Azrael said:
According to some board conservatives, wasn't Libya this administration's "third war" or "fourth war" or something? They seemed eager to assign responsibility a few months ago.
Yes, we clearly engaged in a "third war". And, we did it without Congressional approval.
A couple of points for the folks looking to celebrate this as some genius way of conducting a war:
There was an opposition to aid in Libya. You can't compare it to other countries, like Iraq or even Syria or Iran. You can only pursue this strategy when the opportunity allows.
And, in fact, it's much the strategy GWB employed in Afghanistan, where a small number of CIA and special forces troops helped the Northern Alliance topple the Taliban in a speedier fashion than the Libyan NTC toppled Gaddafi. (And, that strategy was criticized by many hailing our Libya strategy.)
Also, by not fully engaging with the NTC, we exerted very little influence over them.
We began our operations in Libya to prevent a massacre in Benghazi. We achieved that, but then we didn't stop our "allies" from committing their own atrocities.
Sub-Saharan Africans were murdered as suspected mercenaries with no evidence. Sirte/Surt was besieged in a way that we feared for Benghazi.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/19/world/africa/battle-for-surt-threatens-libyas-healing-process.html?pagewanted=all
And, of course, Gaddafi -- murderous thug that he was -- was executed without a trial.
We gave the NTC free reign to become the very thing we said we were there to stop.
And now we are celebrating that we will have no role in the helping to form a post-Gaddafi government in Libya.
Having seen how the NTC has operated, I think our celebrations may be premature.