I did not support the U.S. decision to intervene with military

Host: The wind moved like a wounded animal through the ruins of what had once been a city square. Sand drifted across the broken tiles, whispering against abandoned buildings, the air heavy with the ghost of smoke and iron. The sky hung low — that faded, indifferent gray that knows too many stories of fire.

Jack stood where a statue had once been — now only a shattered pedestal, its bronze figure missing, melted down somewhere in the noise of history. His boots crunched against fragments of glass. Jeeny sat on a fallen column, her coat drawn tight, a notebook open on her knees. The distant sound of a single flag flapping echoed through the emptiness.

Jack: “Richard Haass said, ‘I did not support the U.S. decision to intervene with military force in Libya. The evidence was not persuasive that a large-scale massacre or genocide was either likely or imminent. Policies other than military intervention were never given a full chance.’” He looked at the skyline — a hollow frame of what once was hope. “You can feel the truth of that here. The silence is the proof.”

Jeeny: “And yet, doing nothing has its own cost, Jack. Every atrocity begins with hesitation. You can stand back and call it prudence, or you can call it what it is — fear disguised as diplomacy.”

Host: The wind sighed, catching the edges of her notebook, flipping a few pages before settling. A torn poster drifted by — the faint image of a smiling leader, long gone, his grin cracked by time and bullets.

Jack: “You think restraint is fear? No — it’s foresight. Intervention is easy. Just drop the bombs, broadcast the freedom slogans, and leave the chaos to rebuild itself. But real courage is saying wait. It’s asking: what happens the day after the victory?”

Jeeny: “And if that waiting means more people die while the world debates definitions and consequences? What then? Haass was right about caution, but caution can become complicity when it hides behind policy briefs.”

Host: Her voice trembled slightly, not with anger, but with the quiet ache of moral conflict. The sun was breaking through the clouds now, cutting faint shafts of light across the wreckage, illuminating fragments of graffiti — words of hope written years ago, fading now into dust.

Jack: “You talk about saving people as if intervention guarantees salvation. It doesn’t. Look around — we saved them into anarchy. Libya was supposed to be liberation. Instead, we gave them freedom without structure, democracy without understanding, weapons without wisdom.”

Jeeny: “You can’t predict perfection, Jack. Every revolution bleeds. It’s not about ensuring safety — it’s about preventing silence from becoming death. If the world had waited in Rwanda, more than eight hundred thousand would’ve died in the same silence you call restraint.”

Host: The light shifted, glinting off a metal shell casing half-buried in the dirt. Jack crouched, turning it over between his fingers — a small, lifeless artifact of moral arithmetic.

Jack: “But this wasn’t Rwanda, Jeeny. Haass saw it. The intelligence was uncertain. The threat wasn’t genocide; it was instability. And instability was exactly what we created. Intervention isn’t medicine — it’s surgery without anesthesia. You can’t cut a nation open and expect it to wake up whole.”

Jeeny: “So you’d have done nothing? Watched from the sidelines while tyranny continued?”

Jack: “No. I’d have listened. Negotiated. Given diplomacy a real chance before pulling the trigger. The problem is — in politics, patience looks weak on camera.”

Host: A gust of wind scattered sand between them, a veil of moving dust that blurred the ground where two opposing truths met. When it cleared, Jeeny was standing now, her eyes sharp, her voice rising like a flame against the cold.

Jeeny: “Diplomacy only works when both sides speak the same language. Gaddafi didn’t understand negotiation — he understood fear. You can’t bargain with a man who believes power is divine. Sometimes the threat of force is the only thing tyrants hear.”

Jack: “And sometimes it’s the only thing they understand — but it’s also the only thing we know how to use. You call it moral action. I call it habit. Every time the West steps in to ‘fix’ another nation, we break it further. Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan — all born of good intentions, all graves for them and ghosts for us.”

Host: The sky deepened, the faint orange light of late afternoon washing over the crumbling city. The wind carried the sound of distant bells — maybe from a surviving mosque, maybe from imagination.

Jeeny: “So what’s the alternative, Jack? Endless dialogue while dictators murder? Sanctions that starve the poor and feed corruption? There are moments when force, however imperfect, is mercy in motion.”

Jack: “And there are moments when mercy is arrogance in disguise. We treat intervention as salvation — as if our bullets are blessed. But every bomb dropped writes another chapter in someone else’s nightmare. The question isn’t whether we can help — it’s whether we know how.”

Host: Jeeny’s notebook slipped from her hand, falling open on the ground. Pages fluttered — maps, sketches, fragments of testimony — the remnants of the human cost. She looked down at them, her voice softening, her conviction trembling like the lamplight of conscience.

Jeeny: “Maybe we don’t know how, Jack. But what’s the alternative — indifference? Watching the strong devour the weak because we’re too afraid of the mess that follows? Sometimes chaos is the price of compassion.”

Jack: “And sometimes compassion is the pretext for control. Every empire started with the promise of protection.”

Host: The sun dipped, light draining into the horizon. A single drone flew overhead, its distant hum cutting through the air like a mechanical heartbeat. Both of them fell silent, heads tilting up to follow it — a symbol of everything between power and guilt.

Jack: quietly “We’ve learned to wage mercy from ten thousand feet up.”

Jeeny: “And yet, down here, people still bleed the same way.”

Host: The drone’s hum faded, leaving behind only the wind, the echo of words spoken into an indifferent sky. Jack stepped closer, his voice lower, less sharp now, carrying the weight of weary truth.

Jack: “You know, maybe Haass wasn’t against intervention. Maybe he was against impulsiveness — against mistaking action for justice.”

Jeeny: “And maybe justice isn’t patient enough to wait for certainty.”

Host: The light shifted again, settling into a muted gold. Jack and Jeeny stood among the ruins — two silhouettes framed by history’s gray morality.

Jack: “So what do we call it then — restraint or cowardice?”

Jeeny: “Neither. We call it tragedy. Because no matter what we choose, someone still loses.”

Host: Silence filled the square. The wind carried a scrap of paper past them — a child’s drawing, half-torn, half-hopeful: a sun, a house, two figures holding hands. It caught against Jack’s boot, trembling like a fragile memory.

He bent down, picked it up, and looked at it for a long time.

Jack: “Maybe the real question isn’t whether intervention is right… but whether we’ve earned the right to intervene at all.”

Jeeny: “Maybe the real test of power isn’t how much we can change the world… but how much pain we can bear without becoming its author.”

Host: The camera pulled back, the two of them standing small against the vast ruins of ideology. The wind quieted, the sky dimmed, and the city — scarred, silent, unjudging — bore witness.

In the space between their beliefs hung a truth larger than either could claim:
that the line between help and harm
is drawn not by intent,
but by understanding.

And as the night descended, their shadows merged, two halves of the same conscience —
one urging action, the other restraint —
both haunted by the knowledge
that every choice, however noble,
writes its own cost in human lives.