In his speech last night President Obama stated that, “Some nations may be able to turn a blind eye to atrocities in other countries. The United States of America is different, and as president, I refused to wait for the images of slaughter and mass graves before taking action.”
Instead, he decided to slaughter young Libyan soldiers, and no doubt some civilians, probably by the hundreds and maybe by the thousands, a fact that seems to be rarely remarked upon by either Mr. Obama's supporters or his critics. Of course, if this was necessary to prevent the massacre of thousands of civilians by these soldiers it may have been justified, but before we resorted to violence against young men, most of whom are just doing what they're told to do by Moammar Qaddafi, whom they dread, why did Mr. Obama not simply issue an ultimatum against the one person whose death may have ended the slaughter before it all began?
I have no problem with stopping Qaddafi, just as I had no problem with stopping Saddam. My problem is that President Obama, a Nobel Peace Prize recipient, of all things, has chosen a policy that is guaranteed to result in more death and destruction than it need have. Had he announced to the world that if Qaddafi murders civilians we will hunt him down and kill him, the Libyan leader would either have refrained from slaughter or, if he went ahead with his mass murders, he'd be done away with and his forces would've been thrown into disarray and unable to continue their crimes.
Moreover, the mission tasked to our military has now expanded from the humanitarian intervention it was ostensibly supposed to be to actually assisting the rebels in their war against Qaddafi. This means that not only will there be more death and suffering as the fighting drags out, but that we are also now empowering people who, for all we know, will turn Libya into another Iran once they get the chance.
What I wish the President had done was:
1. Warn Qaddafi that any attacks on civilians would seal his doom and then let the combatants in Libya fight it out.
2. Encourage those outside parties with an interest in Libya to carry the ball themselves to protect the oil fields, or, if they wish, intervene on the side of the rebels. We have no national interest there, as attested by none other than Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, so we should stay out of the conflict. After all, Mr. Obama shows no inclination to intervene in Syria or the Ivory Coast where people are being murdered by the hundreds in the streets.
3. If Qaddafi had ignored our warning not to launch a mass slaughter then we should have gone after him with everything it took to get him. Once gone, his troops would have been leaderless and dispirited. If they nevertheless continued to attack civilians then we would perhaps have justification to intervene militarily. In fact, we would be precisely where we are now except that Qaddafi would be dead.
Wouldn't it have made more sense to make massive strikes against Libyan military facilities and armor a last resort rather than a first resort?