In which I smack you around a little.

Here’s the deal. Gaddafi, a crazy person, whose family holds over half of Libya’s entire wealth, has been using a mercenary army to battle unarmed civilians. (A mercenary army made up of non-Libyans hired when Gaddafi lost control of the Libyan army after telling them to shoot their countrymen, their friends and family. These forces are NOT “pro-Gaddafi forces,” as you keep hearing, they are a combination of paid professionals and what’s left of the Libyan national army.)

What’s happening in Libya is that armies of mercenaries hired from sub-Saharan Africa are attacking normal, civilian Libyan citizens. Imagine that. Tanks and soldiers, opening fire into crowds of untrained, unarmed, non-combatant human beings. It would be like the National Guard coming to the elementary school you’re voting in and opening fire, killing everyone in the booths and in line. Do you get it now?

It’s a fucking abomination, a massive violation of human rights. Only a monster would think it’s “none of our business” or that it has “nothing to do with us”: we are the richest, most powerful nation in the world. It’s our duty to help the helpless. If we are capable of standing by while atrocities happen YET AGAIN, we might as well just go ahead and finish dropping dead of heart disease and diabetes en masse, because we deserve it.

The U.N. voted to enforce a no-fly zone over Libya. Even China and Russia, famous for abusing their own populations, abstained from the vote instead of vetoing: that’s how fucked up the situation in Libya is. The purpose and function of a no-fly zone is to make a crazy fucking bastard like Gaddafi fight someone his own size. The purpose and function is to engage the actions of those mercenary armies with armed professionals, thereby protecting the UNARMED CIVILIANS WHO ARE BRAVELY TRYING TO OVERTHROW A TYRANT WITH NOTHING BUT THEIR SOFT BODIES AND THEIR HOPE AND SOME FUCKING ROCKS.

Gaddafi has built a Libya in which people are terrified to speak, in which very nearly everyone knows someone who has been tortured or disappeared. The Libyan rebels cannot stop, because if Gaddafi regains power he will kill every single one of them and their families. He will raze entire villages in retribution. We know this because he’s been doing it for the past 41 years, and if you don’t believe me you can look it up. Go ahead. This shit’s documented, and everyone knows it.

Well, everyone but the average American. We’re the only major country that doesn’t do international news coverage. This is, I believe, because we’re self-involved, selfish, lazy, and vain.

So, in a nutshell: has your government ever opened fire on your ass? No? Then SHUT THE FUCK UP ABOUT THE U.N. NO-FLY ZONE ALREADY, because you’re a useless, coddled, rich, white American with the IQ of a gnat. Yes, I’m looking at you, Kucinich, you stupid bitch. The United States is a member of the U.N. and it’s our duty to enforce U.N. sanctions. Also, who has more military assets than we do? NO ONE, that’s who. Also, Obama had immediately stated that he wants to turn the operation over to NATO as soon as possible, and, finally, enforcing a U.N.-mandated no-fly zone to protect unarmed Libyan civilians is not “going to war,” no matter how many times you get the sentence into a sound byte. You’re a liar, Kucinich, and your ivy league education is not helping you look at all smarter than Sarah Palin, Queen of the Bimbos.

All you Americans who talk smack about the no-fly zone are provincial. You really do think that all those brown people are all the same, and you’re numb from a lifetime of baffling news out of the Holy Land. You’ve never been educated about the cultures and religions that parented your own; you remain ignorant of where your oil (and external hard drives and bowls and scarves and shoes and decorative shelves and cordial glasses and coffee presses and USB drives and picture frames) come from, and you honestly think that it’s okay that human beings who want the same things you do – jobs, medical care, the ability to live without being shot by their “government” – should be allowed to die merely because you’re incapable of an appropriate emotional or moral response, and you’re breaking my heart.

And Washington, in your rich white men interviews mocking actions done on “a humanitarian basis” and using against it an argument of monetary cost: how do you sleep? Okay, you don’t like Obama: I get it. But what’s wrong with your moral response? Are you autistic or something? Money over human life, really? I thought you identified as Christian? Have you ever read the new testament?

My country’s shoddy, sound-byte-is-king media coverage of world events shames me. My countrymen’s ignorance of world issues shames me. The number of people who have told me in the past few days that “it” – Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, Cote d’Iviore – has “nothing to do with us” shames me. The U.S. government’s partisanism, greed, and utter lack of morality shames me. Half the shit you’re seeing on Fox and CNN is literally untrue, and much of that isn’t even on purpose: our leaders and our media don’t know any better. It’s literally terrifying.

Did you know that when the U.S. has a presidential election, the BBC World covers it in depth? Did you know that most educated people the world over know who world leaders are, and that most Americans can only name a few?

You don’t have to make the collateral damage argument; I know that NATO forces have already fucked up and killed some protesters, thinking they were Gaddafi forces. I think that’s more likely to be the result of the insanity of military action and the youth and ignorance of the individual troops. We know from Iraq that our armed forces are turning out amped up, fucked up troops anyway. Is it a tragedy? Hell yes. Does it mean we shouldn’t try to do the right thing? Hell no.

I want to emmigrate but since I’m a stupid American too, I only speak the one language and I doubt any other country would take me. *sigh*