How the War on Libya was Sold: The Left as Charlie Brown http://www.counterpunch.org/sparrow03232011.html

Has there ever been a war justified more glibly? One supposes so but it’s hard to recall when. Even the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, as disastrous as they proved, involved the public articulation of a more-or-less coherent plan, something that’s patently lacking from the adventure unfolding in Libya.The mission will last days rather than weeks, says Obama – and the French immediately warn of a long fight. The Americans say Gaddafi is not a target; the British briefly insist that he is but then almost instantly change their minds. The goal of intervention is – or perhaps isn’t – regime change, depending on who you listen to and when they’re speaking.

For a particularly grotesque example of where we’re now at, one need go no further than the New Republic, where Steven Metz advises the US to prepare both tactics against an insurgency (for use against pro-Gaddafi forces) and tactics for an insurgency (to assist anti-Gaddafi elements).Would George W Bush, for all his Texas swagger, have dared to cowboy up a military conflict on such a crazy basis? Surely not -- and yet across the world, the Libya intervention, a conflict with contradictory aims, no discernable exit strategy, and little public support, has been lauded by progressives.