For the past two decades, American foreign policy has reflected Cold War-era thinking. From the 1950s through the 1980s, much of what America did abroad was based on the notion of containing Communism: Korea, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Chile and several other countries, for better or for worse, were all on the receiving end of America’s policy of containment.

I have been following the Libyan conflict since the first pockets of rebellion emerged. I’ve read reports of Gadhafi ordering his airmen to bomb villages and flying mercenaries into the country to butcher civilians.

While the civil war in Libya is a humanitarian crisis, it is not in the interest of the United States to intervene militarily or economically in the situation. The country poses no immediate or even remote threat to American interests, and our involvement is sure to cost more than we can afford and lead to severe, unintended consequences.

If for no reason beyond the simple fact that he struck me as being utterly incorrect, I was pretty well convinced that it was in the anonymous poster’s best interest that he remain unidentified. At the end of a foreignpolicy.com article chronicling last week’s Gadhafi incident at the United Nations, a commenter explained that “OECD [...]