Alrighty Then

Mohmar "Senor Psychopath" Qaddafi was killed today.  Thus ends 42 years of despotic rule over Libya.  In my lifetime, he's picked and lost fights with the U.S. Navy, bombed a bar in Berlin and killed Americans, supported terrorists throughout the Middle East and Europe, gotten bombed, arranged the bombing of an airliner that also killed Americans, and become everyone's favorite oil-rich pariah. I expect to see reports of Chinese arms manufacturers, Italian hair dye producers, and female bodyguards weeping in the streets.

His friends in Italy and France turned on him this spring when he crossed some otherwise invisible line in putting down mass uprisings in Libya.  Apparently using helicopter gunships against demonstrators is just too much for them to ignore.  Their reaction probably had more to do with Al Jazeera and CNN broadcasting the video than it did with the act itself.  For some reason, we went along with their plan to support a rabble with 21st century airpower.  My gut tells me it's because the Europeans told President Obama it was important that NATO do something, and NATO couldn't use a urinal unless we were there to help them aim and flush.

So now the "kinetic action" is pretty much over.  Time to pack up our close air support/ interdiction aircraft..... Wait, I'm sorry, time to bring home our aircraft that were only used to protect Libyan civilians from direct action by forces loyal to the dictator.  No matter how you spin it, it's time for us to stop helping out the new despotic regime.  This is going to be a case of "Meet the new bastard, same as the old bastard".

One thing I'd like to see, and I will be pleasantly surprised if it happens, is for President Obama to present NATO and the new Libyan regime with a bill for the pay of the pilots, crew, and staffs, the cost of fuel and munitions, and wear and tear on our aircraft.  Yeah, I know, I'm ever the starry eyed optimist.  But we're not going to see one thin dime of anything from this war when it comes to improvement in American interests, and we spent a lot of money we didn't have so that Italians could get cheaper petrol for their Deathrace 2000 reenactments along the Via Appia.  It'd be nice if after two World Wars, the Marshall Plan, the Cold War, Bosnia, Kosovo, and now Libya if someone else would kick in for the pizza and beer at the after party.

So, here's hoping that Qaddafi is roasted slowly over a fire fueled with demon poop in his new digs in the pit, along with his fellow bastards Hussein and bin Laden.  Here's hoping that we haven't made the same mistake we made in Iraq and all the really neat military hardware that he was sitting on doesn't get added to the armories of people who want to see Walmarts burning.  Also, here's hoping that the rest of the world figures out how to police itself for a while.  After almost 70 years of making the world safe for other people, I think it's time we took a couple of years off.  I've heard that it's quite nice to not have to worry about which European/Asian/African/Whatever tribe is going to whack its neighbor next.   At least that's what George Washington said.