More than 112 Tomahawk cruise missiles struck over 20 targets inside Libya today in the opening phase of an international military operation the Pentagon said was aimed at stopping attacks led by Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi and enforcing a U.N.-backed no-fly zone. President Obama, speaking from Brazil shortly after he authorized the missile attacks, said they were part of a “limited military action” to protect the Libyan people.
“I want the American people to know that the use of force is not our first choice and it’s not a choice I make lightly,” Obama said. “But we cannot stand idly by when a tyrant tells his people that there will be no mercy.”
The first air strikes, in what is being called Operation Odyssey Dawn, were launched from a mix of U.S. surface ships and one British submarine in the Mediterranean Sea at 2 p.m. ET, Vice Adm. William E. Gortney told reporters at a Pentagon briefing.
They targeted Libyan air defense missile sites, early warning radar and key communications facilities around Tripoli, Misratah, and Surt, but no areas east of that or near Benghazi. Because of darkness over Libya, Gortney said it was too early to determine the strikes’ effectiveness.
Obama said Khadafi must leave, it is unacceptable for him to stay, and now he’s backing it up with support from countries in Europe. Only unlike Kosovo, Libya is a bigger country, and is not in Europe. Even in Kosovo, US troops are still there. Maybe the President should send those troops to Libya.
Sigh.
Say hello to the new boss, same as the old boss.
Interesting we aren’t attacking our allies who are shooting people in the streets.
Funny how you mentioned Sarcozy getting election funds from Daffy on last No Agenda, and now the french are the first to bomb the place.
Apparently the “rebels” didn’t read the fine print of the UN resolution. One of their own planes was shot down this morning. Get ready for everyone and anyone with a gun, tank, AA turret to get bombed no matter what side they’re on.
Sarcozy has to get even.. he didn’t like that sh1t being said about him!
IN THE MORNING!!!
Again, blood for oil.
God help us all… And “Operation Odyssey Dawn”? How much did they pay Hill & Knolton (sp?) to come up with that?!
The inability of our President to move has given Gaddafi time to consolidate his power by killing his enemies and terrorizing his people.
He was given the green light to kill everyone who opposes him because we ensured we would not stop him by never deploying ground troops.
Why? Because we would rather have a stable, murderous despot in power who gives us oil than a democracy which we would have to help along.
“BARACK OBAMA: THE WEAKEST PRESIDENT IN HISTORY?
INEFFECTUAL, invisible, unable to honour pledges and now blamed for letting Gaddafi off the hook. Why Obama’s gone from ‘Yes we can’ to ‘Er, maybe we shouldn’t’…
http://express.co.uk/posts/view/235196/Barack-Obama-The-Weakest-President-in-history-Barack-Obama-The-Weakest-President-in-history-#ixzz1H5x8FpI4
Obama attacks nation that poses no threat to the United States without Congressional approval. This is a despicable war crime. Where are the leftist-liberal protests? Surely they’ll be taking to the streets calling for Obama’s impeachment and pulling down giant paper-mâché effigies of Obama, right? Surely they will begin any minute now….
#1 Sorry, but how the hell does Obama think he has the right to tell Khadafi to leave.
#9
I think I found the source of your irony impairment…
There actually will be lefties doing that by the end of this week…
I thought Libya was a US partner in spreading democracy? Both the left and the right should stop whining here, true patriots know that the price of freedom is periodic submission to the will of our leaders.
Khadafi promised his own people death by thousands and is delivering his promise. Now he directly threatens to attack Europeans on sea and in the air, and he’s known to have used terrorism in the past. I don’t give a shot whether Sarkozy got money from him or not, I didn’t vote for any of them anyway. No, it wouldn’t be surprising if oil had something to do with it, but no matter how you’re looking at this, his people has had enough of this guy (40+ years) and so do we. French, British, American and other people have died in his bombings, and Lybians who fought against this dictatorship deserve more than being all but crushed in Benghazi while the rest of the world is trying not to look, and consider how much past tongue in the cheek talk they’ll have to apologize for if they suddenly turn their back to the dictator.
Sorry if my English is not that good, I’m a frog.
Hahahaha, not only did Obama not get us out of Iraq and Afganistan like he ran on, we are now involved in a 3rd conflict.
Yes we can!
At least in the first two conflicts we entered to oppose tyranny.
In this conflict Obama waited so to support tyranny.
Give him enough time to weed out his opposing generals and kill his opposition.
Change we can believe in!!
#13
My opposition to war is generic opposition to war, but if we have to go to war, Libya is as good a place as any…
Of course the same people who have blocked, obstructed, lied about, undermined, and done everything in their power to disenfranchise Obama are now accusing him of being powerless.
The U.N. security council has authorized “all necessary means” to protect civilians and enforce a no-fly zone.
But I don’t remember Congress authorizing the President to do so. I don’t even remember the President asking Congress for such authorization.
Funny how President Bush managed to get Congressional authority for both Afghanistan and Iraq, but President Obama seems to think that only U.N. authority is required. I guess there were some Congressional Democrats who didn’t want to be on record voting (again) for war.
BTW, I heard that French jets have already taken action against Libya. I assume they surrendered.
So, how is it that only congress can declare war but when this president and several past presidents of both cults ignore this law and do it in conjunction with the UN it’s somehow legal?
And if Obama wishes to remain fair and equal, when does he declare war on Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Yemen and several other African nations for doing the very same thing -and much, much worse- as Gadhafi?
There are lots of murdering despots besides Khadafi. So why aren’t we opposing them?
Oh, that’s right, the others don’t have oil.
Groan… The President can send forces to war for something like 30 days without congressional approval. Reagon and Bush the greator did it repeatedly.
And after the Republicans spent the last week criticizing Obama for not unilaterally attacking Libya, do you really think they would deny him the authority to do so???
time to bring back..
IOKIYAAR
Odyssey Dawn sounds like a porno name to me. 🙂
Its a UN expeditionary force, not a US military operation.
So Obama’s lobbed a couple of cruise missiles at the desert, he didn’t put any US citizens at risk. And why should he? The US is not going to directly benefit.
The Chinese are going to be pissed if they can’t get the future deliveries commitments honored, but apart from that, they couldn’t care less about some fuckin’ laowai rag -head in the desert.
The Russians know exactly what’s happening but since it leaves their gaz exports to Europe intact, they don’t give a fuck about a иноплеменник [foreigner] either.
The French, (who hate the Arabs and are still pissed off at Morocco sixty years later,) and to a lesser extent the rest of the Europeans, are doing this for their own benefit.
Thy needed more time to implement an energy policy which cut down on dependency on Arab oil. (My comments about the Russian gaz still apply, but for now, they’re playing nicey, nicey, kissy face.)
They’ve got tired of Qadaffi’s intransigence so he’s now a dead man walking. He’s going to end up like Hussein’s troops on the road home from Kuwait.
He should have known that his life, regime and the whole country wasn’t worth an extra nickel/gallon that the Europeans have been sucking up.
He tried to play rough and now the vultures have come home to peck at his eyeballs.
#21
LOL, where have you been the last 10 years? We are doing exactly that, for better or worse. But even the mighty USA has limits for the number of wars it can wage at once. LOL, idiot.
Before Libya, we should all sort out 10 other African countries which desperately need help… but they don’t have oil.
Business as usual.
P.S. Hows that peace prize Barry?
Nobel Peace Prize recipient at work……
America! Fuck Yeah!
in #19 chuck said: I assume they surrendered.
You obviously don’t know about the Rafale.
Its a very capable plane.
#21 – they still have stock in Standard Oil?
You have to be able to distinguish between Good murderous Arabic dictators with Oil and Evil murderous Arabic dictators with Oil.
Congress has their thumbs up their asses while the president steals their war power.
There was no attack on the USA. The president attacked Libya as a business venture.
Today the US shot 119 Tomahawk missiles into Libya. At a cost of $575,000 Per missile the total cost is $68,425,000. Or 8.425 Million more than NPR receives in a year. fascist states of america