Reply #8: Fine, so if an airliner is taken down on approach or takeoff, it doesn't count? [View All]

[PurityOfEssence]

Personally, I think that EVERYTHING that comes to pass from our Libyan illegality is the responsibility of the interventionists and this administration's cheerleaders.

Everything that flies will be close to the ground at some point, and many will be in populated areas when that happens. Populated areas are great cover for irregulars: pull over on the side of the road in an approach area and let 'er rip. This is asymmetric warfare, too: many of those pulling the various triggers don't care if they're killed, and many actually want it.

This is a disaster. Poo-poohing it is transparent flak (joke intended) for the zealously-held belief that this was a "good war" and that we know what we're doing.

The real lesson from a purely dispassionate military vantage is that "war on the cheap" defies the very concept of war: it is expensive, and when done cheaply and casually, as this one was, there are dreadful repercussions. The premise that Qaddafi would fall quickly because he had no support was wrong, the premise that a lid could be clamped on this seems to also be wrong.

20,000 stingers/blowpipes/whatevers are on the loose. Only the most bedazzled Obama acolyte could claim that none will cause deaths.