Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., promised the Qaddafi family in 2009 that he would push for the United States to give Qaddafi military equipment so that they could beef up security in the capitol city of Tripoli, according to a cable released by Wikileaks.
Libyan rebels captured Tripoli this week with NATO assistance. McCain has been a leading Republican supporter of President Obama’s decision to involve U.S. forces in the Libyan intervention, or “kinetic military action.”
But just two years ago, as a member of a congressional delegation to Libya, McCain expressed a greater interest in Qaddafi’s security. McCain promised the dictator that he would push his congressional colleagues to send military equipment that Qaddafi claimed he needed for security in Tripoli, as described in this cable:
The Senators recognized Libya’s cooperation on counterterrorism and
conveyed that it was in the interest of both countries to make the
relationship stronger . . . Senator McCain assured
Muatassim that the United States wanted to provide Libya with the
equipment it needs for its TRIPOLI security.
McCain’s office denied the report in a statement to Politico. Even if he did push for the armament, the cable explains that he did so out of an understanding of United States national security interests. But now McCain simply says that “our values are our interests” – a foreign policy plank that columnist George Will points out would require that “America’s military would have just begun to fight, and would never stop.”
