The Obama administration said it went to war with Libya for humanitarian reasons - to keep Moammar Gadhafi from slaughtering thousands of people in the rebel-held city of Benghazi.
On Sunday’s ABC This Week With Christiane Amanpour, there was a discussion on whether President Obama violated the War Powers Act by going to war with Libya. George Will cast doubt on why we attacked Libya in the first place. Will said, “With regard to Libya, did Libya attack us? No. Was it about to attack us? No. Were we obliged by a treaty to get engaged in a civil war, in a tribal society? No. Were Americans endangered? No. Find me a reason for this.”
By going to war with Libya we may have kept Gadhafi from slaughtering thousands of his people. Meanwhile in Syria, Bashar al-Assad is slaughtering God (or Allah) only knows how many of his people as we and our NATO allies, having put in place a few feeble economic sanctions, continue to sit on our hands.
If we went to war for humanitarian reasons, why only with Libya and not with Syria as well?
I can think of several reasons. To begin with, our Arab friends in Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States and Jordan had no use for Gadhafi. On the other hand, the kings of Saudi Arabia and Jordan and the rulers of the Gulf States believe it to be in their interests to maintain friendly relations with Assad.
But the main reason we and NATO will not attack Syria is because that nation is much stronger militarily than Libya. Assad’s regime has been armed to the teeth by the Russians. While we would certainly be able to defeat the Syrian forces, unlike in Libya, we would suffer some serious losses. And then there is always the possibility that Syria’s ally Iran would be drawn into the conflict.
So what it all boils down to is that our government has the guts to go to war with a very weak Libyan military, but it does not have the stomach to go to a war with the stronger forces of Syria. Humanitarianism be damned!
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