The Lybian Mistake

verbally very nicely put, Ilia. as always, very rational and lucid article. yet I disagree with you..  it mind sound a bit bizarre from a political science kind of person, but I watched a greek mythology tale yesterday- it was filled with good hollywood actors. When we look at this Lybian conflict or war through the eyes of ancient Greeks, not only through judeo-christian perspective, human rights, etc..., it still a just war. Ancient Greeks would propably think , that this war is not only just, but clever. maybe Odysseus would prepare some Trojan horse, which we {and French and British} do not have right now. some arguments : Kaddafi is a murderous dictator, yet unlike Mubarak he killed people also on European continent-Berlin and Lockerbie. {which made a lot of europeans angry}. He started shooting also his own people. He is believed to be mentally unstable {he is not alone, but he is the leader}. He threatened to destroy oil fields and burn the oil reserves. imagine, that Saudi Arabia would make threats like that....  my personal belief is, that oil reserves are here to serve many countries, not one person.  the last argument : Kaddafis Lybia is almost an underbelly of Europe, very close to Sicily. Its natural , that european powers want to have peace and order in their direct neighborhood. that is clever and I think Odysseus would approve that.   If Britain or France would push forward a war in Sudan, well, that would be a different story. I am not saying, that Lybia after kaddafi would be a nice place to stay, but I deeply understand the motives of european allies.