Why not Syria and Yemen?

About a month ago Libya was the center story of the media. Nobody could take their eyes off of what was happening there. A revolution was sweeping across the Middle East, and for once the government was determined to fight back the protesters. What ensued was a civil war that gripped our modern sensibilities. What happened in Egypt and Tunisia was to our liking: there was a peaceful protest and a resolution was peacefully reached. When Libya came around, it was shocking.

And then came the response. The US and many other countries decided to impose a no-fly zone on the area and essentially the situation has not changed much since. We stepped in on behalf of the protesters. Now that it has happened, the civil war is still ongoing with no resolution in sight. Did we really have no plan as to what to do if the air superiority missions did not help topple the Libyan government? It seems not. For all of the criticism that candidate Obama hoisted upon Bush, he did the same mistake. He rushed into a war, and now what?

But it is even worse than that, because Obama has no consistent vision for his intrusions into the affairs of other nations. He attacked Libya because of what its government was doing to its citizens. It was supposed to be a humanitarian mission. So what about Syria and Yemen? Arguably the same thing is occurring there as occurred in Libya, yet nothing is being done. Well, sure, there are talks about sanctions, but active military involvement? Forget about it. So why is there a difference in the response? It is not random. There is a reason. These are political people and they have calculated reasons for why they do everything. So why the rush to war and now the current trepidation with respect to Syria and Yemen?

In my humble opinion (and feel free to disagree with me), this was never a response to the humanitarian needs. Ron Paul points out the hypocrisy beautifully. He says that even our humanitarian missions have a way of killing innocent civilians. So if the mission is not about saving lives, then what was it about? It was a response to the media; in other words, it was a way to score political points. Obama and the American government were being criticized for not doing anything in response to the events in Libya. This was the big story at the time, and the president could not look timorous. As a response to the growing unpopularity of Obama in response to the issue, he rushed the country into war without a consistent vision and without even a full plan.

To me, this is worse than rushing into a war without an exit strategy. I do not like nation building or meddling in the affairs of other nations, but at least Bush was consistent about it. Why is Obama getting nothing about this? The media has treated his response to Libya with kid gloves, and he is getting a free pass when he should be reamed. Granted, I am a non-agressionist and I would oppose the attacks from the start, but this was a reckless move and was purely political. War is far too serious to be a political game. Unfortunately for us, Obama thinks our military is nothing more than a pawn in a game of politics. War and destruction are things not to toy around with.