One must wonder what exactly the motivation is behind the “no-fly zone” above Libya. The Arab League, which was an early supporter of the zone, is now publicly criticizing actions by Europe and the United States. The League thought a no-fly zone meant the West would be patrolling the skies so that Gaddafi could not indiscriminately bomb his own people, not that Europe, the US and other coalition partners would be dropping depleted uranium on the population of Libya. A small issue of semantics, it seems.

Why exactly the US is engaged in this military action at all is an important question to answer – one that will likely be veiled in confusion, secrecy and silence, much like why the US invaded Iraq, which was reportedly to stop Saddam Hussein from using weapons of mass destruction which he never possessed and/or to free the people of Iraq from the tyrannical reign of a dictator.

Speaking of dictators, up until a couple months ago, all was well in the middle east. With the exception of Iran, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, and Bahrain were all allies, or at the very least we maintained a peaceful relationship. Not a peep was spoken for decades about the tyranny and dictatorships in those countries. They were friends, important partners in the middle east. From one day to the next, literally, the leaders of said countries were branded dictators.

While Gaddafi is now under attack by Western powers for threatening to eliminate all those who oppose him without mercy, inquiring minds are asking why the same didn’t hold true for Bahrain, whose leadership obviously has the same idea, where government forces have been ordered to fire on all protesters, peaceful or not:

What is the motivation for going into Libya? The possibilities really are endless. Are we there to secure the oil supplies for Europe? Are we really protecting Libya’s innocents from the reign of a dictatorial madman who has outlived his welcome? Do Western powers need to redirect the attention of the populace from a collapsing global economy to a new enemy and not themselves? Is this just another step in the expansion of a global war the will engulf the world over the coming decade?

Whatever the case, it is clear that something just isn’t adding up. As RT rightly pointed out in the following report, “the international community is very selective when it comes to protecting civilians. In Libya they protect them, in dozens of other places they turn a blind eye.”

As we forecast in an earlier commentary when President Obama first took office, it was only a matter of time before our wars in the middle east expanded. Up until a democrat President took office, war was a Republican agenda, and democrats across the country opposed action in the middle east, while republicans were in support. Now that President Obama has launched an attack, it will be interesting to see what arguments the left puts forth – will they support it, or will they reject it like that did with President Bush?

Our forecast is that democrats will, for the most part, support the military action, as it will be sold to the public as saving the innocent children of Libya (and whatever other countries need a dictatorial cleansing). The Republicans will likely reject this round of war as unconstitutional because Congress did not explicitly approve it, something Republicans did not have an issue with when the US entered Iraq.

In the end, both democrats and republicans will be more or less in support of military action in the middle east in one form or another. The West suggests that military action in Libya will be temporary, but as Nigel Farage so eloquently pointed out recently, the problem is not getting into a war, it’s getting out of one. Considering that reports out of Libya indicate that Gaddafi is arming his populace with millions of weapons, it’s looking more and more like a ground engagement may ensue in short order. To paraphrase Gaddafi, there will be no mercy, especially when UN/NATO/EU/US tanks and troops roll in to town. Be assured that those civilians we’re there to protect at the onset of Operation Odyssey Dawn will quickly transform into enemies.

Video of Western no-fly-zone activities:

We’ve already spent trillions of dollars in Iraq and Afghanistan in the last decade. What’s a few trillion more in Libya and the rest of the middle east? The Chinese are happy to lend.

So long as the Chinese keep buying up our worthless paper, Western powers that include Europe and the US will continue to expand militarily, regardless of the constitutionality of such expansion.