I ask that question in all earnestness because, despite President Obama’s remarks, I still am not sure what the mission in Libya is for the US.
I do know that under the auspices of the UN, the US, NATO, the French and the Arab League commited themselves to an act of war to establish a no-fly zone (NFZ) with the ostensible mission of “protecting civilians” from the depredations of their government run by the every popular Col. Gahdafi.
And having been around the military for 28 years and understanding what establishing an NFZ requires, an act of war is indeed required to initiate it. You have to take out the other guy’s air defenses which requires you to fire missiles into a country’s sovereign territory in order to take them out and protect your aircraft when they begin to patrol the skies of the NFZ. Obviously you also try to take out his aircraft. We did both of those and have been told that it saved Libyan civilians from a “massacre” in Benghazi.
Okay. That’s all conjecture but let’s accept it at face value, shall we?
So why are we continuously hitting Tripoli with missile and air attacks if we’re there to protect civilians? I assume we know that civilians live in Tripoli as well? And as sophisticated as our “smart” munitions are, they’re really just flying computers with explosives, programed to go to a specific spot and detonate. They don’t decide if the spot is occupied by bad guys or civilians. They just get there and detonate. The results, assuming imperfect intelligence – which is always the case – are predictable:
“The so-called humanitarian raids have killed dozens of civilian victims in some neighborhoods of Tripoli,” said Giovanni Innocenzo Martinelli, the Apostolic Vicar of Tripoli.
“I have collected several witness accounts from reliable people. In particular, in the Buslim neighborhood, due to the bombardments, a civilian building collapsed, causing the death of 40 people,” he told Fides, the news agency of the Vatican missionary arm.
My guess is those aren’t the only civilians that have been killed in Tripoli by coalition air strikes. But to this point, such reports have been waived away as propaganda by the coalition, even to claiming Gahdafi has had the bodies of civilians he’s killed moved to strike target areas. However, unless the coalition is willing to try to waive away the word of a Catholic Vicar, it would appear they are indeed killing civilians in Tripoli.
Which brings us to a couple of questions. Are there some civilians that we’re more interested in protecting than others? Tripoli is obviously a city that appears to mostly support Gadhafi. That would obviously mean many of the civilians there are Gadhafi supporters. So is “collateral damage” acceptable in Tripoli but not Benghazi? Does the UN resolution make that distinction between civilians?
In fact, what’s going on in Tripoli – besides unintentionally killing those we’re supposed to protect – is something very different than “protecting civilians”. It is an obvious attempt to change the regime – to either kill, or force out, Gadhafi.
Additionally, the coalition has picked a side in the civil war that seems to be raging there and has been using its air assets as much as possible to help them advance. While an argument can be made for hitting armor and artillery as it was attacking Benghazi (protecting civilians), the airstrikes since, in support of rebel offensives speaks to a very different agenda.
Unfortunately even the most sophisticated air power can’t turn the tide for an inept ground force – and those the coalition has hitched their wagon too redefine inept. As we speak they’re again being driven back by Gadhafi’s forces that have adapted themselves to the coaltion tactics and all but nullified any advantage they gave the rebels.
So I have to ask, given all of that, is Libya going the way President Obama planned for it to go?
Just curious.
