, which is another moral consideration as well.
Besides, the moral principles of the "United States" varies with the executive branch.
