The Libyan Miracle

A few hundred rebels who seemingly faced imminent destruction suddenly drive Gadhafi’s army out of one city after another. They freely admit to the media how they accomplished that: “Allah and NATO aircraft brought us this victory.” It remains to be seen whether Allah approves of this brotherhood-of-arms, but NATO doesn’t take credit for it. In Washington, the story is that there’s no coordination taking place with the rebels.

So which is harder to explain? That the rebels — who are untrained and armed with obsolete weapons, according to Western media reports — are suddenly beating back Gadhafi’s better-equipped army of mercenaries? Or that the Obama administration’s siding with the Benghazi-based rebels is just an unplanned coincidence? U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates leaves the Europeans alone to consider this inconsistency while he continues to provide them with new ones.

Frightened by the pollsters’ revelation that a majority of Americans don’t want another land war in addition to Iraq and Afghanistan, the Pentagon now admits that the Libyan war is not a “vital national interest” to the U.S. The purported necessity of protecting civilian lives claimed by the United Nations resolution doesn’t appear to be supported by a majority of average Americans. Now Gates justifies the intervention by saying the mass emigration of civilians fleeing Libya for Egypt and Tunisia could endanger development of those countries. No mention of the mass emigration of Libyan rebels to those nations and the danger that poses for their own revolutions.