I seem to be rotating back to my interest in the Libyan mission, and the debate simmering between the White House and some lawmakers intersects nicely with a paper I'm working on at the moment. So perhaps a few thoughts on the current embroilment over the operation's legality are in order.

But not tonight. For now I'd just like to briefly correct a few friends of mine who somehow figure the US is once again out to snatch us some cheap oil by starting a war. Shikha Dalmia at Reason begrudgingly articulates why this is nonsense:

That we are after Libya’s oil is particularly untenable for the simple reason that Libya is only a bit player in the world oil market. It is not even among our top 15 crude oil suppliers. The U.S. consumes about 20 million barrels a day and Libya produces 1.7 million barrels for the whole globe. America lost 1 million barrels a day during Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and the U.S. economy barely hiccuped.

The bleating over oil greed is a tired anti-war trope that we have to hear every time the US spends—or in the opinion of people like Dalmia, wastes—money and time on striking at a rogue state in the Muslim world. Gaddafi is an even less plausible candidate for a Western oil-lunge than Saddam or the Taliban mullahs since he was perfectly compliable prior to our noisemaking over his corpse-making.

Allow me to finish some papers and we can revisit this.