What Now Libya?

[Mr VJP]

"In the homogeneous Democratic Party of today, Henry  Wallace might have made it through a convention. Certainly a community  leader from Chicago, Barack Obama could and he only had four years  experience in national politics, two of those years spent on the  campaign trail. Now he has shown the progressive's traditional  impatience with our Constitutional process. He did not go to Congress to  get a declaration or an authorization of war. He has no authorization  from Congress to spend money on his no-fly zone. In fact he did not go  to Congress at all. He went directly to the United Nations, seeking  authority to act in Libya. ... He was more comfortable with 'world  opinion' and 'the community of nations.' But now that community is  breaking up. China and Russian are not with him. The lesser nations are  in flux, and even military commanders in the coalition are uncertain.  President Obama does not really know what is happening. I suggest he  have another of his Beer Summits, this time with George W. Bush, though I  would caution him to follow George's custom and make it a Sarsaparilla  Summit." --columnist R. Emmett Tyrrell

[G-Man]

We need to stop thinking about the rest of the world thinks and worry about here!!

[nyantler]

We need to stop thinking about the rest of the world thinks and worry about here!!

+1

[Bballhunter11]

So what your saying is that what happens in Libya doesnt effect us over here?

[Mr VJP]

No, it's more of a question of how it affects us over here.  Are we making it better or worse for us over here?

[Bballhunter11]

Well from the sounds of the presidents plan looks like we are mostly getting out of that country for the time being. We are supposed to have a less than "limited" role in the NATO alliance now.

[Mr VJP]

You think so?

http://www.windstream.net/news/read...018&page=1     

[Mr VJP]

There's no  question that the rebels Americans are currently fighting for in Libya  include in their ranks jihadis who in recent years traveled to Iraq and  Afghanistan to kill Americans. The only question is whether that worries  you or not.  Take Abdel-Hakim al-Hasidi, a leader of  U.S.-supported rebels in the fighting for Adjabiya. His hometown,  Darnah, has produced many jihadis, and after the Sept. 11 attacks  al-Hasidi traveled to Afghanistan to fight the "foreign invasion" --  that is, the U.S. military. According to a report in Britain's Daily  Telegraph, al-Hasidi says he was later captured in Pakistan, handed over  to the U.S., then held in prison in Libya before being released in  2008.

In addition to fighting the U.S. in Afghanistan, al-Hasidi also says he recruited about two dozen men to fight the U.S. in Iraq.

Now al-Hasidi and his allies are moving toward  Tripoli, which would not be possible without the military power of the  United States. The men who devoted so much energy to killing Americans  are now thankfully watching Americans kill for them.

To some observers, that's no big deal. "No one  seems all that frightened by him," the New York Times wrote of  al-Hasidi after a visit to Darnah in early March. Al-Hasidi, the paper  reported, "praises Osama bin Laden's 'good points' but denounces the  9/11 attacks on the United States." And besides, the Times reported,  al-Hasidi finds it amusing that the government of Moammar Gadhafi  considers him an al Qaeda terrorist. "He promised to lay down his arms  once victory is won and return, he said, to teaching," the Times  reported.

Maybe you believe that. Maybe you don't. The  problem is, al-Hasidi is by no means alone. We know that from  intelligence gained in the Iraq War.

During that war, American strategists became  increasingly concerned by the number of foreign fighters who came to  Iraq to take up arms against the U.S. In an October 2007 raid near  Sinjar, Iraq, American forces captured a computer that had biographical  information on about 700 foreign terrorists who had come to Iraq between  August 2006 and August 2007. An analysis of the so-called "Sinjar  documents" found that Libya sent more fighters to the Iraqi front than  any other country except Saudi Arabia; Libyans accounted for nearly 20  percent of the foreign fighters in the Sinjar documents.

Some of those Libyans were from an al  Qaeda-affiliated organization called the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group,  whose membership reportedly included one Abdel-Hakim al-Hasidi. In 2004,  then-CIA Director George Tenet named the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group  part of the "next wave" of terrorism that could threaten U.S. security  whether or not al Qaeda was destroyed.

So what should the United States do about  Libyan fighters who went to Iraq to kill Americans? And Libyans who went  to Afghanistan to kill Americans? And Libyans who recruited them and  helped them with their travels? Should we be hunting those people down?  Or should we be fighting on their behalf?

"It's a real concern, there's no ifs, ands or  buts about it," says Michael Rubin, a Middle East scholar at the  conservative American Enterprise Institute. "The question for  policymakers is, does that concern mean we should not be seeking change  in those countries?" Rubin supports U.S. involvement in the Libyan war  and believes the number of people like al-Hasidi is relatively small.  "It's not a reason not to support the rebels," he says. "It is a reason  not to arm them, or not to trust others to arm them."

As for the jihadis who killed Americans in  Iraq and Afghanistan, Rubin would like to see U.**** teams" take care of  them. But that, of course, would be way, way, way outside the United  Nations Security Council Resolution that guides American actions in  Libya. If the U.S.-led coalition prevails, it seems likely that some of  the jihadis will choose not to return to lives as humble schoolteachers,  as al-Hasidi claims, but instead become part of the new leadership of  Libya.

There's no way the U.S. can be involved in an  action like the Libyan war without coming in contact with some pretty  bad actors. That's a good reason not to be involved in an action like  the Libyan war. But even if involvement is an ugly necessity, do we have  to give active support and protection to people who have devoted their  lives to killing Americans?

[Bballhunter11]

History repeats it self over and over we arm a group of people to fight another force and our weapons always come back to shoot at us. I would guess that helping these people in a limited way may sway some of there opinions maybe not but leaving the current government in place is not helping anyone worldwide. Only time will tell what the results will be. What would have been your plan on Libya?

[Mr VJP]

I'll again post what I posted in another thread here, as it states my feelings perfectly.

"I would not have  involved our military in Libya. For one  thing, I see no reason why the  Arab League, which gave the no-fly zone  notion a big thumbs-up,  doesn't take on that job. They have pilots and  jets. Why is it that  America and the European nations always have to do  their dirty work?  All it ever gets us is the ongoing hatred and  resentment of Arabs and  Muslims. Besides, unlike most people, I have not  been sitting on the  sidelines rooting for the rebellion forces in the  Middle East. I do  not confuse enemies of my enemies with friends. I have  no reason to  think that when the smoke clears, we are going to see a  lot of George  Washingtons and Thomas Jeffersons running any of those  moral  swamplands. It is far likelier that Al Qaeda, Hamas, the Muslim    Brotherhood and Hezbollah, will fill any and all power vacuums in that    part of the world, with the mullahs in Tehran pulling their  collective  strings. ... I am not suggesting that the U.S. military  should never  venture out beyond our borders, but we should have a  better reason for  doing so than because CNN is showing us one bunch of  anti-American  creeps killing another bunch of anti-American creeps.  In short, we  should not be letting the 6 o'clock news determine our  foreign policy."  --columnist Burt Prelutsky