The Obama administration is engaged in a fierce debate over whether to supply weapons to the rebels in Libya, senior officials said on Tuesday, with some fearful that providing arms would deepen American involvement in a civil war and that some fighters may have links to Al Qaeda.
The debate has drawn in the White House, the State Department and the Pentagon, these officials said, and has prompted an urgent call for intelligence about a ragtag band of rebels who are waging a town-by-town battle against Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, from a base in eastern Libya long suspected of supplying terrorist recruits.
“Al Qaeda in that part of the country is obviously an issue,” a senior official said.
Obviously.
You know, I can’t help feeling that I’ve seen this movie before.
I didn’t like the ending.
PBO and most of those surrounding the Great Onlooker in Chief are clueless idiots. Libya is one of those places you stand back and watch whil declaring “A pox on both your houses.” The left, however, just can’t get away from supporting an underdog wether we should or not. In this case, we should absolutely not do so.
What we may very well have here is a civilian population that is caught in the crossfire of red-on-red combat. Whichever side wins, they will not love us no matter how much we have helped them.
I’ve been reading a book on the Muslim conquests of the 7th and 8th Centuries. What struck me was that most of the conquests didn’t involve combat. The Muslims marched in, said “We’re the new boss, we’re tossing out the old boss, pay us off and we’ll leave you alone. Fight us and you’ll die.” The old boss was very often a conqueror themselves and not of the same ethnic group as the general population. So the locals basically said, “Good – you and him fight” and they’d pay their taxes to the winner. The local administrators often kept their jobs. You see this in Afghanistan and elsewhere today. The locals are not desirous of self-government enough to die for it. They’ll pay their taxes to the winner and just want to be left alone.
Sounds like what the Ottomans did too.
RonF, it’s called “conversion of the tongue.” Because Muslims do not pay taxes when there are kuffir around to hit with the jizya, Muslim conquerors rarely made an effort to convert the conquered because it would deplete their taxbase. They also knew that many of the converts did not have their hearts in it, but converted of necessity to survive in the new regime. The Muslims didn’t worry themselves about it. The penalty for apostasy is death, so the converts weren’t going to leave Islam, and once they gave their “conversion of the tongue,” their children belonged to Islam and in a generation would be thoroughly brainwashed.
…providing arms would deepen American involvement in a civil war
Wow! Yathink? And what is the critical national interest involved in that act of war? I thought we were involved because the international community wanted to stop a potential bloodbath in Benghazi. When did mission creep set in?
And where in airpower doctrine (which I know pretty well) does it say that you use AC-130s for counter air? Since that is our mission, and all.
Used to be, the NSC would just make this happen. Where’s Ollie North when they need him.
Let the Arab League arm the rebels if that is in the best humanitarian interest. Wow, did you ever think a Peace Prize winner would be advocating sending arms to facilitate killing in the middle of a scope limited time limited kinetic military action??
Ranks right up there with the ATF letting smuggler’s arm mexican drug armies.
And if we provide arms to these ‘rebels’, how long after the Libyan action will those same weapons take to be used against us in Af/Pak, Iraq and elsewhere?
Hey, what’s a few TOWS, Javelins, Stingers, 155mm towed tubes, and toss in a few T-80 killing M1A2s to make them love us…among friends? Maybe some field hostpital kits, complete with a staff and UH-60s…
What could go wrong?
Oh, and we can doe the same in Yemen, Syria, Jordan, Bahrain…..you get the idea.
“It’s always dangerous to set a precedent, for you never know when you’ll have to live by it.” – me, 1988….srsly…I came up with that line, and I wasn’t even ever a community organizer.
Addl musing: When it comes to some other countries that will begin to revolt (H/T to G. Orwell): Some civilians being slaughtered (or threatened with) in the streets will be more equal than others….
Something makes me think it will be French kit changing hands. They are experts at selling brimstone to the devil (or Exocets to the Argentinian Navy). BYW, they had an RAF pilot as GIB of a Mirage last night – now that’s a serious advance on entente cordiale.
Hogday, where did you see that? And are the Brits returning the favor?
Hey, not like it is French Indochina or anything.
Oh, that ending. I thought you were going to say “Wag the Dog”
When you see EUCOM (who is also SACEUR, and hence new chief of the mission) in the press concerned about AQ being in the Libyan mix because the Libyan rebels use language like “jihad” and “Allahu akbar” when they kill Qaddafi’s troops; when you see such an utter and gross misunderstanding of who Arabs are, that he sly advocates we should put boots on the ground instead of giving them weapons; then you know that you are trapped on a ship of fools. Obama, Sarkoszy, Stavridis, Rasmussen, Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dum–fools, all fools.
We could give them some Super hornets ….then in a few years we could retire them super hornets so the parts will not fall in the hands of a any nations that might not like us all to much… Oh heck why not give them some nukes..you know give each side the same amount and watch the fire works from the Med…
Bluemoose, you’re a genius! Several nukes to each side, stand back.
I heard sec of state will be open in a year and a few months, interested in the position?
I don’t think I would last ten hours, I am very un PC, and i have Foot in mouth Disease on top of that too. lol
Then go for Secretary of Offense….and in this PC Era, that has an entirely new position description!
One thing to dump some pallets of rifles, RPGs, HMGs and associated ammo; another thing entirely to hand over SAMs, heavy weapons, NODs, and the like.
It’s like watching a train wreck.
I’m starting to think we should give them all smallpox blankets.
Win!
Perhaps America’s good ally Saudi Arabia will be able to match aid $ for $ and help motivate the rebels.
Bluenose
Sounds like you are perfect VP material…
VP is a tough act to follow after the current one.
Paul
I think you really have to know less than nothing and think everyone with hand out begging you for money is your friend…and a VOTER!
Aside from all the other things, this sounds like “mission creep” to me. I thought our Lightworker promised we’d be outa there in a week–maybe 10 days tops.
the First Failure has apparently signed a “Presentdential Finding” authorizing the CIA to covertly get involved… what could possible go wrong with that?
http://gatewaypundit.rightnetwork.com/2011/03/obama-signs-mother-may-i-order-green-lighting-cia-operations-in-libya/
Nada, nothing, zip, zilch, zero (/sarc)….but you will have Jimmah on the WH doorstep gunning to tear you a new one!
I don’t think we need to supply them with weapons. The US, er NATO, led airstrikes have pretty much turned this into a light infantry conflict. We might consider supplying them with American made kalishnikovs and ammo, mostly as an industry stimulus (I’d just chuck them out the back of a C-17, everything’s airdroppable..once).
What the rebels really need in training. One of the reasons Al Queda veterans are so influential is they actually have combat experience. We’ve already indirectly trained those guys, let’s see if there are any groups among the rebels worth training directly.
I’m not terribly worried about Al Queda fighting in Libya. The more resources they commit there the fewer they have for Iraq. I don’t think it will harm us short term, it took the better part of a decade for Al Queda to consolitade in Afghanistan enough to begin attacking us. It will help our war aims long term. Right now the majority of Arabs have a romantic view of jihadis, filtered by distance and propaganda. Jihadis tend to become less popular when they are on your street corner.
I agree, training is what they need but how do we avoid the unintended consequences like in Afghanistan when our special forces trained the Mujahideen and we gave them stinger missile.
Only to be used on us later.
While the enemy of my enemy might be my friend, they can also become future enemies. Aren’t many Libyan rebels the followers of radical Islam?
Basic accountability would suggest any politician who would arm likely adversaries in an armed conflict be willing to confront them on the battlefield before sending his own troops (or airmen) to do likewise.
In order to fulfill such logical expectations of leadership, we may soon find it necessary to refrain from electing lawyers, who appoint lawyers to cabinet positions (i.e. United States Secretary of State ).
What worries me, is that we have a bunch of ass kissers giving advice to a novice. It’s unlikely that our enemies have failed to notice. That’s quite troublesome.
Nicely stated..terse, yet full of subtle slaps to the face of the current political hierarchy.
Jerry Pournelle has a good article on this topic:
“Threats and Security
I have this mail:
Threats Claim Nuclear Bombs Hidden All Over U.S. « CBS Chicago
The only way to be safe to give up for constitutional freedoms. We must select a strong leader cool not waver nor falter. We must elect a leader who will stop at nothing to cleanse our society of evil.
http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2011/03/29/
threats-claim-nuclear-bombs-hidden-all-over-u-s/
Clearly the writer is in satirical mode, but I wouldn’t be astonished if some did not actually believe that a threat like this would justify something like a Council of State Security that is more or less exempt from the Constitution. Look at what 9/11 did: at a cost of a couple of dozen agents al Qaeda caused the United States perhaps $40 billion in direct costs; whereupon the United States created the Department of Homeland Security which is more or less exempt from most of the limits we always thought were Constitutional; set up TSA at a cost of some $50 billion a year; expends like amounts annually on other intrusive security measures; and has spent well over a $Trillion in undeclared wars for which the end is not really in sight.
The costs of all this have pretty well ended the US search for energy independence: imagine what the economy would be like had we invested half that $Trillion in developing cheaper energy in the United States including development of measures to contain the added pollution from new coal, oil, and natural gas plants, redundant safety measures for nuclear plants, etc. If the US had a lot of cheap energy, consumers would have more to spend on something else. Manufacturing costs would be lower.
Modern warfare often incorporates a form of jiu jitsu, the martial art that causes the opponent to use his strength against himself. Clearly al Qaeda is ahead on points in this conflict: they have taken casualties and sustained high costs and losses, but they have caused us to expend far more blood and treasure than they have. And now the Secretary of State tells us that the US is considering arming the Libyan rebels — who are reported to be backed by al Qaeda. They have posed us a dilemma: we are verbally committed to regime change in Libya, but we have denied ourselves the us of our overwhelming power to do that. We can’t send in Delta Force or let the Brits send in SAS teams to take Gaddafi out. We don’t seem to have a candidate within Gaddafi’s party structure that we can assist. We have not offered him and his family a place of safe refuge and retirement, nor do we dare do that. We must take him out but we cannot take him out; thus we toy with the notion of arming rebels among whom the only two organized factions appear to be the Muslim Brotherhood and al Qaeda.
I would suggest that the United States has people better at strategic planning than this. We have people who know something of jiu jitsu — we did, after all, win the Cold War despite many communist sympathizers among the leading intellectuals in the US — but they do not seem to have a great deal of influence now.
Reflections on Revolution
Intellectual America divided sharply over the French Revolution. It happened just as the Constitution was adopted. The war with Britain was over, but we could not have won it without the consent and aid of the King of France. We had strong ties of sentiment to the French, and there was residual distrust of Britain.
The French Revolution was welcomed by many in Britain, until Edmund Burke published his Reflections on the Revolution in France in 1790. It is something that everyone should have read during their education, but I meet fewer and fewer people who have done so.
Most of Burke’s criticism of the French Revolution can be applied to the situation in the Middle East. Rule by those who have the time and means to occupy the central city squares — To the Barricades! — does not always turn out well. Indeed, it’s pretty hard to find examples in which is has turned out well. That does not mean that the US ought to support people like Saddam Hussein, Gaddafi, the deposed President of Tunis, etc., but does it mean that we ought to engineer their downfall? And if so, by what means? The people who rose against Saddam Hussein were pretty well all dead by the time the US Army ended his reign at enormous costs to us and ghastly costs to the people of Iraq. We have no idea what will happen in Iraw when we bring the Legions home — and now there is unrest in Bahrain as well as all over the Arabian peninsula. The Mamelukes of Egypt have stated fidelity to the treaty with Israel, but the mob in the streets sexually assaults Lara Logan in celebration while shouting “Jew! Jew!”. The Taliban was easily ousted in Afghanistan, but ten years war has not ensured that it cannot come back. The writ of Kabul runs not as far as it did when we began “nation building”, and if the leaders of al Qaeda have taken casualties, we have paid the price of that in full.
In Egypt we hope for order: I would far rather Egypt be ruled by Mamelukes than by the mob that celebrated victory by assaulting an American woman. In Jordan we hope for order: should we support rebels against the King? In Bahrain we hope for order. In Arabia we hope for order. Does this mean that we should support the current governments? Should the Legions go in in the name of the King? We could have restored the Hashemites to the rulership of Iraq: one could argue they might have done better than what Iraq will get now. Would that have been worth the costs of the Iraq War? Is it likely that what happens next in Iraq will be better than they would have with a Hashemite King? We would hardly feel proud of restoring the Hashemites: will we be more proud of what will happen when we leave?
In Syria a Shi’ite (Alawite) President is chairman of an atheist party that rules a Sunni population. He rules ruthlessly. Brutally. Should we intervene? Should we intervene in Iran? Can we afford to? Can we afford not to? Is there anywhere an intelligent debate on these matters?
We are the friends of liberty everywhere. We are the guardians only of our own. That may be a simple statement of fact: a statement of the limits of our ability. How much liberty at home must we sacrifice as we go forth to export liberty with our tanks and attack aircraft?
If blood be the price of admiralty, Lord God we ha’ paid it in full, said Kipling of the old British Empire. It is America’s turn to learn that price. We have been paying it, but we have not paid it in full.
”
http://bit.ly/hKjPmL
Ron:
Jerry is worth reading every day, even if he lives in Studio City and posts about 1600 EST.
I agree -Jerry is on my daily read list. With my being on the correct (SE) coast, the time works out well.
Even though I am not a fan of his novels as I have never been able to enjoy them.
Given all of the awards he has won, it would appear that I am again in the minority though.
My first memory of reading JP was decades ago, back in the early BYTE days. I used to think that playing around with computers was fun, now I just want them to work.