Libya’s rebels, as a Washington Examiner headline puts it, are “big on zeal” but “short on organization.” They are also short on firepower, but their problems on that front may be coming to an end, now that it seems the US is edging towards military action against Colonel Gadhafi. (You can read a fine new piece by Washington Examiner columnist Timothy Carney that pinpoints just who is behind the push for the US to involve itself in a third war in a Muslim country.)
If today’s New York Times article about how the US is shifting into intervention mode is any indication, there seems to have been a panic over Libya in the corridors of the Obama Administration.
The panic centers around the Obama team’s sudden perceived need to be seen doing something, anything, to shore up the Libyan rebellion.
But why this is has to be in the form of military intervention is not explained in the Times article. What national interest is at stake is not explored.
There’s definitely some vague political interest on the line, in the form of a pure public relations need to keep up with the trigger-happy Joneses (or Sarkozys, if you prefer), is not explored.
“The United States is pretty busy with two wars, and we don’t want a third,” an unnamed “senior official” told the Times.
But a third war (complete with the news stories about civilian casualties that America’s critics revel in) is just what the White House is going to get if it signs up for the foreign policy adventure in Libya being pushed by France’s Nicholas Sarkozy. Sarkozy is also known as “Sarkoleon,” which rhymes with Napoleon.
In his Examiner column, Timothy Carney urges Tea Party supporters to think hard before they agree to sign the US up for a third war in a Muslim country.
If the Tea Party can see through the spin from the pro-intervention side, it can focus on the most important question to be asked regarding any military action against Libya.
That question, to paraphrase one military critic of the US’ role in Vietnam, is whether Libya, as it relates to the present and future security and freedom of the United States, is worth the life or limb of a single American.
That’s the question the MSM should be asking; and that’s the question that the Tea Party should be asking, too.
