We're going into libya!

[rich.]

mr mugabe is another nasty little man who is noted for murdering his own citzens on the other hand has not been invaded, i wonder why???

[Mitsuru]

Well said, every single word of it.

I assume that the inevitable impact on the cost of fuel is why this thread's here in the first place?

NO fuel isn't the reason for this thread!!
The reasons are this.
A member of my family has recently gone back into the RAF from a few years in the policeforce.
I have a friend in the YorksYanks car club who is also in the RAF as ground crew.
A friend who I actually gave her away at her wedding has family in Malta,
and her dad is ex-british army.
There are a few who I know had escaped from libya because of Qadaffi

There are others I could mention but this will affect many people around the UK for good and bad reasons

[rld14]

In my not so humble opinion Obama is a sissy and Cameron is doing the right thing.

The leaders of the opposition in Libya were begging for air support but were vehement that they did not want ground troops. And they were asking for American air support. While Obama has been busy stalling the UN, Khadaffi has been busy slaughtering his own people, as Arab dictators seem wont to do.

Bahrain does put us in a sticky situation, however in my opinion he has been far too weak but I am not exactly a fan of Obama to say the least. Our foreign policy does tend to piss me off, we basically ignore gross humanitarian rights violations in Africa and elsewhere. My opinion? Darfur? Rwanda? Zimbabwe? Those are the sort of fights we should be breaking up.

A very good friend of mine made a great statement tonight "We have no problem sending our boys off to war with guns, but a big problem sending them off to foreign countries with shovels".

[mr rusty]

It's interesting how things can be manipulated- the arguments Cameron is using of helping a civilian population fight back against an oppressive government are no doubt the same arguments Gadaffi used when he was supplying arms to and training provos in the 70's/80's..... In his world view he was helping an oppressed minority protect themselves from an occupying power. Politics has always been a murky business!

[rich.]

watching the news, it seems the disaster in japan has been forgotten...

[TriumphDriver]

... and the disaster in Libya is about to begin.

[Martin Evans]

Don't worry the Royal Wedding will be in all the papers soon Although the wedding is of no interest to me, I hope Bin Laden doesn't use Libya as an excuse to bomb it.

It crossed my mind, when reading some of the inevitable anti war stuff, left by some, on various news sites, that whilst much of the Libyan affair may well be oil related, who creates the insatiable demand for it It beggs the question who is really to blame

[EricTheRed]

If the only reason that we get involved in these military interventions is oil then can someone please explain our involvement in the Balkan crisis?

Also if all we are doing is trying to secure our future supplies of oil then I suggest that we wouldn't bother to get involved at all. It doesn't matter how nasty these regimes are or what their political/religious leanings are they are still willing to sell us their oil!

I'm as cynical as anyone about how we choose which regimes to attack and which to tolerate but this argument that it's all about oil supplies is patently nonsense!

[rld14]

If the only reason that we get involved in these military interventions is oil then can someone please explain our involvement in the Balkan crisis?

Also if all we are doing is trying to secure our future supplies of oil then I suggest that we wouldn't bother to get involved at all. It doesn't matter how nasty these regimes are or what their political/religious leanings are they are still willing to sell us their oil!

I'm as cynical as anyone about how we choose which regimes to attack and which to tolerate but this argument that it's all about oil supplies is patently nonsense!

If we truly were going to war strictly for oil, we wouldn't be wasting our time on Libya.

In fact, America has probably got more oil reserves than the rest of the world put together, and Canada is a likely close second.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bakken_Formation

That's about 20 billion bbl right there.

But then there's Shale Oil...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Rive ... #Oil_shale

Estimated at up to 1.5 Trillion bbls of oil.

Basically, we have enough oil, at current rates of use, to last us hundreds of years.

Oh, and then I almost forgot about Canada!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athabasca_oil_sands

Another 133 billion bbls of oil.

And let's see, even if Britain were to run out, seeing as Britain is America's closest ally, I highly doubt that we wouldn't sell Britain all the oil it could ever need.

So if it's a war for oil we're after, we should probably invade North Dakota, Wyoming, etc...

[Martin Evans]

The people responsible for putting ethanol into fuel must be very forward thinking. As there's so much oil left, you wonder why they bother . A lot of people seem to think this is in part about oil; my point is that in many cases, these same people would be the first to complain, if fuel supplies became marginal.