How do you tell when a president is telling lies?
Check if he's breathing.
How do you tell if a president is telling damn lies?
Listen for the words 'promise' or 'commitment'.
100% accurate, no exceptions. Also applicable to Senators and Congressmen.
Ahem, anyway. We'll see how it goes, I guess. I would suggest that there are underlying motives behind the whole ordeal, but all of these uprisings in that part of the world really seem to be genuine movements of the people for a change. I do support the timely destruction of despots and violent dictators...but I think it's absurd the UN waited so long to take action.
The rebels in Libya had a window of opportunity where they had the element of surprise on their side and the upper hand in the fight. But the Libyan military gathered its self together and achieved organization and gained momentum, against which the poorly armed and poorly trained rebels had no chance. The UN could have helped the rebels maintain their initial advantage with a few well-placed cruise missiles and some bombing sorties. Their procrastination was foolish...on the surface, anyway. At the end of the day the UN does not exist to promote freedom or prosperity of the people in the world, so in all actuality they were very successful in their mission by choosing to wait.