When the shit started to hit the fan in Bahrain, my buddy Blondie texted me to request that I write my Congresscritters asking them why our government hadn't publicly condemned the Al Khalifa regime for firing on unarmed citizens. Given the urgency of the matter, I didn't trust to the post but contacted them through the forms on their homepages. Naturally, I didn't get any response beyond a simple acknowledgment that my message had been received from the two who wrested an e-mail address from me.
Today I got a poll from our Republican senator, Mark Kirk, offering four options of a response to the situation in Libya:
- Impose sanctions.
- Enforce a no-fly zone.
- Do both.
- Wait for UN approval before doing anything.
Since "bomb the fucker" was not an option, I chose (3), despite the fact that it seems Kirk has already committed himself to (1). Interesting to see how he frames the argument for this. In his press release, he first mentions the innocent civilians and then gives a list of major terrorist actions traced back to the Gaddafi regime. But in the link from the e-mail, he prominently mentions the role of the crisis in driving up gas prices and, thus, hurting our economic recovery.
It would be petty to cavil about this. Whatever it takes to get Americans to support the overthrow of a nasty demicidal dictator, I guess.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}