Obama and Libya

US president Barack Obama seems to be contradicting himself on Libya.He sends US forces to bomb a sovereign nation, Libya, yet says it is not a war. He then says US planes are no longer bombing Libya, then he sends more planes to bomb Libya. He said Moamar Gaddafi was a tyrant who denied his people human rights and killed or jailed any dissenters. Yet, tyrants in Cuba, China, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, North Korea, Iran, and other countries do the same.

There is no clear goal or reasonable plan for completing the mission in The LIbya war. Obama says that Gaddafi must go, yet he says the US will not use military force to remove him. There is disagreement among the nations that have sent forces to LIbya about what to do, how quickly to do it, how much force to use, and whether to only protect civilians or use force to overthrow Gaddafi. This leads to changing tactics every day and to statements by civilian and military leaders about goals and use of force.

A stalemate has developed on the ground. NATO air power has stopped the army of Gaddafi from defeating the rebels but the rebels are not an army and do not know how to fight against a real army. They tend to run at the first sound of shooting. No one knows the goals of the various factions and tribes of the rebel movement. If they somehow won, a near impossibility, they would then probably start fighting each other for power in a post Gaddafi Libya.

The US should have never got involved in this war and should now get out completely. There is no good solution in Libya.