Dear Mr. Obama

Dear Mr. Obama,

As you probably know from reading my Facebook posts religiously, I have strong emotions when it comes to Libya. Even knowing that, in all likelihood, things are not going to work out at all as I'd like them to (a democratic, modernizing middle east), it's still beautiful when people rise up against oppression.

But now you've committed America to military action in support of this rebellion, and millions of taxpayer dollars are exploding on Libyan soil, and we've already potentially lost the Americans flying the fighter jet that crashed this morning, and that's obviously a whole different can of worms. So if it's all right, I just have a few questions for you about the whole thing.

Who are these rebels? What do they want? Is this primarily a tribal conflict, or a national rebellion? Is al Qaeda involved? What is the rebellion's vision for a new Libya? Are we going to help them rebuild? I've heard some rebels ask for international help and some say they don't want it--which is the official position? Is there an official position? What will they say the official position is once this ends? Why did we wait until most of the rebellion has been crushed to join in and help--if this is the right thing, why is it the right thing now and not two weeks ago? Qadaffi was our ally in the war on terror, or at least we pretended he was--how is this going to effect our other alliances around the globe? Are we planning to rethink our policy of pragmatically supporting various dictators in light of our Libyan reversal? Or is this a special case and if so, why? What is the justification for interfering in this conflict but not in others, specifically Bahrain? What does the US hope to get out of this long-term? How does this fit into our overall foreign policy? How are we defining victory in this conflict? Are we in it until Qadaffi is deposed? If not, what?

Mr. Obama, at this point I don't care if you tell me a story about Nigerian yellowcake and WMDs, as long as you can tell me the answer to all these questions isn't "I don't know".

Sincerely,
-Laura