Tom Tomorrow points out how we are sliding down this incline. First our stated goal was to protect civilians and we definitely, absolutely weren’t there to remove Qaddafi from power. Then we started saying that we would have to keep bombing until Qaddafi left, but that we would not put any boots on the ground to accomplish that. Then we admitted that the CIA has had boots on the ground from the beginning. And now there are open calls for an expanded military involvement, ignoring the fact that we have no idea what would happen or who would replace Qaddafi if his government failed. Here we go again!
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I hate to break it to you, but we aren’t starting down the slope, we are in a free fall roll. In the beginning I was not sure we should get involved. The rebels origins and long term intents are unknown. I supported the President when he made the decision to intervene (not necessrily how he went about it) because Qaddafi needs to go but, here is where he makes the mistake. You cannot fight a politically correct war, it doesn’t exist. If the only way the process works is to get rid of Quaddafi then do it, target him, eliminate him, take the bad press for a few weeks and move on. Let the Libyans decide what government they want. If you’re tough (or stupid) enough to start a fight, then be man enough to finish it, don’t let your opponent back up everytime you knock him down, or sooner or later he’s gonna figure a way to beat you.
Yup. Totally agree.
Obama made it clear durng the compaign that he wasn’t anti-war. He was only against “dumb wars”.
So now we know what an intelligent war looks like.
Pretty much the same as the dumb ones, except without Congressional authorization.
Congressional authorization won’t be needed (under the terms of the war powers act) until the middle of May. To be honest, I think it’s a little alarmist to equate CIA involvement in a country with military involvement. As the CIA is one of the primary intelligence gathering bodies for the United States, they should, logically, be on the ground in some capacity in every country BUT the United States.
Perhaps I am missing something but I do see a big difference between using air strikes and naval bombardments to support indigenous rebels (who began fighting BEFORE we started attacking) and invading on day one of the conflict with no real local involvement.
I think it’s fair to say that most of this country is exhausted by war, but we can still be objective and look at Libya as a significantly different animal than Iraq and Afghanistan. Each of the three conflicts has started in different ways and will, most likely, end in different ways. It’s no more correct to lump these conflicts together simply because they’re conflicts than it was to try to lump Iraq and Afghanistan together as The War on Terror.
I know some peeps in the military, we had soldiers in libya before the airstrikes started. BUT SSHHHHHHHHHHH
To add to NO U’s info, when they say CIA performing targeting functions what that really means is that Special Forces guys were transferred (on paper) to the CIA without a break in service. CIA gathers intel, the SF ID’s targets. Just like at the start of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the first boots on the ground were the SF. When these CIA boots on the gound are done, they’ll transfer back to the SF, again without a break in service. Petreus to head the CIA, Panetta to head DOD. Seems very interchangeable to me.
Great cartoon. Unfortunately, all too predictable: Libya has a lot of oil…