re: #431 allegro

I think that was a primary motivation, yes. If we were only motivated by human rights interests our military would be much busier in other parts of the world.

It was much more about feasibility than oil. NATO could do something in this case so they did. Gaddafi was a known quantity and would have kept the oil flowing no matter what. Whoever follows him is completely unknown and may or may not feel as beholden to us as we feel they should be. If oil was the primary motivation the safe bet would have been to stay out of it and let Gaddafi crush the opposition.