So here we are, bombing another country. We got into this reluctantly, and we're following the lead of the French. The former is much more reasonable than the latter.

Maybe we can bomb Muammar Ghadafy's meager forces into such a weakened state that the "Free Libyans" or whatever you want to call them can march into Tripoli and finally strangle the old Colonel with his erstwhile nurse's reportedly ample bra.

Or maybe everybody will keep bombing sand until the real winners are the desert rats and the oil companies. Those companies, of course, can afford better mercenaries than anyone--if they so choose.

I know why we're bombing. And I still don't like it. Ghadafy is a murderous nutjob, and this might be the best chance to get to him before he is naturally killed by death. But hey, do we (as a country, I mean) really want to be in the assassination business?

There are lots of questions I can't really answer. Even if you subscribe dogmatically to a single philosophical ideal, the answers aren't clear.

For example, I happen to think that John Stewart Mill's utilitarian theory generally works well for democratic (small "d") governments. In short, it states that the best course of action is the one that does the largest amount of good for the largest number of people. I know this is a dreadfully pedantic and oversimplistic restatement, but it's the best I can do in this space. So, given that, how do we decide what to do in Libya?

Every cruise missile that flies (and lands) costs U.S. taxpayers more than a million bucks. Every bomb that drops isn't much cheaper. Our actions in Libya benefit arms manufacturers and the people who work for them. They might benefit the people of Libya in the future--if a better government comes to power. Of course, no one can agree on what sort of government that might be. Oh, it will be "democratic," but then Russia, Spain and Italy are (in theory) democratic as well. So it all depends on what Libyans consider "democratic." Or something like that.

What is the best course of action for the most people worldwide? I dunno. I know that spending more money on missiles and bombs takes money away from American children. How much? Hard to say. Is a little pain in the U.S. worth a lot of joy in Libya? Probably. Will there be joy? I dunno.

What I can say is that no one knows. I remember an e-mail exchange I had with a guy from Sweden a couple months before the start of the most recent Iraq war. The Swede fulminated for a full page about "that bastard warmonger Bush" and similar things, but he closed by saying he hoped everything Bush said was true: That the war would be swift, that peace would break out across the Middle East and that everyone would look back on the war as a good thing. He didn't believe those things would come to pass, but he wanted them to do so.

I'm of the same mind. I don't think this Libyan adventure will end well (or end, period). But I hope it does. And all the people screaming about what "will" happen ought to take a step back and remember that history has a habit of making fools of prognosticators. Of course, prognosticators are already fools to begin with, so it's not like history has a lot of work to do.

Jon Worley thinks the last line of the Doxology ought to be updated to "War without end, amen. Amen."