Arms For A Civil War

Whatever the original intent pretense, it has certainly become clear by now that our purpose for military action in Libya is regime change, and that we are going about it in an astoundingly inept manner. Whatever legitimacy and goodwill we may have gained with our “coalition” and stated mission of “humanitarianism," we are losing now as our government says that we believe we have the right to provide arms and munitions to the rebels in violation of the United Nations arms embargo and merely have not yet decided whether it is in our best interest to do so.

Whatever language we may be able to parse within that resolution, the intent of that resolution is crystal clear, and that is that no weaponry or munitions are to be allowed into that country for either side.

The very fact that we refer to them as “rebels” reveals our admission that we know we have blundered into the middle of a civil war, no matter how unwilling we may be to admit that.

Our government would have you believe that Libyan rebels consist of the entirety of the Libyan people rising up together in a noble effort to throw off the yoke of an oppressor, but it is rapidly emerging that such is not the case. From an article in Time on Tuesday, “Indeed, Bin Jawad may be the first town in the rebels' westward push where many of the townspeople are not on their side.” That report goes on to describe the rebels going door to door in that town, hunting Gaddafi loyalists in much the manner that was described as being threatened by Gaddafi for a different town, a threat which was used by us as a “humanitarian crisis” that needed to be prevented.

These are the rebels to whom we want to provide arms and munitions, using as rationalization the language in the UN resolution that doing so would be “taking all necessary steps to protect civilian life.”

So having assembled a coalition to achieve regime change in Libya under the cover of a “humanitarian crisis prevention,” we have turned the mission over to NATO leadership which is not willing to pursue action which will actually achieve regime change, and we are discussing arming one side of what everyone except us knows is a civil war in a manner that everyone except us will know is in violation of a UN arms embargo.

Stupidity piled upon ineptitude. I am so proud.