From the Angry Arab on Western intervention in Libya

Bush Doctrine Revised: Obama puts his stamp

The Western/Saudi/Qatari military intervention in Libya sets a dangerous precedent. The charade of overthrowing regimes and invading countries in the name of democracy was a bloody farce in the case of Bush era. They now don't need to do that. They can just jump on the case where they see a potential for a real democratic change and then guarantee the installation of a puppet regime without having "boots on the ground", as Obama kept warning in White House meetings. They bomb and kill and manage to maintain a high tone of moral uprightness while the puppet Arab League puts its ugly stamp to make it look like an Arab affair. A useful idiot is needed, of course, and Mustafa `Abdul-Al-Jalil is perfect for the role and he has been so chummy with Saudi propaganda as of late. Obama has modified Bush's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan: not only maintaining the occupations but guaranteeing long-term presence in both countries. He has also started a war in Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen where the US is a major force in the war there. Western enthusiasm for intervention in Libya has never even been explained: why the hundreds of deaths in Egypt or Tunisia did not warrant any condemnation (the State Department did manage to condemn the protesters in Egypt, lest we forget too soon)? Israel manages to kill far more than Qadhdhafi and in shorter periods of time, and we never encounter the "humanitarian" impulse of Western governments there. Western military intervention in Libya is far more dangerous: it is intended to legitimize the return of colonial powers to our region and 2) perhaps as importantly to abort democratic uprisings all over the region. Bahrain of today is the vision for Libya of tomorrow, as far as the West is concerned.