The US has this "thinking" that the world is just their backyard. It is not really in the law, strictly speaking. But if you have been watching the news, they strongly interfere with countries for their own (or their politicians) benefit.
For example, they hit Libya with missiles right when Al-Gaddafi sent troupes to defend from future-ISIS militants.
So yes, the US will get involved in stuff that matters to it.
> The question for me is: why US?
Because if you know the US is coming and dropping bombs, who the hell wants to fight it? Even Russia is abstaining hard to prevent the nuclear war possibility though the US have been doing all it can to start it.
You're not wrong, but also dismiss some tough moral choices. I'd argue that attacking Libya was against U.S. strategic interests. Since 9/11 Gaddafi had substantially improved relations with the west. He gave up his nuclear program and was basically acting as Europe's bouncer. Since he fell the migrant crisis has exploded. North Korea and Iran learned that despite all promises otherwise, the only way to ensure regime survival is nukes.
So why did the U.S. intervene? Gaddafi was going to ruthlessly slaughter everyone in Benghazi. He said so, and had the tanks to do it rolling across the desert. It turns out that the U.S. military is really good at killing tanks in the desert (esp in a low air defense threat environment), so the White House and DoD knew that they would have blood on their hands if they stood by and watched. Also, unlike Syria, Gaddafi had no strategic allies to complicate things. That is, other than us.
And now we get to suffer the long term consequences of preventing that genocide by stabbing a new friend in the back. We saved lives in Benghazi and toppled a ruthless dictator. We also fueled the rise of ISIS, and helped pave the way for nuclear confrontations in Korea and the Middle East.
This strikes me as your regular U.S. citizen who has been fed with American Media. As someone who is living in the "region" and was affected by the chain of events that happened since the starting of the Tunisian revolution let me tell you that you are quite misinformed about what happened in reality.
Gaddafi was not toppled because he was going to kill civilians. In fact, it is the other way around. Gaddafi has been killing his opposing politicians for decades. This happened with the best knowledge of his US, EU friends at the time and at really a ridiculous and holocaustic level.
The time the US intervened was when he was going to "truly" protect his country or power from real armed extremists.
If you think the US intervene for the sake of "humans" then you are gullible to your media. The US has been actively intervening in the middle east which resulted in countless (hundreds of thousands) of people and children dying directly from US fire.
There are thousands of people dying from hunger every day. The cost to feed them is certainly much less than the cost of wars the US has engaged. But the US will not help these "black" guys despite having the food, infrastructure and money.
The US only intervenes in countries where there are strategic resources; or to help its allies ( israel / south korea ).
It's not clear that you can really cast it as a successful effort to save lives either, given that it's plunged Libya into violent, sectarian civil war.
Would the humanitarian cost be less if NATO hadn't intervened? There was already a civil war in progress in Libya, after all. NATO didn't and hasn't gotten involved in Syria (with the exception of a limited air strike this year in response to the Syrian government's use of chemical weapons on civilians, a strike of limited strategic value) and the situation there is one of the worst humanitarian crises today.
I think people are too quick to pass judgment on US or NATO intervention in matters and aren't acknowledging the extreme complexity involved in making the right decision. When dealing with some of these international conflicts, sometimes it's less a matter of making the right choice but rather making the least awful choice, and it's often impossible to determine the true consequences of decisions in advance.
For example, they hit Libya with missiles right when Al-Gaddafi sent troupes to defend from future-ISIS militants.
So yes, the US will get involved in stuff that matters to it.
> The question for me is: why US?
Because if you know the US is coming and dropping bombs, who the hell wants to fight it? Even Russia is abstaining hard to prevent the nuclear war possibility though the US have been doing all it can to start it.