For some, this may seem like picking a nit.  But Barack Obama's statement from Brazil over the weekend justifying American action against Libya on the grounds that "we [the United States] can't stand idly by when a tyrant tells his people that there will be no mercy" seems like shaky grounds for American military intervention.      Are we to assume that if Muammar Qaddafi had said nothing but went about slaughtering innocents, the President would have chosen not to act?  But assuming that the President's statement was poorly constructed, and that he meant that American military intervention was necessitated by the murder of Libyan innocents, then in a world full of despots who routinely murder innocents, where won't the United States intervene? Are we to assume that there's a threshold that a tyrant needs to meet in killing innocents before the United States steps in (with the approval of the United Nations and in full concert...(Read Full Post)