How We Will Lose the War in Libya

By TRB

It usually takes us longer to lose a war, so you can imagine my surprise upon walking this morning to learn that the War in Libya (this one is called an intervention) is already in the dumpster. Vietnam took a long time to lose. When I was a kid you could actually grow up fighting that war. In fact, you could fight it for so long that you would sometimes forget whether you were fighting it or not.

Then Iraq came around years later. Another horribly long makes-no-sense war that you could maybe have a couple of wives, some divorces and a few children and still be on orders to go back and fight some more. Afghanistan. The same thing. It's a career war with all the makings of the other two: No front lines, no really good reason to be there, billions of U.S. dollars a week. And it's almost a decade old to boot. Afghanistan, if it keeps going like this, it could actually be the first war in U.S. history where a son is born on your first deployment and in your retiring years he is fighting beside you over there. That's patriotism.

Then, seemingly out of nowhere, some professional agitators and a larger group of just plain citizens rose up in Libya and told Moammar Khadafi to leave, Like a lot of the sociopaths who rule the world, Khadafi stopped taking his medication a long time ago. Apparently he is killing civilians again, which he thinks is no one's business because, after all, they're his civilians.

Maybe he wants to go back to the good old days when he always wore Armani, flew in corporate jets and women actually desired him. Thirty years of killing civilians in Libya and he still hasn't got them all. Maybe he's just plain frustrated.

So this is where we come into the picture. No, this is where we were supposed to come into the picture and didn't. The rebels had Khadafi rocking back on his heels. All they needed was a no-fly zone to keep his air force off their backs and Khadafi probably would have been toppled.

Then the U.S. and NATO began to hem and haw. Then they went to the place in New York City that time forgot - the United Nations and they asked for a resolution. Then they sat around for a week while the rebel army was torn to shreds by Khadafi's forces. and the UN finally agreed to Resolution 1973. Everyone, except for Russia and China signed it, which of course is very important now.

Now that we don't really have a large number of healthy rebels to take Khadafi out. Now that the U.S. has promised it won't put troops on the ground. Anyway you cut it, the U.S. has screwed this one up big time.

As it stands, the weakened rebel forces are in Eastern Libya, where there's not a lot of oil. The strong Khadafi forces are in Western Libya that has all the oil; and China and Russia, who you might remember, refused to sign UN resolution 1973, are Khadafi's allies.

So why did we go in? My common sense and military background tells me we went in to kill Khadafi, and possibly his son. The war can not be won unless both of those things are accomplished. Who knows, maybe the U.S. and its allies will be able to pull this one out by accomplishing something dramatic, such as the end of this murderer's life? It could happen.

Then this morning, Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Michael Mullens said in an interview that it is not the "intention" of the U.S. to kill Khadafi. You have to scratch your head and ask, then what the hell are we doing over there?

My take is that Khadafi is just going to sit back. Let the rebels rot out there in Eastern Libya which is the end of the world anyway. They will probably, over time , sneak back into Western Libya, be arrested and executed. China and Russia will remind the U.S. that it promised no boots on the ground. And Khadafi will just sit pat, obey the no flight zone and plan his revenge.

And there it is, in less than a month we have lost the war in Libya, simply by waiting too long to get involved.

Maybe a new record.