Meddling, seems to be the American people’s biggest pastime. Neighbors in their quest for a safe neighborhood take on the task of being “eagle eye” from the closed blinds of the living room. Unsavory characters and unknown cars are quickly snuffed out by suburban familiarity. These are just simple acts of the country’s nature to watch the movements of others. So when the American government decided to interfere in the Libyan situation, it was no surprise.
President Barack Obama had stated that the American involvement would only be limited to the act of a no-fly zone over the African country. Now the public is seeing that the country’s role would be more of an “explosive” one.
Especially seeing as how America is the only country that has the capability to perform the type of air strike that was done on March 19. U.S. bomber jets proceeded to drop 110 Tomahawk missiles on a Libyan air base to disable their military capabilities. In the process of the bombing, military and civilian casualties were caused, whether inadvertently or not.
The effort to cripple Muammar Gaddafi is now the main task of the United Nations forces, which the U.S. took the lead on. To stop Gadaffi’s soldiers from marching on Benghazi and its thousands of citizens, there had to be some kind of military action taken.
America has a war-weary public that now sees a military mission into Libya is imminent.
Though President Obama has stated that he wants to end the wars this country is currently fighting, he now has a plan to extend the missions into 2014.
With the U.N. seeing that crimes against humanity could be a possibility, there had to be a force mounted. And once again President Obama and the military must act as world policeman, an uncomfortable role that he has been actively trying to avoid.
For the last 10 years, the American people have sat and watched the country wage a war with fruitless ambition. Now is the time for the public to truly speak up about what is going on. Another war is not what is needed at a time when natural disasters are rampant.
There are enough problems to keep the government busy for the next 10 years, health care for those who cannot afford it, the high cost of living with pennies for paychecks, the economy trying to perform a death defying balancing act and the list does not end there. So why is it that there is a need to interfere in other countries’ affairs?
Only time will tell where this situation goes, but it can be that it will not end well. The American public needs to wake up and take control of our “democratic” government and make it known that we will not just stand idly by and watch this happen.
Jessieca C. Gafford is a senior mass communication major from Grambling.