Not a whole lot of it, but what there is is lusted after.

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No vital interest, but securing Exxon's (et el) access to Libyan oil would be a major interest to anyone wanting to secure campaign funding from the oil industry.

More seriously, given current oil prices, the US does have a national interest in making sure Libya doesn't become a failed state. I doubt US military intervention could prevent this, but when all the US has is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

is pretty dang vital.

US risks looking impotent if they aren't 'doing something' to restore order to the Mid-east. They tried backing the dictator in Egypt, lost that call, so why not jump on the bandwagon and ride the wave of popular dissent in Libya? If you screw it up, it's only Libya. Next up is Syria and/or Saudia Arabia, we don't want to be just getting our beaks wet on those monstrosities.

Shorter: We don't really know what the fuck to do.

link

The oil politics could also provoke NATO or other intervention. Although Saudi Arabia is pumping extra petroleum (500,000 barrels a day), it is probably not actually replacing what has been lost from Libyan production. Brent crude hit $114 a barrel on Sunday. The world is skating on the edge of petroleum prices so high that they could push the global economy back into recession. Will NATO governments really risk taking a bath in their next elections because they declined to implement a no-fly zone over Libya and bring a quick end to what is for them not only a humanitarian crisis abroad but also a potential oil crisis at home?

to the U.S. But if you help actual freedom fighters, Lybia doesn't have to be. I don't have a problem with providing minimal logistical and humanitarian support. But, Libyans have to push their freak of a despot out.

Then they can turn around and slaughter the foreign mercs if they want.

Corporate dictatorship, uh, I mean freedom is on the march!
.
Cows get milked, rubes get bilked,
And fat cats dine on fools and cream.

Well the catch is that locals got something like 80% of their oilfields in order. All those bases including the old sites H1-H6 across Iraq, Saudi Arabia could go down so now all those old contingency plans get dusted off. If the Libyans suddenly go for some militant anarchist/self organized oil situation coming, if Libya sets an example about how to do the oil right for once, they'll be a target.

Other things breaking loose probably - South Yemen, all of Yemen, plus yr various gulf potentates, from the torture intelligence schemes to the possible wikileaks, it won't be called "saudi" arabia too much longer, and the Shiites by Kuwait will get involved. The question is like what to the west and south of Libya can they go for? It's hard to tell.

heres a couple vids from yemen - it looks like everybody showed up eh?

--
Hongpong.com

for a moment, There is the issue of protecting innocent humans from lethal tyranny. I do know several Bosnian muslims who really think Hillary's husband's actions in the former Yugoslavia were a pretty good thing. Mainly on account of the fact they and their children are still alive. A no-fly-zone over Libya is a similar low cost example of doing the right thing.

Because Libyans appreciate Clinton's karma, Gaddafi only lurches desperately.

"I shall continue to be an impossible person as long as those who are now possible remain possible."

-- Mikhail Bakunin

SPK, I know your question was rhetorical, but yes, Hilly and Barry are nuts.

It's my Boston Irish cynicism that leads me to conclude that "sabre-rattling" over the "moral" "is's" and "oughts" of Libya is VSP news cycle diplomacy. By "VSP news cycle diplomacy", I literally mean that it is the "news", both the facts & their embellishments, are the object of diplomatic "seriousness" - not the actual events or affected peoples. Among the many Villagers' defined moral obligations that these acts of diplomacy must satisfy is one that stands apart. That one is th e obligation to distraction.

Yes, diplomacy as distraction. In the minds of each VSPs distraction is a necessary deceit which when employed conduces to Villagers' silent self-admiration over the vivid tapestry of their own egos' Peacockery and the savage civility of their Machiavellian indulgences extruded through the Straussian grinder of Nobel Lies.

To these preening courtiers and stenographers huddled about Hoban's Versailles, only a truly uncivil savages such as yourself - SPK - would willingly confess to being undistracted and, worse, to note a different and real threat to our national vitality - Iraq.

Besides, if the Villagers can't liberally talk about war how can they reaffirm their "bona fides" as VSPs - let alone the centrist wisdom of cutting programs of national investment and the social safety net given the precarious state of the ever turbulent world.

CARACAS: President Hugo Chavez, the closest regional ally of embattled Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, has said that he would not condemn a friend whom he does not know to be a killer.

And Chavez repeated his warning that the United States wanted to invade Libya to get its oil.

"Since everybody is going around saying Gaddafi is a murderer, is Chavez going to say it?" the president said in a meeting with students in the capital. "Well, I do not know that to be the case. And from this distance, I am not going to condemn him. That would make me a coward, and he has been a friend for a long time."

The US Defense Department on Monday said it was moving naval and air forces into position near Libya, as Western countries weigh possible military intervention, and officials discussed a possible "no fly" zone to protect civilians.

"The United States has said it is ready to invade Libya," Chavez said. "And almost all the European countries have condemned Libya. What do they want? Libya's oil," Chavez insisted.

Thursday, Chavez praised Libya's "independence," saying Gaddafi is facing a civil war in his country.

"Long live Libya and its independence! Gaddafi faces a civil war!" the Venezuelan leader said in a Twitter message, in what was his first reaction to unrest shaking Libya since February 15.

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BENGHAZI, Libya: Libyan pro-democracy protesters say they are determined to unseat strongman Muammar Gaddafi without any foreign military intervention, even at the cost of further bloodshed.

With world powers weighing options to end Gaddafi's 41-year hardline rule, protesters who overran Benghazi, Libya's second city, hoisted a banner spelling out their message loudly and clearly: "No foreign intervention, Libyan people can do it alone."

The devastating sectarian violence that rocked Iraq in the aftermath of the 2003 US-led military intervention that brought down dictator Saddam Hussein haunts many Libyans.

"The Iraqi example scares everyone in the Arab world," said Abeir Imneina, a professor of political sciences at the university of Benghazi.

"We know very well what happened in Iraq, which is in the throes of instability. Following in those footsteps is not appealing at all," she said.

"We don't want the Americans to come and then to have to regret (the end of the rule of) Gaddafi," she added.

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