Killing people is not friendly

I wrote a column against bombing Libya earlier this week, and oh, yes, I got reaction. Most of it was positive, for which much thanks, but some of it was negative, even virulently so.

The objections seemed to fall into two main camps. First, that Libya was our chance to regain the regard of the Arab street. (An odd locution, I always thought.) Somehow, it is assumed that, if we get in front of the turmoil, because of the turmoil in the various Arab countries - turmoil that is different in both nature and degree in each place - people will suddenly recognize our revolutionary roots.

Too late for that. We used to be a ragtag band of citizen soldiers throwing off the yoke of imperialism; now we are the most powerful nation on Earth, almost constantly in shooting wars somewhere since World War II ended. We are warmongers; we mong war.

The war we are currently monging looks a lot like yet another attack on a Muslim country. I'm sure the soldiers and civilians killed by American bombs were pretty clear on the concept. Even though it is the widely despised Khadafy regime we are fighting, even though said dictator has managed to make himself anathema pretty much everywhere, it still smacks of a holy crusade.

We're killing Muslims, as has become our custom. Killing people is just not a way to make friends. I think you learn that in school.

And the more the United States succeeds in backing away from this war - I'm not holding my breath, but you never know - the less credit it will get for anything good that happens in Libya. So, a devil if you do; a devil if you don't. As a diplomatic matter, I don't think this war against Libya is exactly a howling success.

Also, remember that Khadafy may still be in power at the end of all this. We have forcefully stated that he is not a target, which brings up the question: Why not? Do we want to have one of these every year or so? An alive and still powerful Khadafy is going to be mighty peeved.

The other argument goes like this. Suppose we had done nothing and the Libyan army had overrun, say, Benghazi, and had treated the populace with unimaginable cruelty. We could have stopped that and we didn't. How would we feel?

We would feel terrible. We would understand the impotence that all powerful entities experience when they realize that their power has limits. I assume we feel that way about Sudan and Somalia, where we didn't use any military might at all and millions died. We might feel that way about Congo and northern Uganda and Zimbabwe. We might feel that way about the starving people of North Korea, or even the oppressed people of Iran.

We can't fix everything. It would be so nice if we could, but we can't. Some things are out of our control. We have apparently ameliorated this situation, but for how long? We say we're going to let NATO take over, but with our superior war-making capability, we are the most powerful and influential member of NATO. If we bomb under NATO command, it's still us doing the bombing.

And for how long? We're still in Iraq; we're still in Afghanistan; now we are lobbing drones into Pakistan to help with the war in Afghanistan. The only way to leave is to leave, and that seems not to be happening, not really.

And one more thing: We are a country in economic crisis. We must cut the deficit, balance the budget, slash social programs to regain our economic footing. So how is that accomplished? Is there a pot of gold in the Oval Office labeled "North Africa"? Where did we get the funding to fight our third war?

I am sorry for the people of Libya, who are most probably going to be living in a civil war for some years to come. But I also feel sorry for the 13 million children in this country who are going hungry. I also feel bad about our unacceptably high infant mortality rate. I feel bad about older people who are unable to afford prescription drugs and are therefore suffering through their last years of life.

Those problems we really could do something about, and we wouldn't have to fire a single cruise missile. Maybe America needs to start a humanitarian mission to the United States.