Posted on 04/12/2011 2:45:21 AM PDT by Scanian
We are in Libya for a reason, and for that reason it's important to win -- which means avoiding any trap that would allow the war to end with Moammar Khadafy still in power.
Over the weekend, the African Union set just such a trap. Led by South Africa's President Jacob Zuma, an AU group arrived yesterday at Benghazi, the Libyan rebels' stronghold, offering a "ceasefire" plan that Khadafy had agreed to a day earlier.
Of course, the rebels declined, vowing to reject any future "solution" that would fall short of Khadafy's ouster. But the goal of Khadafy and his Pretoria enablers runs much beyond Benghazi -- to splitting the international coalition that President Obama is so proud of forging.
Buckling now under pressure from Russia, China or Germany means forgetting why we joined the battle in the first place.
We entered the war amid a major regional upheaval, rightly or wrongly choosing the Libyan arena (as opposed to, say, Iran in 2009 or Syria today) to make a stand and tell Mideasterners that we won't permit tyrants to massacre their peoples to stay in power.
What's more, beyond the hazy stated cause, the underlined message to the region resembles what the former British Prime Minister Tony Blair told CNN on Sunday: The strategic objective, he said, is to "get a government in place in which the Libyan people have a say in Libya's future."
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Yes. To put Iran and al Quaida in power. I don't get why so many Jews turn out fighting the battles of Hamas, Hezbollah, al Quaida and Iran.
The whole mideast is beyond insanity at this point.
Right...
Cheerleading for a useless war where victory is impossible to define...
I’m all for killing Gaddafi. Justice for Pan Am flight 103 is long past due. But forget nation building or any other dreamy thoughts. Find out where he is and send in a cruise missile or other bomb and be done with it.
What a crock, we are Libya for a lie, and to steal the oil, if you want the people to decide let them get on with it. Remove the damn planes and stop nato slaughtering for oil.
I’ve been saying since the Libyan “war” began that if Flight 103 was really such an outrage, why didn’t the government nab Gaddafi when he came to New York?
Diplomatic immunity? For a state sponsor of terrorism? Screw that.
If the wanted him they could have had him years ago.
No need to go to war and risk American lives and waste money we don’t have.
That makes as much sense as any other explanation offered for that STOOPID war.
Zer0 wants to drive up energy prices-—he has made that abundantly obvious on several occaisions.
If we have to switch to bicycles and ox carts, that would suit him just fine.
Another part of his “anti-neocolonial revenge motive” which Dinesh D’Souza lays out in his book “The Roots of Obama’s Rage.”
0 has a very sick outlook on Western society; he sees us as international villains and if he can louse up our Western economies, all the better for him and his twisted objectives.
A hero and a legend in his own third world mind.
This is simply nonsense. Christian civilians are being killed in Egypt, and churches burned; civilians are being murdered by the government in Syria, yet Obama chooses to commit US power and prestige to back an al Qaeda riddled group in Libya?
The message being sent here is that the US will back the Muslim Brotherhood and al Qaeda while ignoring violence against Christians and anyone threatening Iran and its allies. Lunacy.
On top of it, we seem to have teamed up with the Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight in Libya — one defeat after another. We don’t know who they are or what they want but we are ready to give them arms? How long before those arms would show up killing Americans in Afghanistan?
And what exactly is our policy in Libya? One day we aren’t going to intervene. Suddenly the UN tells us to attack and we say we are going to enforce a ‘no fly zone’, followed by attacks on tanks — do tanks fly? Then we set up a fig leaf with NATO, complicating the chain of command so Obama can claim we aren’t really leading the ‘kinetic military action’. Predictably, this chaos leads to us bombing our allies twice over a few day period, reportedly because we “didn’t know” that our Rebel allies, heretofore described as poorly armed civilians, actually had tanks.
On the domestic front, Congress cedes authority to declare war not to the President but to the United Nations and the Arab League. We are transparently in this war for oil; French oil to be exact.
This is the ultimate Obama/Clinton devolution of ‘smart diplomacy’ — an American clusterfk beyond the wildest dreams of our enemies. Please don’t hand us this total BS about how we ‘must’ win. We have turned a win/win conflict in which radical islamists were merrily blowing each other away into a lose/lose humiliation for our own beloved country.
Stick your nose where it doesn't belong, expect someone to slice it off.
“We are in Libya for a reason.”
Yes, our president’s a misguided egomaniac and a tone-deaf, Marxist political hack who couldn’t find his butt with both hands.
The biggest problem in Libya is that both sides of this Civil war cannot lose.
Tit or Tat what is the difference?
Both sides will hate America and kill the other side and any Christians they can find while doing it.
LLS
No we are not.
The President has no idea why we are there.
Ah, here we see what I call The Kissinger Effect. U.S. prestige is now on the line...so we supposedly must double down.
Of all the autocratic, dictatorial countries in the mideast, Libya should have been way down the list for change. They all need a change, but which is worst? Why Libya now?
I suspect we were set up and Obama fell for it!
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