Questions and Observations

I have to ask because it seems we’ve decided we need to hit Tripoli – the center of the Gadhafi base and a city in which there’s been no real fighting and certainly not any threats of civilian massacre. I also ask it rather facetiously. I think it is obvious to anyone with two brain cells to rub against each other that the mission is no longer just to "protect civilians" but it has indeed become "regime change".  Check out the CNN vid:

So, one has to assume that the critical nature of ensuring Libyan civilians aren’t harmed is much more of a concern in Benghazi than in Tripoli.  No bombing or missile strikes in Benghazi, multiple examples of each in Tripoli.

The excuse?  Well we’re now attacking targets with even the “potential” of harming civilians.

Yeah, where I come from we call that rationalization – an effort to justify doing something other than what you were first cleared to do. The euphemism in common and specific use today as it pertains to military operations is “mission creep”.  We are right smack dab in the middle of doing just that.

Ed Morrissey makes the salient point and asks the proper questions:

Now the US says that NATO may start attacking Tripoli itself, presumably to get to Gaddafi’s command and control functions, which makes perfect sense if the mission objective was regime change. There are no reports of massacres in Libya’s capital at the moment, at least none which NATO or the White House have publicized.If the mission is the protection of civilians, which is what the UN mandate states (which Obama said he would not exceed in his speech Monday night), how will bombing Tripoli accomplish that?  We will increase the odds for significant collateral civilian losses, not decrease them.

Don’t expect questions to be asked or, if they are asked, to get any straight answers.  Well other than being told there are things in Tripoli with the “potential” to harm civilians.

Yeah … JDAMs and Tomahawks.

~McQ