Drawing an analogy between the US slowly growing ensnarement in Vietnam and the UK moving "advisers" into Libya.

Analogy | Define Analogy at Dictionary.com
In case you needed a reminder.

Our detachment in the Middle East at the time thought that "Operation Iraqi Freedom" (OEF) should have been called "Operation Iraqi Liberation"........ it seemed more appropriate.

Shock - Horror!

Multinational company involved in contingency planning.

S 206

What if.....
 

If someone invented an engine that ran on tobacco does that mean we would go in and regime change in Zimbabwe then?
:oh:

If only, but the first folks to get rich from that live in North Carolina and Virginia. :) Tobacco as a different sort of cash crop ...

It's all about Oil and is a joke, what the **** has it to do with NATO?
It was a civil war/unrest and we just jumped in feet first, what next?

Proly alot of people being killed.

You know, the usual mix. Old, young, very young. What can we do to change that?

Oil's one of things we should go to war for, our entire way of life is dependant on it!

Sunfish

I assume your planning to go and live in a cave with no mains electricity and a wood stove for heating?

or are you happy being a hypocrite?

It's bo***cks. The old oil argument doesn't hold an ounce of water.

There was no embargo against Irak or Libya pre-war. That oil was fully and readily available on the worlds oil markets for anyone to buy. What do you think is cheaper: buying all the oil these countries can or could produce ever, or going to war for it?

You guessed right - buying it.

War is the most expensive and worst way to get your hands on oil. It doesn't make any financial sense. No, these wars were fought on idealistic grounds. Right or wrong can be argued, but that's another discussion.

Adam war is expensive, very expensive in fact but not nearly as expensive as the lost revenue from the oil fields lost to a country you can't do buisness with. Fighting for Oil maybe be expensive but the west can't live without it, fact! I don't know the figures (could google them) but the cost of the oil being produced in Libya far outstrips the cost of the Wests war machine.

Why are we not bothering with Syria? not even a mention of any military intervention?

Lonewolf
You wrote:
<<What really annoys me, however, is the gutlessness. Note how the UN cut and ran, tail between legs, along with some of its donor nations, after the UN HQ in Baghdad was hit with a bomb in August 2003. >>
Was that not when Sergio di Mello was in charge there?
I seem to recall that he was pushing the line that the US had done its job and it would be better for them to leave Iraq at that point.
The only beneficiaries of this bombing were the Americans who happened to be doing the security at the site - if you wanted to hang around and grind Iraq into the dirt as a viable nation and potential future threat to Israel, and grab her oil, di Mello would have been in your way.
Along with di Mello, about 20 of his staff were killed - the UN got the message.
While there may be many detailed reasons attempting to justify regime change in Iraq, the three main drivers for aggressive military intervention by the US appear to be:
Oil;
Posing a real or potential threat to Israel;
Being a sovereign nationalistic state.

Without any of the above, I am sure that you can think of many appalling regimes that are allowed to carry on.

And you thought that the threat to real freedom of independent nations went with the demise of the Soviet Union, no doubt?