Seven Conflicts Of Concern For The U.S. Military

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To The Horizon: Seven Conflicts Of Concern For The U.S. Military -- D. Stiegman, Small Wars Journal

The conflicts of the last 11 years have provided the U.S. military with new perspectives, advances in weaponry and technology, complex tactics, strategies, and, of course, a new generation of alumni from the warrior class of Americans. As these conflicts in most minds are in the rearview mirror, some believe that there will be a time of rest and peace, while some have the forethought of conflicts to come. Some of these conflicts have already begun. As totalitarian regimes fall, civil movements and non-state actors align themselves to fill the gap. Where militaristic states once ruled with an iron fist, a class of educated political extremists slips into contention via exploitation of the laws of civilized men.

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My Comment: A comprehensive analysis .... covering all current and possible future conflicts.

You May Not Be Interested In War, But War Is Interested In You

Like It or Not, War Is Interested in You -- Ken Blackwell and Bob Morrison, American Thinker

One of the most famous sayings of the Bolshevik revolutionary Leon Trotsky was this: "You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you." It's one of the few correct things that violent Communist ever said.

President Obama is clearly not interested in war. And he has stacked his administration with people who are similarly not interested. This is especially true when it comes to Islamist terrorists. They may make war on us, but to Mr. Obama and his minions, these are "man-caused disasters" or, preferably, domestic crimes to be dealt with in the normal course of the administration of justice.

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My Comment: Fortunately .... with the exception of the White House and much of the media .... the mass majority of Americans are aware of Islamic extremism and the dangers that Jihadists can bring. Most are also aware of the role that Islam plays in motivating these extremists .... and how it is often used to justify their acts of terror. As to why our political/media/academic elites continue to push positions of political correctness and continue to deny the role that Islamic extremism plays is .... after much thought ... still beyond me. But I do know one thing .... with each terror incident .... both here and abroad .... these official U.S. government positions only look more and more tenuous at best.

The Coming War Against Iran

The Realist Prism: Closing the Window of Opportunity for Iran Diplomacy -- Nikolas Gvosdev, WPR

While American policymakers are fond of repeating the mantra that "all options are on the table" when it comes to dealing with Iran and its nuclear program, the president publicly took one option off the table during his recent visit to Israel: Speaking to college students, Barack Obama reiterated, "Iran must not get a nuclear weapon. This is not a danger that can be contained."

If the Obama administration has indeed definitively rejected containment as an option, the United States will not develop contingencies for if and when Iran crosses the nuclear threshold. That means Washington is now committed to preventing Iran not only from acquiring any sort of deployable nuclear capability, but also, implicitly, from reaching the breakout stage where Tehran would possess the necessary capabilities to quickly assemble a bomb.

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My Comment: I do not see such a conflict happening. The U.S. public and poilitcal mindset is not to get into another 'war of choice' .... especially from this President. So why all the talk and bluster .... I call this U.S. policy based on 'hope and a prayer' .... 'hope' that sanctions will have an impact, and prayer that regime change will happen. As to what is my prediction .... the U.S. and the international community will muddle along, and Iran will continue putting together the building blocks necessary for building nuclear weapons. The wild card in this calculus is .... of course ... Israel.

Fighting Wars That We Can Never Win

The bombing of Berlin 1944. Wikipedia

Wars Without Victory -- Louis René Beres, US News and World Report

The United States must rethink the meaning and role of its military and security.

We lost the Vietnam War. There is little ambiguity about this judgment, nor is there any apparent consolation. Losing is assuredly worse than winning. Victory is always better than defeat.

End of story.

But what if there is no longer a determinable way to calculate victory and defeat in our current wars? What if it should turn out that both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars will have been fought without ever being able to meaningfully ascertain the tangible outcomes? In such a perplexing but distinctly plausible case, America may have to face a foreseeable future of ambiguous war terminations, outcomes even more destabilizing than those that exhibit plain and obvious failure. In such a scenario, we would seemingly have to confront a dire national future, a condition of genuinely endless uncertainty, and, as an evident corollary, one of utterly protracted insecurity.

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My Comment: In past wars and conflicts the brutality and utter destruction that wars caused .... especially on civilian populations that supported the enemy .... all but assured that wars would inevitably end .... and with a victor. But in today's wars and conflicts there is a now a different mindset .... specifically .... the West is not geared to incinerate enemy population centers, and instead our wars are now based on surgical strikes and limiting our destructive capabilities and rules of engagement to not further alienate a population that is already hostile to us. But the question then arises .... has this approach worked for us .... and more to the point .... has this approach only prolonged wars and conflicts or should we have adopted a more intensive and bloodier campaign that may in the short term result in astronomical casualties (civilian included) but a shorter conflict and war. Honestly .... I am now starting to wonder.

When I first started this blog I covered the civil war in Sri Lanka very extensively. It was a bloody conflict that was going on for decades, and everyone was in agreement that the war was probably going to go on for a few decades more that would inevitably end in a stalemate with no victor. In 2009, under the Presidency of Mahinda Rajapaksa a new approach was implemented and the Sri Lanka Armed Forces escalated the war to a brutality that shocked and stunned the world with its ferocity. In the last year of the conflict tens of thousands of Tamils were killed and their guerrilla army (the LTTE) were utterly decimated with all of their military leaders executed. But the war ended.

In the old Soviet Union the communists were involved in a long and brutal civil war .... primarily against Islamic militants in the Caucasus and central Asia .... a conflict that went on for years. But under Stalin a different approach was implemented .... an approach that resulted in millions of deaths and even more being dislocated. But the wars ended.

We in the West are not going to wage war on such a level. The last time that we waged such a conflict was probably Vietnam, and even though hundreds of thousands were killed, the U.S. still limited itself and it's allies to not invade North Vietnam with ground forces for fears that it would then just escalate into a major U.S.-Sino conflict .... and probably millions of casualties. But the North Vietnamese did not have such a mindset .... to them millions of casualties were acceptable as long as they were the victors. As for the Khmer Rouge next door in Cambodia .... exterminating millions more were justified if such actions kept them in power. In the battle of wills .... it is obvious that we never had a chance.

Lets face it .... we do not have the will or stomach to wage total war nor any interest to do so. And thank God for that. And if we should ever find ourselves waging war on such a level .... it would be because of WMDs being used against us that resulted in massive casualties .... numbering in the hundreds of thousands if not millions. In such a scenario the dogs of war will be unleashed, and the rules of engagement will be to incinerate the enemy and their civilian support structures. Personally .... I hope I am not around to see that should it ever happen.

But I live in today's world .... and in this world our unwillingness to act like barbarians makes me realize that maybe a different approach will need to be implemented. If a new approach should be implemented to wage war I would prefer the approach that President Obama applied to in Libya. Provide limited support, let our allies do a lot of dirty work, and let our rebel allies in Libya do the real real real dirty work. But while we were successful in winning that conflict .... unfortunately .... winning the peace and winning the stability in Libya has become something else.

I know that the circumstances and situations are always different for each conflict .... but we in the West must come to terms that we need a new strategy and approach when it comes to fighting wars (and winning the peace). The old models are not working, and the alternatives are just as horrendous. And as to the argument that we should avoid wars that do not involve us directly altogether .... unfortunately .... in today's global community .... conflicts in far away places cannot be isolated and pigeon holed as they were in the past. In short .... as we learned to our great sorrow and suffering in the 20th century .... those days are long over.

The Age Of The "Cool War"

US officials participate in cyber warfare classes at the US Air Force Academy, Colorado. Press TV

Goodbye, Cold War, Welcome To The Cool War -- Toby Harnden, Real Clear World/Sunday Times

It is nearly a quarter of a century since the Berlin Wall fell, bringing the Cold War to a close. The triumph of liberal democracy briefly seemed to herald “the end of history” before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, triggered what the Pentagon called GWOT — the global war on terrorism — and a clash of civilisations between the West and militant Islam.

Just over a decade later, this conflict is drawing to a close. Much of al-Qaeda has been dismantled; President Barack Obama has declared that “the tide of war is receding” and it is time to conduct nation-building at home.

America’s imperial ambitions are over, for the foreseeable future at least. The world is no longer uni-polar.

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My Comment: The 'Cold War' was not necessarily 'Cold' .... in many cases it was very 'Hot'. I can say the same about today's 'Cool Wars' .... in thee conflicts people are dying, and for some this is not at all cool.

How Wars Start

How Wars Start -- Robert Kaplan, Real Clear World/Stratfor

Just as Herodotus is the father of history, Thucydides is the father of realism. To understand the geopolitical conflict zones of the 21st century, you must begin with the ancient Greeks. Among the many important lessons Thucydides teaches in his History of the Peloponnesian War is that what starts a war is different from what causes it.

Thucydides chronicles how the Peloponnesian War began in the latter part of the late fifth century B.C. with disputes over the island of Corcyra in northwestern Greece and Potidaea in northeastern Greece. These places were not very strategically crucial in and of themselves. To think that wars must start over important places is to misread Thucydides. Corcyra and Potidaea, among other locales, were only where the Peloponnesian War started; not what caused it. What caused it, he writes in the first book of his eight-book history, was the growth of perceived maritime power in Athens and the alarm that it inspired in Sparta and among Sparta's allies. Places like Corcyra and Potidaea, and the complex alliance systems that they represented, were in and of themselves not worth fighting a war over -- a war that would last more than a quarter century, no less. That didn't matter. They were pretexts.

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My Comment: If you want to know what is the link between the Peloponnesian War and today`s border disputes in Asia .... this article is then for you.

Is The Mali War A Template For Future Conflicts?

French Success In Mali May Herald 'War Of The Shadows' -- Jonathan Marcus, BBC

It is not exactly blitzkrieg in the desert, but French commanders can be well-pleased with the way their operation in Mali has played out so far.

Pressed to intervene when the Malian army was at the point of collapse, French air power and special forces have helped to stabilise the situation on the ground, while French troops have secured vital staging areas to enable African troops to begin to deploy.

Retaining the initiative, the French have pushed northwards. Along with Malian troops, they have over-run the town of Gao and they have also captured the airport on the outskirts of Timbuktu.

Securing population centres and destroying the militant Islamists' logistical bases is clearly a crucial French goal.

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My Comment: As military operations go .... the French and their allies have been very successful. But it is still too early to determine what the final outcome will be in Mali. Some U.S. officials are even alluding to the possibility that the Mali intervention will actually force France and African nations to commit forces to stay in the region for years in order to insure that Al Qaeda and their affiliates do not come back .... in short .... a quagmire. What's my take .... Africa will have to step up and be ready to commit military forces and political capital for Mali to reform and to accommodate the Tuareg people of the north. In short .... prepare to stay put for the long haul.

If We Do Not Report The War, Does It Exist?

Firefight - U.S. Army Spc. Timothy Shout uses his weapon's scope to scan the nearby ridge following an engagement with anti-Afghan forces on Forward Operating Base Wright in Afghanistan's Kunar province, April 19, 2012. Shout is assigned to the Provincial Reconstruction Team Kunar security forces. U.S. Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. Christopher Marasky

Among Top News Stories, A War Is Missing -- Brian Stelter, New York Times

Look closely at the end-of-the-year lists of 2012’s top news stories. What’s missing? The 11-year-old war in Afghanistan and American-led counterterrorism efforts around the world.

The Pew Research Center’s weekly polling on the public’s interest in news stories showed such a low level of interest that the overseas conflicts didn’t make the organization’s list of the year’s top 15 stories.

Nor did the Afghan war come up often when The Associated Press conducted its annual poll of editors and news directors in the United States. The only overseas stories voted to be the year’s top news stories involved Libya and Syria.

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My Comment: So true .... when new wars and conflicts break out the traffic on this blog perks up .... but after a short period of time it goes down.

Ten Wars That Threaten Global Stability In 2013

10 Conflicts To Watch In 2013 -- Foreign Policy

From Turkey to Congo, next year's wars threaten global stability.

Every year, around the world, old conflicts worsen, new ones emerge and, occasionally, some situations improve. There is no shortage of storm clouds looming over 2013: Once again, hotspots old and new will present a challenge to the security of people across the globe.

There is, of course, an arbitrariness to most lists -- and this list of crises to watch out for in 2013 is no different. One person's priority might well be another's sideshow, one analyst's early warning cry is another's fear-mongering. In some situations -- Central Asia, perhaps -- preventive action has genuine meaning: The collapse into chaos has yet to happen. More complicated is anticipating when it will happen, what will trigger it, and how bad it will be. In others -- Syria, obviously -- the catastrophe is already upon us, so the very notion of prevention can seem absurd. It has no meaning save in the sense of preventing the nightmare from worsening or spreading.

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My Comment: This is my must read post for today.

Peace In Our Time?

Professor Håvard Hegre predicts conflict will be on the wane by 2050. Here's how the war map will change

Peace In Our Time? Scientist Makes Bold Prediction That War Is On The Wane And Will Halve Over Next 40 Years -- Daily Mail

* University of Oslo research suggests number of countries at war will fall from one in six to one in 12
* Higher education, lower infant mortality and lower population growth are reasons why the world can expect a more peaceful future
* Current conflicts in Libya, Tajikistan, Syria, Senegal, Ivory Coast, Mauritania and Iraq will probably be over
* The risk of conflict will be greatest in India, Nigeria, Sudan, Ethiopia and Tanzania

It may be difficult to believe, but according to research published next month a world without war may be getting nearer.

Futurologists from the University of Oslo in Norway and the Peace Research Institute Oslo have predicted that global conflict will halve in the next 40 years.

Their study claims the combination of higher education, lower infant mortality, smaller youth cohorts, and lower population growth are a few of the reasons why the world can expect a more peaceful future.

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My Comment: Considering the fact that war and conflict has been our history since the beginning of time .... I am very dubious that this is possible.

Report: To Save Money Avoid Long Ground Wars

The U.S. Air Force Air Demonstration Squadron, known as the Thunderbirds, move from trail position into diamond formation during Aviation Nation 2012 over Nellis Air Force Base, Nev., Nov. 11, 2012. U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Daniel Hughes

Report: Save Money By Avoiding Long Ground Wars -- Army Times

A new report by a task force made up of former military officers and defense experts says it is possible, even with smaller budgets, to improve U.S. military capabilities — but a key to this is avoiding prolonged ground wars.

There are several key changes required to make this possible, including reducing the size of nuclear forces, reforming both compensation and deployment policies for military personnel, and making a priority of funding research into basic advancements in military capabilities rather than rushing to build every proposed new weapon, according to the report released Friday by the nonprofit and nonpartisan Stimson Center.

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My Comment: If avoiding long ground wars was possible, life would definitely be different. Unfortunately .... wars and conflicts do not operate on what are our desires and wishes.

Geography's Role In Past, Present, And Future Conflicts

Want to understand the political insecurity of China's leaders or Iran's resilience in the face of Western sanctions? The best place to start is with a map, says Robert D. Kaplan, discussing his new book with WSJ's Gary Rosen.

Geography Strikes Back -- Robert Kaplan, Wall Street Journal

To understand today's global conflicts, forget economics and technology and take a hard look at a map, writes Robert D. Kaplan

If you want to know what Russia, China or Iran will do next, don't read their newspapers or ask what our spies have dug up—consult a map. Geography can reveal as much about a government's aims as its secret councils. More than ideology or domestic politics, what fundamentally defines a state is its place on the globe. Maps capture the key facts of history, culture and natural resources. With upheaval in the Middle East and a tumultuous political transition in China, look to geography to make sense of it all.

As a way of explaining world politics, geography has supposedly been eclipsed by economics, globalization and electronic communications. It has a decidedly musty aura, like a one-room schoolhouse. Indeed, those who think of foreign policy as an opportunity to transform the world for the better tend to equate any consideration of geography with fatalism, a failure of imagination.

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My Comment: Throughout history the invasion routes have always been the same. Central Europe, the steppes of Russia, the Middle East .... the routes that invading armies have had to take have never really altered.

When Do You Know That A War Begins, And The Life That You Know Is Gone Forever?

One relieved Syrian family crosses into Turkey at Cilvegozu. BBC

Life During Wartime -- Janine Di Giovanni, New York Times

WHAT does it feel like when a war begins? When does life as you know it implode? How do you know when it is time to pack up your home and your family and leave your country? Or if you decide not to, why?

For ordinary people, war starts with a jolt: one day you are busy with dentist appointments or arranging ballet lessons for your daughter, and then the curtain drops. One moment the daily routine grinds on; A.T.M.’s work and cellphones function. Then, suddenly, everything stops.

Barricades go up. Soldiers are recruited and neighbors work to form their own defense. Ministers are assassinated and the country falls into chaos. Fathers disappear. The banks close and money and culture and life as people knew it vanishes. In Damascus, this moment has come.

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My Comment: My father's experience is the one that I know of personally. One evening he is at a party celebrating the successful end of his first year in university .... crashes at a park because he was too drunk to get home .... and gets waken up in the morning by bombs exploding in the center of the city. Rushes to the center of the city (Kiev), and he sees devastated building and bodies on the street. Rushes home and hears on the radio that everyone must listen to a special bulletin in a few hours. A few hours later he learns of Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union, and is told to go to the military. A few weeks later he is involved in a gun battle with deserters who do not want to join the Soviet military .... and his best friend gets killed. And after that .... he leaves home for the last time (it is destroyed in the war), and is shipped to the Far East for more training. He sees combat for the first time in the Battle of Stalingrad, and continuous combat until the end of the war.

Yup .... war and the life that you knew could be over just like that.

Why So Many Wars In Africa?

Africa's Forever Wars: Why The Continent's Conflicts Never End. -- Jeffrey Gettleman, Foreign Policy

There is a very simple reason why some of Africa's bloodiest, most brutal wars never seem to end: They are not really wars. Not in the traditional sense, at least. The combatants don't have much of an ideology; they don't have clear goals. They couldn't care less about taking over capitals or major cities -- in fact, they prefer the deep bush, where it is far easier to commit crimes. Today's rebels seem especially uninterested in winning converts, content instead to steal other people's children, stick Kalashnikovs or axes in their hands, and make them do the killing. Look closely at some of the continent's most intractable conflicts, from the rebel-laden creeks of the Niger Delta to the inferno in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and this is what you will find.

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Update: Why Are There So Many Coups in West Africa? -- John Hudson, The Atlantic

My Comment: I (personally) concur with Jeffrey Gettleman's position on what is happening in Africa today (posted above), but Dan Murphy from the Christian Science Monitor does not believe the situation is that bad.

Calculating The Costs Of War

The cost of war in Iraq, the storage depot in Kuwait where used up vehicle batteries, tires and much else awaits refurbishment or recycling. Strategy Page

Calculating The Costs Of War -- Arnaud de Borchgrave, The Washington Times

Defense establishment and public agree: It’s time to cut back.

Leon E. Panetta’s first major address as defense secretary was c clearly designed to be magisterial, the credo of the Free World, still headed by the United States, cognizant of its worldwide responsibilities, albeit with much budgetary belt-tightening. He didn’t mention the two wasteful wars that had little to do with defending Western civilization.

The eight-year Iraq war cost a cool $1 trillion and today Iran, according to a key Iraqi official now in government, wields more influence in Baghdad than the United States with an embassy staff of 1,400.

The Afghan war, including fiscal 2012, will have cost $557 billion. Keeping one U.S. soldier in Afghanistan - the longest war in U.S. history - is now running a tad over $1 million a year.

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My Comment: A sobering recap on how much our wars have cost (and are costing).

Is War Endless?

U.S. Marince Corps Lance Cpl. Theodore McCormick prepares to load an amphibious assault vehicle to begin Clear, Hold, Build Exercise 2 on Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center in Twentynine Palms, Calif., Sept. 16, 2011. McCormick is a machince gunner assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, Kilo Company. U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Reece Lodder

In Defense Of Endless War -- Christopher Hitchens, Slate

As 9/11 showed, civilization has enemies with which peace is neither possible nor desirable.

A continuous and repetitive thread in the commentary on the decade since 9/11—one might almost call it an endless and open-ended theme—was the plaintive observation that the struggle against al-Qaida and its surrogates is somehow a "war without end." (This is variously rendered as "perpetual war" or "endless war," just as anti-war articles about the commitment to Iraq used to relentlessly stress the idea that there was "no end in sight.")

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My Comment: As usual .... Christopher Hitchens states the obvious in his usual unique style of writing. My favorite passage in this post is his last paragraph .....

Human history seems to register many more years of conflict than of tranquillity. In one sense, then, it is fatuous to whine that war is endless. We do have certain permanent enemies—the totalitarian state; the nihilist/terrorist cell—with which "peace" is neither possible nor desirable. Acknowledging this, and preparing for it, might give us some advantages in a war that seems destined to last as long as civilization is willing to defend itself.

Indeed.

Does Extreme Weather Cause War?

Photo: U.S. Army soldiers assigned to the 1st Brigade, 1st Armored Division wait to board a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter during an air assault mission in the Al Jazeera Desert, Iraq, on March 22, 2006. DoD photo by Staff Sgt. Aaron Allmon, U.S. Air Force.

Cloudy With A Chance Of Insurgency -- Foreign Policy

Does extreme weather cause war? Don't count on it.



As the East Coast of the United States was pounded by a hurricane over the weekend, mere days after an earthquake had cracked monuments and upset lawn furniture from Virginia Beach to Baltimore, Mother Nature was once again front-page news across the country. So it was fortuitous that last week's issue of the scientific journal Nature included a much-talked-about article linking the wrath of nature to the wrath of man. "Climate Shifts Cause War" and "First Proof that Climate Is a Trigger for Conflict," the headlines suggested.



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My Comment: What is my view? I have studied wars and conflicts throughout my life, and I have found that it has been ideologies/religions//personal agendas/tribalism/sectarianism/racial and cultural conditions and situations that have brought about conflicts and wars .... not extreme weather.

The Reason Why Humanitarin Wars Can Sometimes Go Worng (A Commentary)

(AFP: Walter Astrada)

Why Humanitarian Wars Can Go So Wrong -- Washington Post

All wars are terrifying gambles, but the wars justified with moral claims of humanitarianism carry a distinctively harrowing set of risks and problems — above all, the challenge of preventing massive human catastrophes with limited means. In Libya, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, British Prime Minister David Cameron and President Obama are already beginning to confront many of the classic dilemmas that bedeviled their predecessors facing massacres and genocide in Somalia, Bosnia and Rwanda.

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My Comment: A sobering assessment on what "humanitarian wars" can sometimes bring. What is my take .... the road to hell is usually paved with good intentions .... "humanitarian wars" is just one of those moany roads.

Why Does America Fight All These Wars? -- A Commentary

A U.S. Special Forces soldier provides security overwatch in the early morning hours during an Afghan-led clearing operation in the Zharay district, Kandahar province, Afghanistan, March 6, 2011. He is assigned to Special Operations Task Force South. The operation led to the recovery of 200 pounds of homemade explosives. U.S. Army photo by Spc. Daniel P. Shook

Top 5 Reasons We Keep Fighting All These Wars -- Stephen M. Walt, Foreign Policy

The United States started out as thirteen small and vulnerable colonies clinging to the east coast of North America. Over the next century, those original thirteen states expanded all the way across the continent, subjugating or exterminating the native population and wresting Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California from Mexico. It fought a bitter civil war, acquired a modest set of overseas colonies, and came late to both world wars. But since becoming a great power around 1900, it has fought nearly a dozen genuine wars and engaged in countless military interventions.

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My Comment: From the Russian perspective (my nationality is Russian) we have always been brought up with the perception that the U.S. was always eager to engage in arm conflicts around the world. And while the Russian experience has been horrible in this regard (think of Afghanistan), the U.S. experience has been mixed .... with Vietnam being the worse case scenario and the liberation of Europe and Japan during the Second World War as being the best.

But if the U.S. was to experience horrific human and treasure losses because of war .... losses that were to be continuous .... this willingness to go to war will probably be muted and definitely toned down. In short ... we (in the West) fight these obscure wars because the cost is not that high. But if the cost was to become very high .... I doubt that we would then be willing to go to war, especially to conflicts that have no impact on our own strategic concerns.

10 Reasons On Why We Should Not Be In Libya

10 Reasons Why We Shouldn't Be In Libya -- James Delingpole, The Telegraph

“It is one of those times when I feel estranged from the country and not comprehending of what we are doing and why everyone is so gung-ho for it all.” Rod Liddle on the Anglo-French/American Libyan intervention Spectator May 26

“One can only gape in stunned amazement at the extent of the idiocy being displayed by the leaders of America, Britain and Europe over the ‘Arab Spring’ – which should surely be renamed ‘the Arab Boomerang’.” Melanie Phillips on Libya in her Spectator blog.

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My Comment: Reasons #3, #4, #5, and #6 are the ones that resonate the most for me.