The Obama doctrine: Are you a believer in cautious intervention? (POLL)

A Libyan rebel holds the Kingdom of Libya flag as he walks past a burning wrecked tank at a site bombed by coalition air force in the town of Ajdabiya on March 26, 2011.

/ Patrick Baz/AFP/Getty Images

President Barack Obama took to the airwaves Monday evening explaining America's involvement in a military coalition currently intervening in Libya's conflict.

He said that it was America's "responsibility" to intervene in Libya.

"To brush aside America's responsibility as a leader and - more profoundly - our responsibilities to our fellow human beings under such circumstances would have been a betrayal of who we are. Some nations may be able to turn a blind eye to atrocities in other countries. The United States of America is different. And as President, I refused to wait for the images of slaughter and mass graves before taking action," he said.

A look at the facts, however, reveals some potential contradictions in his policy of only intervening in the face of brutal atrocities. What do you think?

[telephonemanray]

America Love Wars in the Middle East and Africa. They want to get involved in as many as possible.

[meboard]

Well yes, the poll results above would indicate that.

[jjsr72748]

OBAMA is a 3rd Term G.W. Bush. His explanation for intervention in Lybia echoed Bush's explanation for Iraq, Afghanistan. If Obama is so concerned with national interests, values, morals, etc. where is America's helped in Darfur, Congo, Uganda, Palestine.

America's Military Industrial Complex (War Machine) contributed to prepared remarks. His decision accelerates USA bankruptcy, economic decline.

Another expense keeping US factories open, people employed @ tax payer expense, and expense isn't in current budget- it's off balance sheet.

[Zann-Zel]

Well look at that...58% of the people believe we ARE doing the right thing!

[meboard]

60% if you add in those that want more involvement.

[tsigili]

It is time for the US to wake up to the fact, we can no longer be the world's policeman.

Others must assume responsibility for conflicts in their region.

This should have been entirely the responsibility of the Arab League, and NO ONE else.

[meboard]

I view it as "Bush Doctrine Light"...in that we encourage democracy with limited military support and no extended nation building plan.

[nprybes]

Kind of like the way France "intervened" against England in our revolutionary war. Luckily they didn't have a nation building plan :)

[sjc_1]

It sounded like a middle approach, not invasion and not ignoring.

[wills2011]

This policy appears to be a deliberate strategy by the Administration to avoid trying to destabilize regimes in countries such as Yemen and Bahrein and perhaps even Syria, in order to make an effort to keep the present governments in those countries in power. The strategy may well fail because it fails to appreciate the fact--as I heard one senior U.S. Naval intelligence officer note in a briefing to a Navy Admiral and his staff--that most revolutions occur when much of the population of a country sees things as having the potential to improve in a relatively short period of time rather than when much of the population sees things in the country as having little potential to improve in a relatively short period of time. Thus, when the "awakening populations" of countries in the Mediterannean area are offered--and even see put in effect--concessions to democracy of one kind or another, just as people in Russia in the early 1900s experienced from the Czarist government, the populations believe they can succeed in changing the government under which they live by overthrowing their present governments. In other words, there is a period when the cat gets out of the bag, and I think that in Libya there will be a good chance that the Gadhafi regime's days are numbered rather shortly because of the overwhelming unpopularity of his regime among the majority of the population and similarly, the end may come relatively soon for the present governments in Yemen, Bahrein, and Syria.