Regarding Libya: 'What are you going to do now, Ranger?'

For those of you who never had the “pleasure” of attending the U.S. Army’s Ranger Course, the article’s title refers to those who were unfortunately made the new Ranger patrol leader, were unsure of their location; had fellow Rangers who were cold, tired, hungry, and apathetic, knew the situation was rapidly changing; and heard this arrogant and supreme being known as the Ranger Instructor DEMANDING, not asking, that you do something to unscrew a totally snafued situation.

Consider this same scenario with respect to the U.S., Libya, and the unrest in the Middle East.

The Obama administration has said our objective or mission is to prevent a potential massacre of innocent civilians by Col. Gadhafi; it’s all about human rights. This is a reminder that if there isn’t a trillion-dollar stimulus we’ll have a depression. Therefore, the strategy of imposing a no-fly zone as a solution was really no solution.

Anyone with any knowledge of military strategy knows that when given a mission (prevent a slaughter of innocents) courses of action or strategies are developed to achieve the mission. A no-fly zone could never have achieved this. Airplanes cruising over Libya cannot prevent a massacre of someone on the ground; they can video it (as was done in another no-fly zone over Kosovo and Bosnia) but they cannot prevent it. A car full of thugs armed with baseball bats, machetes, knives, handguns can slaughter innocents just as easily as thugs in tanks, armored personnel carriers, and fighter planes. Remember Rwanda? How would a no-fly zone have stopped that slaughter?

When the mission is to protect civilians on the ground, armed troops ready to do violence against evil doers on the ground is required. And that, is not something this administration wants.

Which leads to the question, what is the real mission or objective? Is it restoring the flow of oil and trade to France and Italy? Is the administration being forced to act somewhere, do something, do anything in the volatile Middle East to appease the media beast? Is it to avoid President Clinton’s Rwanda moment? Is it to pad President Obama’s 2012 campaign resume by getting rid of a thug dictator? Was it to deflect attention away from our soaring deficits, which is going to lead the upcoming news cycle, not Libya?

So what are you going to do now, Ranger? Here are some potential scenarios where decisions are needed.

NATO is not some foreign country; it’s commanded by a U.S. Navy admiral, with the majority of its military assets being U.S. So if Gadhafi starts defeating the rebels, who is going to be called on to turn things around? The U.S. military, that’s who, unless it’s acceptable for Gadhafi to defeat the rebels and remain in power. It’s a sure bet that a NATO-led campaign equals a U.S. led campaign. What happens if Libya becomes a protracted civil war which could last for months, maybe years? That was not the intent of the U.S. involvement; it was supposed to be days, not weeks, wasn’t it?

Who are these “rebels”? More and more evidence points to Muslim Brotherhood and al-Qaida influences; is it a U.S. success if they overthrow Gadhafi and take power? If France and Italy are content with a cease-fire, rebels in some cities, Gadhafi forces in others, and Libyan refineries putting out oil, does the coalition collapse? What if the rebels succeed and start slaughtering Gadhafi supporters and their families? Do we start bombing the rebels?

But the key country in the Middle East is not Libya. The key countries influencing radical Islam are Syria and Iran; there’s shooting and suppression of civilian rights going on there. Why is the U.S. administration not taking action against them? Why are they different from Libya in the human rights arena? If the prevention of the slaughter of innocents is the objective, when do we start bombing Planned Parenthood?

The point is that this administration has no clear and focused strategy in the Middle East; it is muddled, incoherent, and lacking in clear objectives (even the New York Times says so). That appears to be the key point, as the president wanders from crisis to crisis. It appears that Muffy St. James and Tad Wadsworth III, recent graduates of the Harvard School of International Affairs and Kumbaya Diplomacy, are devising foreign policy.

U.S. military forces should only be committed when U.S. national interests are at stake; does the situation in Libya meet that test? Are outcomes in Syria, Iran, Israel, North Korea, Taiwan, and the Mexican border in our national interests? By the way, the president’s 2012 presidential campaign kicked off April 5.

So in answer to the question “What are you going to now, Mr. President?” maybe the answer is that the question really doesn’t matter.