Minor role.  Gaddafi is out - that much has been decided.  Exactly how he leaves is up to him.  This will not be an Afghanistan, but I don't know exactly what will happen.

The attack on Libya is pretty sade - as wars go. His only real support is an army of mercenaries (well-equipped by some of the nations now invading.) The real problem comes in forming a demcratic government. Nobody is anxious to let that happen except, of course, the Libyans.

 el Qaddafi duck is desthpicable.

Who would have thought when we entered 2011 that Canada would be engaged in another military conflict. I wonder about the resources of our military as we have heard that they are already stretched to the limit meeting our commitment to the Afghanistan war.

 It's a great argument for those jets Harper wants to buy.

I look at it this way.  For once, the right-wing is forced to do something the left-wing wants done very badly.

And they are forced to do it, although, they don't give a damn about the lives of individuals and the revolution of forming and maintaining an educated middle class.

Cheers!

well said jlin!

My hope is that the reluctance of the US to get dragged into another quagmire will result in strategies to get the western countries out as soon as possible.  We shall see what happens over the next 3 days.  Quadaffi depends on mercenaries to do most of his dirty work.  If the mercenaries see a high probability of dieing, they may slip away surprisingly quickly.

Quadaffi is  a murderous thug who is killing his own citizens.  But then so was Saddam. 

"The Left" seem to support who ever the press spins to be the "good guys" , and it can NEVER be Americans or westerners or Christians. 

*shrug*

right and left has nothing to do with it. Obama, who is somewhat to the right of Genghis Khan, has created enormous problems by setting up the no fly zone. The Arab League is separating itself from the whole affair as quickly as it can. The American public isn't interested in a new war, especially as their whole economy is slipping deeper. NATO leaders are not anxious to get their countries involved. He cannot defeat the mercenaries without heavy loss of civilan life. He was initially opposed to it.

So why did he suddenly change his mind? And why did he go to war without even attempting to get Congressional approval?

My guess is he's desperate. American alliances are crumbling all over the world. If he were to win in Libya, there's a  danger he would find himself with a Libyan government much less kind to the western oil companies. If he doesn't, he may lose Ghadaffi as an ally anyway.

Mely, if you actually read most of the press, you would it is nonsense to suggest spins the US and the west as bad guys. They are now reporting on a group of American soldiers charged with killing civilians for the fun of it. However, the only reason that charges were laid and the press mentioned the story was because Der Speigel made covering up the story impossible when it got hold of the photos they took. The American and Canadian press had those photos, too. But they held them back.

Lots of reports on an American plane crashing. Very little on how local villagers, delighted to their saviours, rushed out to greet them - and were killed by an American helicopter gunship.

Despite delusions of the right, most of the news media are owned by very wealthy individuals and corporations who  are certainly not left wingers.

I wish people would stop using the terms left winger and right winger. Neither has any clear of consistent meaning - so othe terms just amount to name-calling.

Oh, by the way, the west is not bombing Libya because ghadaffi is a murderous thug any more than it invaded Iraq because Saddan was a thug. The US has been in a close alliance with the Libyan ruler for years, and is the supplier of most of the weapons his mercenaries have. It was also,with France and Britain, for many years, a close ally and weapons supplier for Saddam.

If we really gave a damn about people's rights and murderous thugs, we would be invading SAudi Arabia and Bahrain - whose armies are also equipped with weapons from the US.

Try to forget the right/left jargon. Right and left have nothing to do with it. For over a hundred years, the "right" in Canada was bitterly opposed to free trade. Then, suddenly, free trade became their Ark of the Covenant. Ever wonder why?

Hint - like the no fly zone, It had nothing to do with "right" or "left".

I agree, the left-right dichotomy doesn't seem to apply any more. 

We have western "progressives" aligned with ultra conservatives from the Middle East.  Meanwhile what used to be called "conservative" people in the west align with "progressives" from the Middle East.  

I was reading an American news report about Russians who want to return to communism.  The reporter referred to them as "conservatives".

Generally, the only people who believe that left and right have no meaning are conservatives or Reform party members; also Social Credit.  It's a rationalization to screw people and use public funds for corporate ends. 

Other people who think it's cool to say that left and right are meaningless are generally arrogantly politically undereducated and use the phrase in order to sound like they know whats up.

The reasons that the left wing supported Free Trade in the 30's and not in the 80's has to do with the rise of coporatism over regional/national trade.  It is very very simplistic to believe that things remain the same and that only expedience shapes a political belief.

Furthermore, if you don't think that a genocide has just been avoided you are really really out of it.

You people should wake up and realize that as you throw away your democratic rights to vote for whatever party you want on your slate ( ours usually have a dozen of them).   You are arming the country to shoot you in the heart, foot and head.  i e. grow up or at least grow some . . .

Meanwhile, rebels in Libya (the "good guys" )  are rounding up black Africans and brutalizing them, since they are all suspected of having fought for Kadafi.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-libya-prisoners-20110324,0,5389027,full.story 

JLIN - from 1867, the party that insisted on trade barriers was the Conservative party. The Liberal party had free trade as its main plank.

That did not change until Mulroney suddently changed his mind about it. Then the conservatives reversed on their most fundamental principle.

The reason is that trade barriers beneifitted big business in Canada by keeping out competition while it developed. But once it developed, it wanted easier access to the American market. That's when it told Mulroney to get on his horse and get a deal.

The "left-wing" social policies first appeared in a platform of a major party in 1935, when Prime Minister Bennett put them fhere for the election that year. (He lost.) The Liberals introduced social programmes, like medicare, as slowly as it could - and only when It became obvious Canadians were ready to vote them out if they didn't get them.

read some history before you pronounce what the"left" and "right" are about.

I"m afraid Libya is not going to be the pushover I had thought. Aircraft can attack Ghadaffi's troops when they are in the open, and isolated from the Libyan people. But it cannot prevent them from moving their troops and tanks into cities where they can be bombed only by influcting heavy civilians casualties.

Winning this one may require going in on the ground - which nobody is keen on. And which will still kill civilians.

Why is NATO there? It was founded to protect Europe in case of a USSR attack. Who gave anybody the right to allow NATO to invade anybody? In one stroke, we have made the UN useless, and strengthened what long ago become a source of muscle to be used at the discretion of hte US.

Why choose a Canadian air force officer to lead the NATO forces? It has one of othe smaller air forces there, and one of the least experienced over the last sixty years.

It's odd such a minor figure should be given command. It may be Obama's way of seeming to keep his distance by putting a Canadian in command. This way, he still controls the show because Parker is really a US puppet.

In any case, the mission has not changed. It's to get one man out, but putting another like him in with something that looks like a democracy but isn't. There is no way he or the arab kingdoms and emirates could allow a democratic government.

My initial support for the no-fly zone was based on the disaster after the Kuwait war, in which the Americans told the Shiites to rebel against Saddam, and then sat back and watched calmly as Saddam slaughtered the Shiites with helicopter gun-ships.

Despite what you think, Graeme, that was all that was in my mind.  No thought of oil, Western supremacy, Americans, nothing...just those horrible images.  You seem to think I am evil person.  Really, you are wrong.