What About Qadaffi & Libya (Q&A Friday #108)?

by John Hawkins | October 21, 2011 4:57 am

Question: First Egypt, now Libya. How many more countries will Obama turn over to the Muslim Brotherhood before people wake up to what he’s doing? — CavalierX

Question: Now that Mr. Qadaffi is apparently dead, how much more money do you think the US will throw at the revolutionaries before they realise that they’ve been dealing with an Islamist faction which will oppose them at every turn and return to the funding of international terrorism which we’d finally dissuaded Mr Qadaffi from pursuing? — Martin Hale

Answer: On the one hand, I’m glad Qadaffi is dead. Sic semper tyrannis and all that — plus, he has American blood on his hands. So, the fact that he’s dead and went out like Mussolini doesn’t bother me at all. Congrats to the Libyan people for getting rid of him with NATO’s help.

On the other hand, getting involved militarily in Libya was — and still is — a mistake. We have no national interest there and it is ENTIRELY possible that we could be tangled up in that country for years trying to help them get straightened out. Worse yet, it’s also very possible that we may have replaced an evil dictator who had become hostile to terrorists because he was afraid of us with what may turn out to be an Islamist, pro-Al-Qaeda regime. We really still have no idea how that’s going to play out.

So, Obama should have given encouragement to the Libyan people, sent them aid, and given moral support to anyone else who wanted to get involved, but it was — and still is — a mistake to have American troops in Libya. Qadaffi’s death changes nothing on that front.