Libya

Our war focused military engagement with Libya is over oil.
This is what happened. The country started to fall apart, thanks in no small measure to a terrible regime that suppressed and killed its own people, who then justifiably rebelled. But a broken country yields no commodities. And guess who depends on Libya for oil? Ireland, France, Germany, Spain, Austria, Switzerland, Portugal, and Greece, among others. So when Libya started cracking, guess who came knocking on our door for help?

Please don't misunderstand me. I'm glad we're there. Our involvement will, I am hopeful, leave Libya's people much better off in the long run. But if not for oil, we wouldn't be there. The clear-thinking among us have asked quite simply, "Why Libya?" It is certainly not the only nation ruled by a horrible regime. There are plenty of other places with as dire need for military assistance (read: most of Africa). It's a simple answer. It almost always comes down to what we need, or, in this case, what Europe needs.

And I say fine. Can YOU come up with a better reason to go to war? Think about it. Oil makes the world go round, in an almost literal sense. Without it, we're toast. We need stable governments piping the stuff to us, or we'll die. I mean that literally, since economic collapse leads to all sorts of hazardous circumstances, like rioting, looting, anarchy and starvation. Going to war over oil is sort of like the old tribal wars over water in desert nations. Without it, we die.

European governments are suddenly supportive and encouraging of our military actions, and surprisingly few people seem to point out why that might be. It's as though everyone is content to assume we're simply in it for the Libyans. Wouldn't it be great if we were? Wouldn't it rock if we went to bat for every country, great or small, that needed us? I think it would be great.

But that's not the world we live in. We go to war for oil (justifiably), but won't and probably can't (politically) admit it. And right now, I'm troubled by the whole system. I'm frustrated by the administration's refusal to fess up to the real motivations for this conflict, and I'm frustrated by the rest of us, who don't care enough to read enough about this stuff to come up with opinions that aren't fed to us by the mainstream media, which is itself little more than a terrible, uncomfortable, never-ending joke.

All I'm saying (and I'll readily acknowledge that I'm not saying it well) is that our government has a terrible relationship with its citizens. And while the relationship is maintained stubbornly by both sides, when it comes right down to it, the citizens shoulder most of the blame, since our democratic government is mostly just a slightly distorted reflection of ourselves. This system is the result of our labors alone (or lack thereof), and maybe what I hope for most is that we wake up and realize we're doing a crap job, and get to work on something better.