[Evilmav2]

So what if it shows other rogue nations means of settling up other than force. Do you think that will make them renounce their brutal ways, let their own people rise up out of poverty, and stop using their nation as their own personal cash cows?

Nope, only naked force as shown in Afghanistan and Iraq will remove the despots and give the country a chance to join the 21st century.

You are preaching to the choir here, if you are trying to tell me that military force is the best way of dealing with these monsters, but there are practical limits to our geo-political grasp right now.

If the Libya of today was ever shown to have culpability in a new Lockerbie bombing, our wonderful present administration would be sure to meet that challenge with B1b's, amphibious marine assault ships, and carrier battle groups, but currently we are refitting 9 of those 11 aircraft battle groups, we have 173,000 troops tied up in Iraq until the Poles are able to take up some of the peacekeeping load, and we are rapidly redeploying fleet and air assets to Guam and Hawaii in order to be able to better meet any future Korean or Chinese provocations...

We also still have the crash-course-to-nukes Iranians and murderous and crafty Bin Laden Mohammadens to worry about, which to make a long story short, pretty much guarantees that we are going to deal with a minor, irritating rogue state like Libya with a carrot rather than a stick. That Libya has cooperated with us on the war on terror, and that they appear to be making every demanded effort to renounce their old, outlaw ways and do whatever the responsible world requires of them before economically reaching out again, I think ensures that the prerogagives of the State dept. rather than the Pentagon are going to take precedence in our dealings with Libya...

Againk, I am no apologist for Libya, but I am realistic enough to see that the possibility of easing the sanctions on Libya is being offered by this administration as a non-military attempt to end one more rogue nation threat to the US. And the bones under that skin, is that Libya was probably scared witless by our crushing of Taliban and Baathist snakes, and Gaddafi is clever enough to know that playing any of his old games is now a very hazardous game indeed (he and his dearly departed daughter certainly know what it is like to have laser guided US bombs immolating the Tripolin night)...