Currently viewing the tag: “Libyan”
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Political Punch
Just who are these people in Libya trying to overthrow Qadaffi? Our government doesn’t know but Ed Schultz does. Maybe he has a secret line into the rebel camp because he knows exactly who they are: the Libyan rebels are Freedom Fighters. Last night on his show he decided that these unknown rebels are up there with George Washington and the other heroes of the American Revolution, or Martin Luther King Jr. They rank with people who have given their lives for the preservation of God-given freedoms. Schultz said:
The big question tonight that remains: will the United States or its allies arm these Libyan freedom fighters? “Reuters” also reports today U.S. officials have said that Saudi Arabia and Qatar, whose leaders despise Gadhafi, have indicated a willingness to supply Libyan rebels — I call them freedom fighters — with weapons.
Earlier this week during a press briefing Vice Admiral Bill Gortney, was asked a very simple question:
“Do you know who the opposition is, and does it matter to you?” “We’re not talking with the opposition,” Gortney responded. “We have — we would like a much better understanding of the opposition. We don’t have it. So yes, it does matter to us, and we’re trying to fill in those gaps, knowledge gaps.”
Knowledge gaps, that’s political double talk for ” I have no Idea,” Maybe the Admiral should ask Ed Schultz, because he believes himself to be the expert.
On Tuesday Admiral James Stavridis, NATO’s supreme allied commander, said in testimony before Congress that U.S. intelligence suggested there may be “flickers” of al-Qaeda and Hezbollah in the rebels.
We have seen flickers in the intelligence of potential al-Qaeda, Hezbollah — we’ve seen different things. But at this point, I don’t have detail sufficient to say that there’s a significant al-Qaeda presence or any other terrorist presence in and among these folks.
So the general says we don’t have enough detail to determine if there is a significant terrorist presence amongst the Libyan rebels — which also means the information is not enough to determine if there isn’t a large number.
Schultz feels very strongly that we should give weapons to these rebels, even though at this point we have no idea who they are:
After all that, does the world community stand by and watch the freedom fighters get crushed? The president pledged that there would be no U.S. troops on the ground in Libya. Today, we learned that CIA operatives are on the ground. What does that all mean?
Still, it looks like the freedom fighters’ only shot for survival at this point is a real injection of military hardware that they say they desperately need. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton today said that there was still no decision on arming the rebels.
Nobody wants another situation like the Mujahideen in Afghanistan in 1980s. Whether or not we arm rebels, freedom fighters, whatever you want to call them, is a very hard decision.
But I think we have to do it. It is a moral decision at this point.
Schultz is right-it is a moral decision: is it right to arm people without knowing their ultimate intentions? History teaches us that the moral answer is NO!
At the end of the Carter administration National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski pushed the government into arming the Mujadhideen of Afghanistan who were fighting against the Soviets. The unexpected result of his policy was the creation of the Taliban and its alliance with al Qaeda.
After the Soviets withdrew, the Mujahideen who got their initial financing during the Carter Administration thanks to Brzezinski began to fight each other for power. After several years of civil war, a new armed group was formed from one group of Mujahideen with the backing of Pakistan. Known as the Taliban, this radical group entered the fray. By 1996, with backing from the Pakistani ISI, the Military of Pakistan, and al-Qaeda, the Taliban had controlled most of the country.
At the same time, Sudan, which had been the home of al Qaeda, told bin Laden he would never be welcome to return. The Taliban offered bin Laden the opportunity to re-locate its headquarters to Afghanistan. Al-Qaeda enjoyed the Taliban’s protection and build up its network from there and the rest is a very bloody history.
Today we are involved in two wars that can be directly linked to arming a group of “freedom fighters” that we knew little about. Those “freedom fighters” became violators of human rights and terrorists of the worst kind.
Ed Schultz can’t know yet whether or not these Libyan rebels are freedom fighters, our own military leadership is still trying to fill in the “information gaps.” He doesn’t know if weapons supplied to the rebels will someday be used to kill our American heroes like the weapons given to the nascent Taliban. But that doesn’t concern Ed, all he really cares about is blindly following President Obama and his progressive policies, even if they lead to the creation of a new terrorist network.
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Surreal.
If you thought “protecting civilians” was merely UN-speak for “aiding the rebels” (as many of the rebels did), think again. On the contrary, the fact that NATO believes violence against defenseless people by its putative ally is so likely that deterring it requires a formal warning backed by a threat of bombardment tells you a […]
The conflict between the stated desire to see Muammar Gaddafi removed from power and the actual authority granted by UNSCR 1973 is becoming readily apparent:
WASHINGTON — Members of the NATO alliance have sternly warned the rebels in Libya not to attack civilians as they push against the regime of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, according to senior military and government officials.
As NATO takes over control of airstrikes in Libya and the Obama administration considers new steps to tip the balance of power there, the coalition has told the rebels that the fog of war will not shield them from possible bombardment by NATO planes and missiles, just as the regime’s forces have been punished.
“We’ve been conveying a message to the rebels that we will be compelled to defend civilians, whether pro-Qaddafi or pro-opposition,” said a senior Obama administration official. “We are working very hard behind the scenes with the rebels so we don’t confront a situation where we face a decision to strike the rebels to defend civilians.”
The warnings, and intense consultations within the NATO-led coalition over its rules for attacking anyone who endangers innocent civilians, come at a time when the civil war in Libya is becoming ever more chaotic, and the battle lines ever less distinct. They raise a fundamental question that the military is now grappling with: Who in Libya is a civilian?
In the early days of the campaign, the civilian population needing protection was hunkered down in cities like Benghazi, behind a thin line of rebel defenders who were easily distinguishable from the attacking government forces.
That is no longer always the case. Armed rebels — some in fairly well-organized militias, others merely young men who have picked up rifles to fight alongside them — have moved out of Benghazi in an effort to take control of other population centers along the way, they hope, to seizing Tripoli.
Meanwhile, fresh intelligence this week showed that Libyan government forces were supplying assault rifles to civilians in the town of Surt, which is populated largely by Qaddafi loyalists. These civilian Qaddafi sympathizers were seenchasing rebel forces in nonmilitary vehicles like sedans and trucks, accompanied by Libyan troops, according to American military officers.
The increasing murkiness of the battlefield, as the freewheeling rebels advance and retreat and as fighters from both sides mingle among civilians, has prompted NATO members to issue new “rules of engagement” spelling out when the coalition may attack units on the ground in the name of protecting civilians.
It was unclear how the rules are changing — especially on the critical questions surrounding NATO’s mandate and whether it extends to protecting rebels who are no longer simply defending civilian populated areas like Benghazi, but are instead are themselves on the offensive.
“This is a challenge,” said a senior alliance military officer. “The problem of discriminating between combatant and civilian is never easy, and it is compounded when you have Libyan regime forces fighting irregular forces, like the rebel militias, in urban areas populated by civilians.”
The challenge would seem to only become greater if the rebels do manage to return to the outskirts of Surt, or even to Tripoli itself. At that point, we’ll likely be dealing with an urban war not unlike Somalia and it would be exceedingly unclear exactly who it is we’re supposed to be protecting. This has the potential to get much more difficult, and much messier.
Plus, Gaddafi goes small-scale.
Via Jim Geraghty, who wonders how the West hitched its star to such a poorly formed and hopeless band of opponents. Look on the bright side: at least this makes the CIA’s job of vetting the resistance a lot easier than we thought. CNN’s Jon Lee Anderson gives Eliot Spitzer the bad news, as Moammar […]
Washington (CNN) – Sen. Marco Rubio is laying out a strong stance against Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi and taking aim at President Obama for not explicitly demanding a regime change in the warring country.
“When an American president says the guy needs to go, you better make sure that it happens because your credibility and your stature in the world is on the line,” said the freshman senator in an interview with the conservative Weekly Review Wednesday.
Rubio, the fresh-faced senator from Florida widely regarded by many in the GOP as an up-and-coming rock star, and a possible pick for the No. 2 spot on the 2012 Republican presidential ticket, also sent a letter Wednesday to Sens. Mitch McConnell and Harry Reid – the top Senate Republican and Democrat respectively – calling on the chamber to consent to the president’s intervention and clearly define the mission’s goal as regime change.
“This resolution should also state that removing Moammar [Gadhafi] from power is in our national interest and therefore should authorize the President to accomplish this goal,” he writes in the letter. “To that end, the resolution should urge the President to immediately recognize the Interim Transitional National Council as the legitimate government in Libya.”
In a nationally televised speech Monday, Obama said the NATO alliance would orchestrate the intervention going further and dismissed criticism that the Libyan mission fails to go far enough, particularly that Gadhafi’s downfall is not a specific objective.
“If we tried to overthrow Gadhafi by force, our coalition would splinter,” he said. “We would likely have to put U.S. troops on the ground to accomplish that mission, or risk killing many civilians from the air. The dangers faced by our men and women in uniform would be far greater. So would the costs, and our share of the responsibility for what comes next.”
For all his recent military success, Muammar Gaddafi may have suffered a more significant setback yesterday:
Moussa Koussa, the Libyan foreign minister, has defected to the United Kingdom, the British foreign ministry has said.
The ministry said in a statement that Koussa had arrived at Farnborough Airport, in the south of England, on a flight from Tunisia on Wednesday.
“He travelled here under his own free will. He has told us that he is resigning his post. We are discussing this with him and we will release further details in due course,” the statement said.
“We encourage those around Gaddafi to abandon him and embrace a better future for Libya that allows political transition and real reform that meets the aspirations of the Libyan people.”
It added that Koussa was one of the most senior officials in Gaddafi’s government with a role to represent it internationally, which is “something that he is no longer willing to do”.
Tunisia’s TAP news agency said on Monday that Koussa had crossed over into Tunisia from Libya.
This could be a sign that Gaddafi’s inner circle is starting to crack.
It was revealed Wednesday evening that the Obama administration sent clandestine CIA operatives to Libya weeks ago to assist rebels in their civil war against Moammar Gaddafi.
Not only did MSNBC's Ed Schultz express his support for this action as well as arming these rebels, he also got into a heated argument with a Nation magazine reporter that compared this operation to the "disastrous dirty wars of the 1980s" bringing up images of Ollie North and the Iran-Contra scandal (video follows with transcript and commentary):
ED SCHULTZ, HOST: But, this is the story we start with, that has me fired up tonight. It wasn’t supposed to go like this, but this is how it’s unfolding. "Reuters" reporting there are American boots on the ground in Libya.
"President Obama has signed a secret order authorizing covert U.S. government support for rebel forces in Libya, officials tell Reuters."
The order was signed within the past two or three weeks. Tonight, "The New York Times" is reporting the Central Intelligence Agency has inserted clandestine operatives into Libya to gather intelligence for military airstrikes and make contacts with rebels battling Gadhafi’s forces, according to American officials.
And the "National Journal" reporting more than a dozen CIA operatives were sent to Libya.
You would think this announcement would quickly change the mind of a devout antiwar liberal like Schultz despite his having sycophantically and hypocritically expressed support for this Libyan operation right from the start. Well, think again:
SCHULTZ: When the president announced the United States military engagement in Libya, he was emphatic. There would be no troops, no boots on the ground.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA,PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We will not — I repeat — we will not deploy any U.S. troops on the ground.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCHULTZ: In fact, U.N. resolution 1973 excludes, quote, "a foreign occupation force of any form on any part of Libyan territory."
Of any form? What’s that mean? NBC sources are telling NBC that the revelation of CIA operatives in Libya is pro forma. Still, the White House knows this kind of revelation — this kind of headline could change the dynamic on the ground in Libya, and support for the president at home could also shift.
Indeed, as well as support from his friends in the media that have been for this war. At least, that's what you would think:
SCHULTZ: The big question tonight that remains: will the United States or its allies arm these Libyan freedom fighters? "Reuters" also reports today U.S. officials have said that Saudi Arabia and Qatar, whose leaders despise Gadhafi, have indicated a willingness to supply Libyan rebels — I call them freedom fighters — with weapons.
Now, remember yesterday, the president told Brian Williams that the operation of arming Libyan rebels wasn’t off the table. He also said the following to ABC News.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: It’s fair to say that if we wanted to get weapons into Libya, we probably could. We’re looking at all our options at this point.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCHULTZ: Senior European diplomat says the coalition of nations involved in Libya, considered arming rebels a serious option and that the coalition is considering that option now.
Reports from the front lines are that anti-Gadhafi forces, they are in retreat. It was not a good day for them. And they are poorly armed.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: The momentum has changed very quickly in this war. And on the front line, Libya’s revolution is being held together with sticky tape.
Show me what you’re armed with. What’s your weapon? Only that?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Only that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCHULTZ: So, we have stopped Gadhafi from slaughtering his people in Benghazi. Our airstrikes have allowed the rebels to advance. But now, they’re retreating. After all that, does the world community stand by and watch the freedom fighters get crushed?
The president pledged that there would be no U.S. troops on the ground in Libya. Today, we learned that CIA operatives are on the ground. What does that all mean?
Still, it looks like the freedom fighters’ only shot for survival at this point is a real injection of military hardware that they say they desperately need.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton today said that there was still no decision on arming the rebels.
Nobody wants another situation like the mujahideen in Afghanistan in 1980s. Whether or not we arm rebels, freedom fighters, whatever you want to call them, is a very hard decision.
But I think we have to do it. It is a moral decision at this point.
Imagine that. Despite what resulted from arming the mujahideen in Afghanistan – Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda – Schultz is all for doing it AGAIN! This seems especially absurd given reports that al Qaeda is already present amongst the Libyan rebels.
But none of that matters to Schultz. His President is for this, and regardless of how he opposes this kind of conflict with every fabric of his being, this MSNBC shill is all in:
SCHULTZ: You just saw that piece of videotape, that young kid, we have a state in the United States of America, New Hampshire, live free or die. What do you think that Libyan freedom fighter wants? What is his choice?
He’s made what’s on the license plates in New Hampshire, live free or die. That’s where he is. And where does the United States stand tonight?
Look, I am a liberal. I am a progressive. But that means that we need to stand behind people who want freedom.
This isn’t Bush talk. This is totally different from Iraq. It’s totally different from any other situation in my opinion.
This is a situation where we have got a coalition that has come together and realized that Gadhafi is a terrorist. The president has gone on record saying that Libyan agents have killed Americans. That’s all as an American I need to hear.
This president has also gone on record that he was going to get America out of Iraq, close the terrorist center in Guantanamo Bay, and end secret CIA renditions. Despite him having gone back on all three pledges, Schultz is still taking him at his word:
SCHULTZ: Let’s get it done. Let’s arm these rebels. Let’s give them a chance to fight. At least if they’re going to die, they’re going to have some hardware in their hands to defend themselves.
There was a sound bite in Richard Engel’s piece last night, a gentleman says they’re pulling women out of houses. They’re lining people up and assassinating them. They’ve got shooters up on top of the roofs to picking people off.
I mean, come on, America. When do we fight? Does it have to be absolutely perfect and we have to have an absolute end game, and, you know, dot all the I’s and cross all the T’s? Hell no.
This is about freedom, is it not? This is about people who want to get rid of a dictator — a guy who has brutalized them for 40 years and we stand here tonight as if we’re not free. We stand here tonight as if — well, I don’t know about this, I don’t know about that.
The military equation here I understand is very, very complicated. They not trained freedom fighters. But they have in their heart, they have in their soul the same things, and the same qualities and the same spirit that the people who founded this country had in their hearts and their minds centuries ago.
How does he know that? Exactly how does anyone at this point know who or what these rebels are? Quite the contrary, we don't know.
But Schultz's president is for this, and therefore, so is he:
SCHULTZ: Look, this is a tough call. There’s no doubt. It’s a tough call for not only the president, and for people who support the president, who really have had enough of war.
We don’t have a stomach for this, I know that.
Just listen to the people on talk radio across America. They’re using this as a tool to take down our president, because they politically hate him. They have made it their goal over on the right to make sure that President Obama does not get reelected. So they’re playing the political games with the lives and the heart and the spirit and the soul of the Libyan people who all they want is a fighting chance to take down a dictator who has killed Americans.
Liberals, we are better than this. Give them a chance. Arm them.
That section there tells it all. Schultz must clearly think that if this mission in Libya fails, Obama's public support will plummet and with it his reelection chances. As such, he's willing to publicly and aggressively support an operation that he would otherwise be totally against simply because he believes it will help his president retain office.
It's really quite disturbing when you think about it that way, for Schultz is pointing fingers at conservatives for "playing the political games with the lives and the heart and the spirit and the soul of the Libyan people." But isn't it him playing political games with the lives of Americans that will be needed to assist these rebels?
How is it possible that a devout antiwar liberal can miss this hypocrisy? Is love for Obama really this blinding?
Before you answer, consider what NBC News military analyst Col. Jack Jacobs next told Schultz:
COLONEL JACK JACOBS, NBC NEWS MILITARY ANALYST: Typically it’s going to take between eight and 16 weeks to take your average young fellow like you saw in that tape, from just being able to handle a knife, to being able to use any kind of small arm or automatic weapon, to be able to understand the difference between laying down a base of fire and maneuvering to close with and capture or kill the enemy. All that stuff, it takes us between eight and 16 weeks. So, weapons alone, ammunition alone is not going to do it. They’re going to need training.
SCHULTZ: Colonel, what about the CIA boots on the ground? Is this standard operating procedure before we get involved in some kind of military operation?
JACOBS: Oh, sure. We’ll always have people on the ground in order to gather intelligence. And in this particular case, in order to make some sort of connection between us and the people evidently running the rebel operation. Without that, it doesn’t make any sense to support anybody.
There also has to be liaison between the people who are on the ground, the Libyans who are fighting and the Egyptians to the east. Don’t forget Benghazi’s got 700,000 people. And when Gadhafi’s people came up close to it, it started to scare those people away towards Egypt.
So, there’s got to be — we have to have some Americans on the ground to do coordination.
So, it's going to take two to four months just to train these rebels with our "boots on the ground."
As such, the President's promises to the American people that this mission would take "weeks not months" as well as us not having any of our "boots on the ground" have been totally broken.
But that also doesn't matter to Schultz who next brought on the Nation's Jeremy Scahill who nicely exposed this MSNBC shill's hypocrisy:
SCHULTZ: For the politics of all of this, let’s turn to "The Nation’s" Jeremy Scahill. His cover story this week is: "The Dangerous U.S. Game in Yemen."
Jeremy, good to have you with us tonight.
JEREMY SCAHILL, THE NATION: Thanks, Ed.
SCHULTZ: Does this headline — how damaging is it to the president? The headline reads, that the president sends CIA into Libya. What do you think?
Isn't it interesting that Schultz's primary concern was how damaging this revelation was to the President? Not a care in the world for the safety of the operatives involved, or whether or not this could lead to a protracted intervention.
Of course not. To shills like Schultz, it's all about getting Obama reelected regardless of the policy:
SCAHILL: Well, you know, the CIA operatives on the ground there are sort of engaged in an eharmony.com, or sort of, you know, dating service relationship with the rebels for the clandestine world. I mean, this is, as Colonel Jacobs said, standard fare.
What I think is of more concern is the fact that there are certainly U.S. Special Operations forces units that are deployed already secretly inside of Libya that are painting targets for the airstrikes. But I have to say that the scenario you’re laying out, when you talk about arming the, quote-unquote, "freedom fighters," it really evokes memories of the disastrous dirty wars of the 1980s. I mean, the United States getting involved in what is effectively a Libyan civil war, 1,000 or so rebels that don’t have much military training.
I mean, what you’re advocating, Ed, is that Americans are going to have to be totally invested in one side of a civil war. The president stuck his neck out very far when he said Gadhafi has to go. If the United States sends troops in there, and they would have to, as Colonel Jacobs said if they’re arming it, then we have a third full-on war in addition to the covert wars that the president is waging in Yemen, in Somalia and also in the Horn of Africa. I think a lot of military folks see mission creep in the big way here, Ed.
Makes sense, right? Is this what America needs now with all of its other problems?
Despite the logic, Schultz wasn't backing down:
SCHULTZ: Well, we have got a coalition put together. No question about it. We have got a willing coalition put together. Timing is everything. The circumstances surrounding this right now present us an opportunity to do justice on a man who the president says his agents have killed Americans.
SCAHILL: There is no question that Moammar Gadhafi — I’m sure most of the entire world wants to see Moammar Gadhafi gone. But the fact is that Ali Abdullah Saleh, the president of Yemen, is a murderous thug who has been sniper shooting nonviolent protesters and he remains a close friend of the Obama administration — the dictatorship, the Khalifa family in Bahrain, these are corrupt monarchy and the only thing that we get out of them is hosting the 5th Fleet there. So, don’t say anything about their violence — the message we’re sending to the world here is –
(CROSSTALK)
SCHULTZ: But the U.N. Security Council has not rendered judgment on the country that you’re talking about.
Pay particular attention to Scahill's response, for Schultz certainly didn't, and that's when things got heated:
SCAHILL: Well, the fact of the matter is, Ed, that that U.N. Security Council resolution was a result of blackmail and cajoling on the part of the Obama administration. A majority of the world’s people represented on the Security Council, Brazil, China, Russia, India — they abstained because they didn’t want anything to do with taking sides in a civil war.
SCHULTZ: And that’s their call. That’s their call.
SCAHILL: That’s the majority of the world’s citizens represented there.
SCHULTZ: But they didn’t stop it.
SCAHILL: There’s no NATO –
(CROSSTALK)
SCHULTZ: China could have stepped up. The Russians could have stepped up. They could have blocked this action in Libya, no question about it.
Every situation is different. And Secretary Hillary Clinton said just that, and the president’s been very clear on it. We have a situation now to bring justice on a terrorist who has killed Americans. That’s why I support this policy. That’s why I support this move.
SCAHILL: Well, Ed, this sounds a lot to me like Ollie North and the Iran Contra where you take a 1,000 people –
SCHULTZ: You make any judgment you want. Jeremy, you can paint me any way you want –
SCAHILL: You’re backing 1,000 people, Ed, inside of a very large country, and you’re taking sides in a civil war. What you’re advocating is going to lead to more American deaths –
SCHULTZ: You don’t know that.
SCAHILL: — and hundreds of millions of dollars. Well, it’s already cost us $ 400 million.
SCHULTZ: I take President Obama’s word for it, that troops will not be engaged on the ground. I take his word for it. Now, if he wants to hang me and my opinion out to dry as an American, that’s fine.
SCAHILL: Well, you know what? Your President Obama
SCHULTZ: My President Obama?
SCAHILL: He didn’t call
SCHULTZ: My President Obama? Is it your president, too? Jeremy, is he — wait a minute now. You’re not going to beat to the water’s edge. Is he your president, too?
SCAHILL: Of course. I’m an American.
SCHULTZ: OK.
SCAHILL: I said the words — you’re saying you take his word for it, Ed.
SCHULTZ: I do take his word for it.
SCAHILL: He didn’t close Guantanamo. He’s doubled down on some of the worst policies of the Bush administration. I just got back from Afghanistan where we’re killing mid-level Taliban people.
(CROSSTALK)
SCHULTZ: He didn’t put universal health care at the table. I haven’t been totally happy with President Obama on every issue. I’ve been very clear on that.
But the fact is that we have the resources and the position to take out a man who has killed Americans. And I think that we have a moral obligation to the families in this country who lost people on that Pan Am 103. This is our time to do just this. We can do it without boots on the ground.
So, despite the President saying there wouldn't be American boots on the ground, and Schultz selling this war to his viewers as a result of the President's promise concerning this, the "Ed Show" host is now 100 percent behind troops being sent in.
Not only didn't it take long for Obama to break his word, it took even less time for Schultz to change his own tune while completely supporting the President's dangerous misdirection:
SCAHILL: Do you think we should take out Ali Abdullah Saleh, the president of Yemen, who double deals with al Qaeda all the time –
SCHULTZ: You got to the U.N. No, that’s Bush talk. No, Jeremy, Bush talk. No, no, no –
(CROSSTALK)
SCAHILL: Bill Clinton didn’t go to the U.N. for Kosovo.
(CROSSTALK)
SCAHILL: It’s bipartisan.
SCHULTZ: This is exactly what’s wrong with this debate from the standpoint of what we can do and when we can do it. The president has gone through the U.N. to get this done.
SCAHILL: We’re bombing Yemen. When did the president go to the U.N. to launch Tomahawk cruise missiles in Yemen?
SCHULTZ: You and I disagree. You and I disagree.
SCAHILL: What I’ve said are facts.
SCHULTZ: OK. Well, look, I support the president and the United States to do what they can to help these freedom fighters. That’s where I’m at. You want to call me Ollie North, you go ahead.
SCAHILL: I think it’s a wrong-headed policy that could lead to American deaths and a further disaster in Libya.
SCHULTZ: OK. That’s your calculation. That’s what you feel based on what has happened with the mujahideen in the 1980s. I understand that. But every situation –
SCAHILL: — double dealing with the president of Yemen because he supports al Qaeda one day and us the next day. We’re involved with a very dangerous game throughout the Middle East.
Indeed we are, and Schultz doesn't care for at this point he must think success here – whatever that is – is key to Obama's reelection.
But something was missing in this debate: Vietnam. That war began with America sending members of the OSS to assist our eventual enemy Ho Chi Minh.
For those unfamiliar, the Office of Strategic Services was the precursor to the CIA. Now, many decades later, we're sending clandestine CIA operatives into Libya to assist rebels we know very little about, and due to their already having some ties to al Qaeda could end up being our enemy in the future.
That Scahill missed this disturbing parallel was surprising.
As for Schultz, he's so engaged in supporting his president that he wouldn't see a barn in front of him if he was going five MPH in a tractor heading straight for it.
Scary, isn't it?
Smart power.
The good news: the White House has suddenly found a necessity to determine who exactly we’re helping by bombing Moammar Gaddafi’s forces in Libya. The bad news: the Obama administration isn’t known for its superior vetting skills. Still, Obama wasn’t openly musing whether to send arms to Adolfo Carrion and Penny Pritzker, either: The Obama […]
There are increasing signs that the United States and our coalition partners are getting closer to shifting the mission in Libya from the ‘protection of civilians’ authorized by UNSCR 1973 to openly siding with the rebels. In the last two days, for example, both President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton have stated that the U.S. is considering arming the rebels in the face of news that the Libyan Army has defeated them so soundly that the retreat is turning into a rout. More important, though, is the CNN report that the U.S. is preparing to completely change its ‘war strategy’:
This comes as evidence continues to mount of the ties between the Libyan rebel fighters and al Qaeda:
A former leader of Libya’s al Qaeda affiliate says he thinks “freelance jihadists” have joined the rebel forces, as NATO’s commander told Congress on Tuesday that intelligence indicates some al Qaeda and Hezbollah terrorists are fighting Col. Moammar Gadhafi’s forces.
Former jihadist Noman Benotman, who renounced his al Qaeda affiliation in 2000, said in an interview that he estimates 1,000 jihadists are in Libya.
(…)
Outside observers generally estimate the number of trained Libyan fighters to be about 1,000.
Mr. Benotman told The Washington Times that al Qaeda’s North African affiliate, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Mahgreb, has tried without success to co-opt the leadership of Col. Gadhafi’s opposition. But Mr. Benotman said the interim council leading Libya’s opposition is seeking democratic elections, not an Islamic republic.
“We have freelance jihadists,” he said. “But everything is still under control of the interim national council. There is no other organization that says, ‘We are leaders of the revolution with this emir,’ like al Qaeda would. Everyone is afraid to do this; they would be labeled as undermining the people.”
These are the people we’re proposing to go to war to help, and while Gaddafi may be a horrible person and a dictator, I don’t see the value in replacing him with people who look up to the likes of Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar.
Sources tells ABC News that President Obama has signed a secret presidential finding authorizing covert operations to “aid the effort” in Libya, where the US is working with NATO, and Arab partners to enforce a no-fly zone, protect civilians, and…
Political Punch
Reuters is reporting that in the last two or three weeks President Obama authorized a “finding” which allows secret support of the Libyan rebels. Details on what that support consist of is unclear. No government, in fact no organization can exist without secrets, but this is something that Senator Obama would not have tolerated during the Bush administration. What’s more troubling here is that no one seems to know what kind of people we are supporting there. Are they Velvet Revolution-type supporters of democracy or are they al Qaeda terrorists? Or are they combination of both?
Does Obama know?
Technorati tags: 
news libya Obama Barack Obama armed forces military news
The setbacks for the Libyan rebel fighters seem to be getting worse:
BREGA, Libya — Forces loyal to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi advanced rapidly on Wednesday, seizing towns they ceded just days ago after intense allied airstrikes and hounding rebel fighters into a chaotic retreat.
Having abandoned Bin Jawwad on Tuesday and the oil town of Ras Lanuf on Wednesday, the rebels continued their eastward retreat, fleeing before the loyalists’ shelling and missile attacks from another oil town, Brega, and falling back toward the strategically located city of Ajdabiya. On Wednesday afternoon, residents of Ajdabiya were seen fleeing along the road north to Benghazi, the rebel capital and stronghold that Colonel Qaddafi’s forces reached before the allied air campaign got underway nearly two weeks ago.
There were few signs of the punishing airstrikes that reversed the loyalists’ first push eastward into rebel-held territory. But military experts said they expected the counterattack to expose Colonel Qaddafi’s forces to renewed attacks, and an American military spokesman said that coalition warplanes resumed bombing the pro-Qaddafi units on Wednesday, without specifying either the timing or locations.
“The operation is continuing and will continue throughout the transition” to NATO command, said Capt. Clint Gebke. There were 102 airstrikes over a 24-hour period ending at 12 a.m. Eastern time, according to the United States Africa Command.
But the airstrikes, such as they were, did little to reverse the momentum of the battle. On the approaches to Brega, hundreds of cars and small trucks heading east clogged the highway as rebel forces pulled back toward Ajdabiya, recaptured from loyalist troops only days ago. Some rebels said Colonel Qaddafi’s forces, pushing eastward from Ras Lanuf, were within 10 miles of Brega.
The retreating force seemed rudderless, a sea of vehicles and fighters armed with rudimentary weapons that have proved no match for Colonel Qaddafi’s better trained and better armed forces, which have intimidated the rebels with long-range shelling.
As rebels clustered at a gas station and small mosque between Brega and Ajdabiya, a single artillery shell or rocket exploded several hundred yards away, causing the rebels, who were chanting “God is great” and waving assault rifles, to jump into their vehicles and speed eastward.
A rebel military spokesman, speaking of the losses of the last two days, conceded that at Bin Jawwad and Ras Lanuf, rebel fighters had “dissolved like snow in the sand,” though he framed the retreat as a “tactical withdrawal.”
Yes, I think Napoleon used the same phrase when he was chased away from Moscow.
President Barack Obama has signed a secret order authorizing covert U.S. government support for rebel forces seeking to oust Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, government officials told Reuters on Wednesday.
Obama signed the order, known as a presidential "finding", within the last two or three weeks, according to four U.S. government sources familiar with the matter.
Such findings are a principal form of presidential directive used to authorize secret operations by the Central Intelligence Agency. The CIA and the White House declined immediate comment.
News that Obama had given the authorization surfaced as the President and other U.S. and allied officials spoke openly about the possibility of sending arms supplies to Gaddafi’s opponents, who are fighting better-equipped government forces.
President Barack Obama has signed a secret order authorizing covert U.S. government support for rebel forces seeking to oust Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, government officials told Reuters on Wednesday.
Obama signed the order, known as a presidential "finding", within the last two or three weeks, according to four U.S. government sources familiar with the matter.
Such findings are a principal form of presidential directive used to authorize secret operations by the Central Intelligence Agency. The CIA and the White House declined immediate comment.
News that Obama had given the authorization surfaced as the President and other U.S. and allied officials spoke openly about the possibility of sending arms supplies to Gaddafi’s opponents, who are fighting better-equipped government forces.
