Libya

The past decade have seen a suddenly spike of violence and political changes. Perhaps the greatest irony, one that no one expects, is that years of resentment in the Middle East towards U.S. for the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan has turned to what seemed to be now a hopeful glance at America for leadership and support.

Indeed, astonishingly, the past few months have seen the uprising of the people after torrid years of corruption under tyrants and irresponsible leaders. What never fail to amaze me is that the desperate desire for democracy spike after a man (Mohamed Bouazizi) lit himself on fire to express his hopelessness with oppression in Tunisia. Eqypt followed after, and thankfully, the leader resigned gracefully. In Libya, it was different too. Col Qaddafi refuses to budge, and wages war on his people. NATO, UN, and the United Arab Emirates, shocked by the use of violence sanction a no-flight zone in the country yesterday, which was received with gratefulness by the rebels. The bombing of yet another Middle Eastern country by America planes have begun. Paradoxically, it is one approved by many countries and even the UN Security Council, but and yet it is one that U.S. is reluctant to enter and eager to get out.

This is no surprise either. This year marks the anniversary of a ten-year occupation Afghanistan and seriously, no can foresee when U.S. can get out of that shithole. That, as well as the military presence on Iraq soil has added shamelessly to the tremendous deficit that U.S. has found no answer to. I suppose today’s wars is different from the wars fought 500 years ago. Then, the losers become slaves. The winners do whatever they like. Today, the winners, no doubt for humanitarian reasons, end up protecting the losers from their own fanatics. War is costly. U.S. learnt that the hard