A Community Organizer Goes to War
Now that Benghazi has been spared what we were assured would be a massacre by Muammar Gadhafi’s army, why are the U.S. Air Force, Navy, CIA, and Special Forces still attacking in Libya?
If our objective was to spare the defenseless people of Benghazi from slaughter, why, mission accomplished, did we not stop bombing? Why are we plunging deeper in?
Did Gadhafi attack us? Did he attack a NATO country, thereby triggering Article 5 of the treaty requiring us to go to war? Have his forces carried out massacres of such magnitude in recaptured towns and cities as to morally mandate our humanitarian intervention?
Where? What has Gadhafi done in any rebel city that has fallen to him to compare with what Syria’s Hafez al-Assad did in Hama, when he rolled up his artillery in 1982 and slaughtered between 10,000 and 20,000 to teach the Muslim Brotherhood a lesson in loyalty?
Not a decade after Hama, Assad was the welcome ally of George H.W. Bush in Desert Storm.
With Benghazi secure, by what right did we attack the Libyan soldiers defending Ras Januf, Brega, and Sirte? What crimes were they committing by defending their cities from rebel attack and their government from being overthrown by force and violence?
Is this not what all soldiers take an oath to do?
None of this is written in defense of Gadhafi, a loathsome man and murderer of innocents, but to ask: Why is this small civil war in a North African desert country America’s war?
The White House will not even concede America is at war. And understandably so. For that would trigger follow-up questions.
If we are at war with Libya, who started it? What was the casus belli requiring us to go to war? Did Libyan troops attack U.S. citizens or ships in the Mediterranean? Who is the aggressor in this war?
The truth: America is fighting another war of choice in Libya, and this one without any constitutional sanction. Congress not only did not declare this war, Congress was not even consulted.
Yet, once begun, wars create new political realities.
Now that Obama and Hillary Clinton have declared that Gadhafi must go, and U.S. military power has been put massively in on the side of the rebels, Gadhafi cannot win without Obama losing face and the United States being humiliated.
Saving Obama’s face and preserving our superpower image may be the cause for which we kill a number of Libyans who did nothing to us.
There is, however, a more compelling reason Gadhafi must go.
Should he survive our drive to dethrone and kill him with that cruise missile into his compound the first night of our attack, he is likely to return the favor, as he did at Lockerbie after Ronald Reagan’s 1986 attack on his compound.
Should Gadhafi retain power at the end of this war, with friends and family dead, how safe will U.S. airliners be on the North Atlantic run? If, as Reagan rightly said, Gadhafi is the "mad dog of the Middle East," can you leave such a wounded and rabid animal alive?
Our intervention raises other questions that should have been asked and answered before Obama plunged us into this civil war.
Absent some lucky air or cruise missile strike, how do we remove him from power? How do we de-claw him so we do not awaken some morning to a horrific reprisal on U.S. citizens for what we did to him?
The rebel army is not up to it. It did not just retreat from Sirte after tribal forces joined the Libyan army to repel them. It fled in a Mad Max rout, abandoning town after town until some rebels had fled all the way back to Benghazi.
Even with the United States and NATO imposing a no-fly and no-drive zone on Gadhafi’s army, the rebel army is not a force that can march to Tripoli and depose him. And it is unlikely to become such a force anytime soon. The rebels lack the arms, training, equipment, and numbers to march 600 miles and capture and hold half a dozen towns along the way against hostile tribes and Libyan troops.
Who, then, is going to do it?
Obama has said we will not put boots on the ground. But if we don’t put U.S. advisers in, who will train, arm, and lead the rebels? The Germans and Turks want no part of this war. The most bellicose allies, Britain and France, had a hellish time in Bosnia before the Americans came and pulled their chestnuts out of the fire.
As for the Arab League, Qatar has sent a few planes, but where is the Egyptian army, half a million strong and right next door? Why is Arabs fighting Arabs an American rather than an Arab problem?
The truth: There is no "international community." There is Uncle Sam. He does it, or it does not get done.
COPYRIGHT 2011 CREATORS.COM
Read more by Patrick J. Buchanan
- A Decade of War – for What? – May 3rd, 2012
- Tomorrow’s Man – or Yesterday’s? – April 26th, 2012
- Bibi’s Dilemma — and Barack’s – April 16th, 2012
- Is the GOP Becoming a War Party? – March 8th, 2012
- Will Bibi Break Obama? – March 1st, 2012
JLS
March 31st, 2011 at 9:08 pm
President Quagmire and Empress Hilary.
RickR30
March 31st, 2011 at 10:09 pm
I seriously doubt that Ghadafi has the means or is in the mood to organize another Lockerbie-style attack. Who knows where this is going and I suspect whoever is in charge of this in the US doesn't have a clue either. They're making it up as they go along. But what we know about these lunatics, it's going to mean more US money wasted, more and more involvement, no end. Perhaps then they'll want to keep Ghadafi around. As long as he's in power, there's an excuse for the irresponsible idiots in DC to keep us there.
sherban
April 1st, 2011 at 2:44 am
I can't understand how Mr.Buchanan sees the things.In first place his worry:"Absent some lucky air or cruise missile strike, how do we remove him from power? How do we de-claw him so we do not awaken some morning to a horrific reprisal on U.S. citizens for what we did to him?"
But it is obviously that US didn't do something "to him",US and her allies are making something very bad to Libyan people.Even Israel seems more morale with fer gangster system to solve problems kidnapping persons even in foreign countries how she did recently with an engineer from Gaza-Abu Sisi- abducted in …Ukraine.And"horrific reprisal on US citizens".This also is an Israeli slogan:the weapons which Israel claims is smuggle ,from Iran of course,is destinated to kill Israeli citizens.As if the civilized Western world is killing only "terrorists"and the "terrorists"are killing intentionally only citizens.
And Lockerbie was not preceded by some many crimes against Libya?In conclusion a terror policy leads by US has a "normal"response with terror against US and her allies.
John V. Walsh
April 1st, 2011 at 4:30 am
I am saddened by this posting of Buchanan's, for he now takes moves to the camp that Qaddafi is too dangerous to be allowed to stay in power. That is pre-emptive war, and we can have none of it for it opens the door to endless wars.
Pat slips into inconsistency here as he so often does on the McLaughlin Group where his tone is often more bellicose than it is on AW.C or on the pages of TAC.
Will the real Pat Buchanan please stand up?
John V. Walsh
Bodkin
April 1st, 2011 at 10:23 am
I congratulate Buchanan on this column.
This war was a foolish mistake. The Euro-elites need Libyan oil but had no intention of prosecuting this war on their own, so they embarrassed Obama into it. What's more, they're aiding radical Muslims while calling them "rebels".
Buchanan's absolutely right that Gadhafi will attack Western civilians should he survive. It won't just be America, but the other coalition members too, like Canada, France, and Britain.
It's heartening that Buchanan reminds his readers that the Syrians "slaughtered between 10,000 and 20,000" at Hama. Indeed, the tally may be much higher. That there has never been the slightest hint of condemnation over such a horror, and yet there's endless scorn heaped on Israel for much smaller and accidental civilian casualty counts, speaks volumes about the world's boundless hypocrisy and bigotry.
Bodkin
April 1st, 2011 at 12:07 pm
Another point of agreement with Buchanan:
"where is the Egyptian army, half a million strong and right next door? Why is Arabs fighting Arabs an American rather than an Arab problem?"
I and many others wrote the same thing when hostilities began. When Arabs are being slaughtered, and a powerful Arab army is right next door, it's THAT army which should intervene. But that very thought attracts the lamest excuses from the usual suspects: Egypt can't intervene because of their own turmoil. Arab armies don't want to look as though they're fighting America's wars. Egypt is still writing its new constitution. GIVE ME A BREAK!
I can't for the life of me understand why Egyptians (many of whom must have relatives right across the border) weren't begging their own leaders to intervene and prevent a slaughter by Gadhafi. Don't Arabs care when Arabs kill Arabs? We now have the answer. They didn't care about Benghazi or Hama… because Israel wasn't to blame.
Sam
April 1st, 2011 at 1:39 pm
Libya is a complexe tribal society with its own static. They will never accept new foreign domination after the italian. The egyptians and tunisians next door understand this very well.If France and Great Britain are convinced they should send ground troops in. The rebels in the East are too weak, will never be able to contol the whole country against the west and south as long as the army remains loyal to Gadhafi.
John_Muhammad
April 1st, 2011 at 3:59 pm
"" There is Uncle Sam. He does it, or it does not get done. ""
And, quite often, Uncle Sam does things that do not need to be done, or even contemplated.
Jr.
April 2nd, 2011 at 11:50 am
Thank you Mr. Buchanan for posting this article. As true as your article alludes to, we are still faced with a question on why all these uprisings are starting in so many countries in the M.E. Is it coincidence or is it a planned endeavor by a state? Why would the U.S. take such interest in a small rebellion in Libya; unless the U.S. or an ALLY of U.S. was behind these uprisings?
delia_darrow
April 2nd, 2011 at 12:37 pm
So many whys, whos and wheres, Mr. Buchanan. But you know the answer, so it's hypocritical of you in the extreme to keep asking.
Why are the U.S. Air Force, Navy, CIA, and Special Forces still attacking in Libya?
Imperialistic robbery, that's why. The same reason your heroes Nixon, Reagan and the Bushes attacked countless oil rich nations on countless occasions.
Now because Obama is doing the same thing you're all of a sudden outraged? Please. Spare us this unparalleled profile in hypocrisy.
Gary Brumback
April 4th, 2011 at 10:20 am
Mr. Buchanan, you are more right than you realize when you say "If Uncle Sam doesn't do it it doesn't get done."
And just what has Uncle Sam been doing since WWII. It's been making war as the most warring nation on the globe. And why does Uncle Sam make war? For its corporate masters, pure and simple. To protect and expand markets, to plunder natural and human resources, to make and sell war tools,
Gary Brumback http://www.democracypowernow.com