Courtesy CNN

Troops? What troops?

The U.S. may consider sending troops into Libya with a possible international ground force that could aid the rebels, the former U.S. commander of the military mission said Thursday, describing the ongoing operation as a stalemate that is more likely to go on now that America has handed control to NATO.

The use of an international ground force is a possible plan to bolster the Libyan rebels, Ham said at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing.

Asked whether the U.S. would provide troops, Ham said, “I suspect there might be some consideration of that. My personal view at this point would be that that’s probably not the ideal circumstance, again for the regional reaction that having American boots on the ground would entail.”

Ham also disclosed that the U.S. is providing some strike aircraft to the NATO operation that do not need to go through the special approval process recently established. The powerful side-firing AC-130 gunship is available to NATO commanders, he said.

The civil war has cut Libyan oil output by 80 percent, a senior government official said on Thursday, as rebels and Gadhafi’s forces traded charges over who had attacked oil fields vital to both sides.

Wed Mar 23, 11:44 am ET
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama Wednesday categorically ruled out a land invasion to oust Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi as coalition forces launched a fifth day of air strikes against government military targets in the North African nation.




  1. LibertyLover says:

    #31, I’ve got a couple of friends who are SN teachers. One had a knife pulled on her and she quit. The other one took special hand-to-hand combat take-down classes, on the school budget, before he would continue teaching.

    The government says you have teach them. Where is the line between “it’s for the children” and ensuring our teachers are safe around these lunatics?

  2. msbpodcast says:

    In #20 Hmeyers said: I will say he did the right thing in Libya so far,

    No he hasn’t.

    You know the old saw about giving a man a fish, as opposed to teaching him to fish?

    Granted the US has turned the ocean on either side of the country into garbage gyres, but still, all of the US efforts since the end of WWII have been geared to “giving a man a fish.

    The only thing we could/should have done is to be a destination for people who have had enough…

    The whole country of Libya has a population less than that of the five borough of New York City.

    Imagine the trouble this largely empty country would have absorbing the entire population of desirable immigrants from there into some place like Utah, Nevada or New Mexico?

    Imagine all the desirable immigrants we could recruit into being honest, tax-paying citizens who wouldn’t bitch and whine at having to work 12 hour days just because there isn’t some rag-head maniac wanting to kill them and their family for having a sense of humor?

    When you’ve got desirable real-estate (a place where nobody’s got a bullet with your name on it,) you tend to get bourgeois and middle-class real fast.

    Let Qadaffi live in his stinkin’ desert with the remaining poor and malcontents. What do we care?

    And the faster we get to use nuclear energy from stations buried half-a-kilometer underground, the sooner we can let the towel-heads go back to humping sand and/or camels.

  3. Dallas says:

    We might need a tax cut for the wealthy to finance this mess.

  4. jccalhoun says:

    We have always been at war with Libya…

  5. MIkeN says:

    Do you support or oppose Sen Rand Paul’s resolution that

    It is the sense of the Senate, that “The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation”.

  6. msbpodcast says:

    Note to Rand Paul, that’s why he waited for France, Britain and other largely symbolic attacks to proceed.

    He wasn’t even the first one there.

  7. jescott418 says:

    The big question is how will a country entrenched in two wars for over a decade embrace yet another liberating war?

  8. bobbo, Republicans are Killing America says:

    MikeN–I’ll vote for Obama violated the Constitution and Congressional Acts by his individual decision to make War on Libya.

    I did read a blurb that said he was authorized to act under the UN or Nato directives which was terrible that foreign entities had usurped the power of our Constitution and our Congress.

    Put it all together: if Congress wants Control over the Presidents actions, they can defund or directly order or impeach as they wish. When they wish not to, the “legalities” of the issue are for nothing but bumperstickers and lame taunts and childish concerns. Thats life.

    Meanwhile:

    Wake Up Fools. The Republicans want to Kill America and they can’t do it without your vote.

  9. Kent says:

    Finally he admits his pecker size.

  10. LibertyLover says:

    #38, You are scraping the bottom of the barrel for excuses if that is all you can come up with.

    #39, Of course not! That is commodity prices are rising.

  11. HMeyers says:

    @#34: Eventually the US will have nuclear energy but it won’t be until the oil runs dry. If it ever does.

    The average guy on the street thinks of Three Mile Island, Chernobyl or Japan when he thinks of nuclear energy.

    The average guy also doesn’t realize nuclear power plants provide may 20% of the power used in this country.

    But the average guy gets a vote, does not know much about it except he is afraid of it.

  12. Somebody says:

    Har Har!

    http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2011/03/obama_on_presidential_war_powe.php

    It’s time to impeach this Kenyan commie!

  13. Somebody says:

    At the very least, take back that Peace Prize!

  14. Somebody says:

    Any and everyone who hated Bush but loves Obama needs to seek professional psychiatric care ASAP.

    Ditto for those who loved Bush but hate Obama.

    Both groups represent the dead weight of stupidity that has prevented real reform.

  15. Somebody says:

    # 40 bobbo, the living will to bondage said:

    “Meanwhile:

    Wake Up Fools. The Republicans want to Kill America and they can’t do it without your vote.”

    That you can say that after the 111th congress leaves me without words to describe the level of stupidity you have achieved.

    You are in a class (and a world) of your own.

    Get help.

  16. CrankyGeeksFan says:

    # 24 A New World Disorder Full of Indecisions – Great point!

    In March, several entertainers – Nelly Furtado, Mariah Carey and others – were criticized for performing at parties a few years ago that were hosted by one of Gadhafi’s sons. One or two of the parties were on the Caribbean island of St. Barts. At least one entertainer may have not known that Gadhafi was the father of the host. The entertainers have since returned or donated the money.

    Just a few months ago, a Western, maybe even US-based, company was to have sold the Libyan government refurbished armored personnel carriers. The APCs were not delivered. What I can’t understand is why there is less criticism of this type of economic activity in the press – newspapers, TV, internet, etc. – than that directed against the entertainers.

    How much were Western weapons companies trading with Libya?

    In Bahrain, home of the US Navy’s 5th Fleet, the US should be insisting on a definite movement to democracy by the ruling government; instead other Persian Gulf countries sent troops in to crush the protests. Wouldn’t it be great if the countries on the Western side of the Persian Gulf were democracies? Western European countries showed by example democracy to the former Warsaw pact countries. That would influence the Iranian people greatly. Ironically, Iran may be more democratic than Saudi Arabia or Bahrain.

  17. bobbo, Republicans are Killing America says:

    Somebody–well, the point of a blog entry is to come up with those words that express your best thinking. I understand you disagree with the notion that Republicans are Killing America but you give no reasons why.

    Pretty vacuous.

    The Republicans are Killing America because they think a tax cut is the answer for anything, that conservative religious values should be made the law, that every cut in services to the general public somehow results in more freedom or more jobs. Thats all just plain silly or evil on the face of it.

    Wake Up Foolish somebody. The Republicans want to Kill America and they can’t do it without your vote.

  18. Somebody says:

    bobbo,

    Why do you never notice that my posts anticipate and obliterate your arguments in advance?

    CLUE! ====>> 111th congress <<===== CLUE!

  19. Somebody says:

    Worst.Congress.Ever!

  20. Dan Wally says:

    Welcome to another chapter in …
    The Oil Wars!

  21. bobbo, Republicans are Killing America says:

    Somebody–a clue relies on the reader’s imagination and expertise. I’m calling on you to be express with your own.

    Not a clue, but the final conclusion: Wake Up somebody. The Republicans want to Kill America and they can’t do it without your vote.

  22. Somebody says:

    # 54 bobbo, The living will to bondage said:

    “Somebody–a clue relies on the reader’s imagination and expertise.”

    Right. Sorry.

  23. bobbo, Republicans are Killing America says:

    Somebody–cute, but not clever. Please state the basis on which you think the Republican Party is not Killing America.

    the fact that you are not doing it is very revealing and emblematic of the party you support: you got nothing.

    Why not tell us why it is good and proper that millions of women lose access to birth control and cancer screening so that millionaires can pocket an additional 100K on their taxes due.

    Please sally forth. Or not, and prove yourself a f*cktarded TEAdud like that other one that posts oh so regularly here. I actually did think you had more substance to you, but demonstrably not.

    Put some pennies on somebody’s eyelids. He’s brain dead puke. The Republicans want to Kill America and they can’t do it without your vote.

  24. deowll says:

    And they gave this man a peace prize; yeah. I thought Shrub was a horrible nut case and failure because he got us into Iraq and was allowing and even helping the Dems blow the budget but it looks like Obama has the vices of Shrub squared, cubed, and raised to the tenth power. He’s got us into another bleeping war and hasn’t a clue that we need to cut our loses and get out.

    The interest on the debt is about 554 billion a year. At some point the rapidly expanding debt should trigger a drop in our credit rating and that is the day we seriously stop being more than the hollow shell of a super power which in my view is what we are now.

    I think this will occur in less than five years. Anyone care to disagree?

  25. bobbo, Republicans are Killing America says:

    Do-ill==I disagree. I can’t see our credit rating going for more than 3 years max. Only thing that might save us is “actually” the Teabaggers shutting down the gov to get spending cuts. The live issue is whether they want spending cuts (I hope) or use spending cuts only as a way to transfer more wealth to the Super Rich (their performance to date).

    The Peace Prize was obviously a ploy to turn Obama into a patsy. He didn’t fall for it. Other issues apply.

    Wake Up Fools. The Republicans want to Kill America and they can’t do it without your vote.

  26. Publius says:

    Oh my like we didnt know the game change was coming.

    Silly empire, tricks are for kids.

  27. HMeyers says:

    Interest on the debt is going to kill us. I don’t quite understand why the Republicans are stuck on $6.5 billion in cuts/Planned Parenthood/EPA stuff with Obama.

    That isn’t very much $$$.

    I guess part of their objection to Planned Parenthood funding would be to appeal to the religious base (and maybe Hispanics?).

    Still this isn’t big debt cutting and I really don’t see the point of the government shutting down over this. I think it would cost $6.5 billion just to shut down + restart the government plus some.

  28. bobbo, Republicans are Killing America says:

    HMeyers==you wonder: “I don’t quite understand why the Republicans are stuck on $6.5 billion in cuts/Planned Parenthood/EPA stuff with Obama.” //// Because they are America’s version of the Taliban. Crazy Religious. Crazy fiscal/spending as that is sacrifice at every turn so far to lard their bills up with tax cuts for the Super Rich.

    Just LOOK!!!!!

    Wake HMyers. The Republicans want to Kill America and they can’t do it without your vote.

  29. HMeyers says:

    Ok Bobbo …

    I’m not saying I have the answers and I do not believe in the 2 party system.

    That being said, right now the Democrats are being the “conservatives”.

    You can’t do nothing, cut nothing and hide head in ground when the status quo will lead to a super-collapse of the economy.

    If we do nothing, debt destroys the economy and nothing can be paid for whatsoever.

    I don’t have the answers, but the Democrats had a super-majority (60 senators) and the House and the Presidency and didn’t even pass a budget last year.

    That’s 2 years of power with nothing to show for it. The $1 trillion stimulous idea was supposed to work, it allowed various states some working room to delay tough budget decisions, but it just didn’t work.

    Spending can’t solve the problem, efficient use of resources and cutting is the only option.

    At the moment, only one party is willing to make tough decisions.

    Now our 2 party system sucks, but at this point someone has to lead and Obama and the Democrats … WTF? Seriously.

  30. bobbo, Republicans are Killing America says:

    HMyers==well “seriously” you present a good argument, unless I quibble. You “seem” to present the idea that the solution is all cost cutting and no tax increases unless that is what you curiously mean by “efficient use of resources”?

    Ha, ha. Too smart to be a TEAbagger, but drawn to the short sighted masturbation of “I’ve got mine, screw you”?

    I am embarassed to admit I didn’t follow/don’t remember the budget hang up from last year but I too absent a refreshed memory will blast the Dems===but surely it was Republican opposition? Could not overcome the record setting filibusters? Oh, oh. My memory is coming bag. Yes, I see your teabag wanderlust.

    As stated: Wake Up Fools. The Republicans want to Kill America and they can’t do it without your vote.


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