enhanced_deficit
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Be interesting to see if then Prez Obama (who was later called 'Founding Father of ISIS' by top Republican leadership) will issue any statements on results of his foreign policy:
U.S. military interventions loom large 10 years after Obama attacked Libya
This anniversary of another American war should remind us that next time probably won’t be different.
Libyans inspect the wreckage of a US F15 fighter jet after it crashed in an open field in the Libyan village of Bu Mariem, east of Benghazi, on March 22, 2011.
Libyans inspect the wreckage of a US F15 fighter jet after it crashed in an open field in the Libyan village of Bu Mariem, east of Benghazi, on March 22, 2011. Anja Niedringhaus / AP file
March 19, 2021, 4:19 PM EDT
By Gil Barndollar, senior fellow at Defense Priorities
Ten years ago today, the United States under President Barack Obama intervened in the nascent Libyan civil war. Using one of the most common tools of modern American statecraft, the Tomahawk Land Attack Missile, U.S. forces led a coalition of NATO and Arab League partners in a campaign initially predicated on enforcing a no-fly zone and preventing massacres by the dictator Moammar Gadhafi. Frequent decapitation strikes failed to kill Gadhafi, but the self-styled “Brotherly Leader” suffered a brutal public death seven months later.
Gadhafi’s overthrow did unique harm to U.S. national security: It undermined the best model for a dictator disarming and beginning to come in from the cold.
After the country was once more thrown into civil war in 2014, Libyans today may finally have grounds for cautious optimism: A ceasefire has held for nearly five months and an interim transitional Presidential Council is charged with preparing for a free and transparent national election in December. But a few lessons stand out from the past decade of conflict in what was once Africa’s richest country.
To the Western leaders who decided to intervene on the side of the rebellion, Libya offered a tantalizing mirage: a wealthy Arab country with a small population, close to Europe and yearning to throw off the yoke of a brutal and bizarre dictator. Despite the disaster of the Iraq War and the bloody stalemate in Afghanistan, it was easy to embrace what the investor Sir John Templeton once termed the four most expensive words in the English language: “This time it’s different.”
Related
Opinion
Why don't Democrats all know how awful a war with Iran will be? Iraqis sure do.
Intervening in Libya was different from invading Iraq and Afghanistan, to be sure. U.S. concern for Libya was purely humanitarian and could not even be spun to serve a vital national interest. Then-Secretary of Defense Robert Gates later conceded that “he [Gadhafi] was not a threat to us anywhere. He was a threat to his own people, and that was about it.”
Instead, Gadhafi’s overthrow did unique harm to U.S. national security: It undermined the best model for a dictator disarming and beginning to come in from the cold. One of the few foreign policy successes of the George W. Bush administration was Gadhafi’s nuclear disarmament. Driven by both a wish to end economic sanctions and a desire not to end up like the deposed Saddam Hussein, Gadhafi unveiled and dismantled his nuclear weapons program in late 2003.
Deadly attacks in Libya create political tension in US
Sept. 11, 2012
Eight years later he was dead, with NATO warplanes tallying an assist. Other dictators from Pyongyang to Tehran are likely now far less willing to turn over their protective arsenals to a United States that will then happily hasten their demise.
Like Afghanistan and Iraq, Libya reverted to corruption and factionalism when the dictator and his security state were overthrown. Gadhafi had thoroughly hollowed out Libyan civil society, to a degree apparently unanticipated by most of the war’s fervent, idealistic backers in the West. A retreat to primary loyalties of home and bloodline followed Gadhafi’s deposal.
Related
nbcnews.com/think/opinion/u-s-military-interventions-loom-large-10-years-after-obama-ncna1261548
U.S. military interventions loom large 10 years after Obama attacked Libya
This anniversary of another American war should remind us that next time probably won’t be different.
Libyans inspect the wreckage of a US F15 fighter jet after it crashed in an open field in the Libyan village of Bu Mariem, east of Benghazi, on March 22, 2011.
Libyans inspect the wreckage of a US F15 fighter jet after it crashed in an open field in the Libyan village of Bu Mariem, east of Benghazi, on March 22, 2011. Anja Niedringhaus / AP file
March 19, 2021, 4:19 PM EDT
By Gil Barndollar, senior fellow at Defense Priorities
Ten years ago today, the United States under President Barack Obama intervened in the nascent Libyan civil war. Using one of the most common tools of modern American statecraft, the Tomahawk Land Attack Missile, U.S. forces led a coalition of NATO and Arab League partners in a campaign initially predicated on enforcing a no-fly zone and preventing massacres by the dictator Moammar Gadhafi. Frequent decapitation strikes failed to kill Gadhafi, but the self-styled “Brotherly Leader” suffered a brutal public death seven months later.
Gadhafi’s overthrow did unique harm to U.S. national security: It undermined the best model for a dictator disarming and beginning to come in from the cold.
After the country was once more thrown into civil war in 2014, Libyans today may finally have grounds for cautious optimism: A ceasefire has held for nearly five months and an interim transitional Presidential Council is charged with preparing for a free and transparent national election in December. But a few lessons stand out from the past decade of conflict in what was once Africa’s richest country.
To the Western leaders who decided to intervene on the side of the rebellion, Libya offered a tantalizing mirage: a wealthy Arab country with a small population, close to Europe and yearning to throw off the yoke of a brutal and bizarre dictator. Despite the disaster of the Iraq War and the bloody stalemate in Afghanistan, it was easy to embrace what the investor Sir John Templeton once termed the four most expensive words in the English language: “This time it’s different.”
Related
Opinion
Why don't Democrats all know how awful a war with Iran will be? Iraqis sure do.
Intervening in Libya was different from invading Iraq and Afghanistan, to be sure. U.S. concern for Libya was purely humanitarian and could not even be spun to serve a vital national interest. Then-Secretary of Defense Robert Gates later conceded that “he [Gadhafi] was not a threat to us anywhere. He was a threat to his own people, and that was about it.”
Instead, Gadhafi’s overthrow did unique harm to U.S. national security: It undermined the best model for a dictator disarming and beginning to come in from the cold. One of the few foreign policy successes of the George W. Bush administration was Gadhafi’s nuclear disarmament. Driven by both a wish to end economic sanctions and a desire not to end up like the deposed Saddam Hussein, Gadhafi unveiled and dismantled his nuclear weapons program in late 2003.
Deadly attacks in Libya create political tension in US
Sept. 11, 2012
Eight years later he was dead, with NATO warplanes tallying an assist. Other dictators from Pyongyang to Tehran are likely now far less willing to turn over their protective arsenals to a United States that will then happily hasten their demise.
Like Afghanistan and Iraq, Libya reverted to corruption and factionalism when the dictator and his security state were overthrown. Gadhafi had thoroughly hollowed out Libyan civil society, to a degree apparently unanticipated by most of the war’s fervent, idealistic backers in the West. A retreat to primary loyalties of home and bloodline followed Gadhafi’s deposal.
Related
nbcnews.com/think/opinion/u-s-military-interventions-loom-large-10-years-after-obama-ncna1261548
