“Do you know they are flying around at 25,000 feet?” asks Sen. John McCain, incredulously.
The Republican lawmaker is speaking by phone from Italy, where he has gone to discuss the Libyan operation with U.S. and NATO officials before traveling on to Libya to meet with anti-Gadhafi rebels. During the NATO briefings, McCain, perhaps the world’s most famous former naval aviator, has been told that NATO pilots, ostensibly protecting civilians, are flying at altitudes so high — 25,000 feet — that it’s hard to effectively attack Gadhafi’s forces on the ground.
NATO officials have told McCain they’re concerned that there are thousands of small anti-aircraft weapons known as MANPADS — Man-Portable Air Defense Systems — in Libya. McCain has asked whether any have been fired at NATO aircraft. The answer is no.
“The overriding fear of pilots and air crew being shot down and captured is dictating most of [NATO’s] actions,” McCain says. “When you go into war, into battle, you have to take risks. That is what war is all about. I knew that there were SAM missiles aimed at me when I was flying in Vietnam.”
Of course the day came when one of those North Vietnamese surface-to-air missiles hit McCain, leading to years of imprisonment. Now, McCain, the Senate’s biggest hawk on Libya, has no patience for officials who tell him that closer-to-the-ground missions in Libya would be too dangerous. Now, partly at McCain’s urging President Obama has authorized the use of unmanned, Predator drones against Gadhafi’s forces. The move will give NATO some — but not nearly all — of the firepower the alliance is sacrificing by not using low-flying attack aircraft like the AC-130 and A-10.
McCain’s trip comes at just the moment when it is no longer possible for anyone to defend the Libyan adventure as a success. Obama and the White House hate it when the mission is judged by whether or not Gadhafi stays in power, since Obama once famously declared that the Libyan strongman must go. They prefer the action be measured by NATO’s mission to enforce United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973, which calls for the protection of Libyan civilians.
The problem is, NATO isn’t really protecting Libyan civilians either, or at least all of them. The ongoing attacks against the city of Misurata have resulted in civilian deaths and misery, and all those NATO planes flying 25,000 feet above the violence haven’t been able to stop it.
NATO, divided amongst itself over the Libyan war, just isn’t inclined to do what it takes either to topple Gadhafi or fully protect civilians. Just a few NATO countries, most notably Britain and France, are putting a major effort into the ironically named Operation Unified Protector. Each country operates under its own rules of engagement, resulting in a confusion over who’s doing what. And some nations have stayed out of the fight altogether.
Beyond that, it’s a sobering fact that many NATO countries, even some of the big ones, are simply weak. They’ve been cutting their defense budgets for years as their welfare state commitments grew bigger and bigger. Now, they can’t mount much of a fight, even by the small-scale standards of the Libyan action. “No one will admit it, but both the British and the French are running out of precision-guided weapons,” says McCain. “They simply do not have the assets.”
So now, in addition to the Predators, Obama has authorized the first direct aid for the Libyan rebels — $25 million in “nonlethal” assistance for things like body armor, medical supplies, communications gear, and food. Of course the rebels need that, but they need “lethal” assistance even more — by all accounts they have few effective weapons and don’t know how to use the arms they do have.
To that end, Britain and France are also sending a handful of “advisers” to Libya to train opposition forces. Not so the United States: White House spokesman Jay Carney says Obama supports the adviser decision, “but it does not change the president’s policy on no boots on the ground for American troops.”
While all this has been going on, Obama has been on a political trip to California and Nevada. At fundraisers and town halls, he has discussed jobs, the economy, taxes, health care, the deficit — lots of issues. What he has not discussed is Libya; the president hasn’t brought it up, and no one in the generally adoring crowds has asked him about it. But even as the president talks, and talks, and talks, the situation in Libya deteriorates.
Byron York, The Examiner’s chief political correspondent, can be contacted at [email protected]. His column appears on Tuesday and Friday, and his stories and blogposts appear on ExaminerPolitics.com.
