[What follows is an excerpt from an article by US Senator Rand Paul published yesterday on the CNN website:]
The United States has a history of often picking sides in Middle East conflicts to its own detriment. (...)
Moammar Gadhafi eventually accepted responsibility in the 1988 bombing of an airplane over Lockerbie, Scotland, that killed hundreds of people, including American schoolchildren. [RB: “Responsibility in” is an interesting variant on the usual American phrase “responsibility for”. What Libya actually formally acknowledged in relation to Lockerbie can be read here.]
President Reagan called Gadhafi the "mad dog of the Middle East."
Fast forward to 2008, when Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice traveled to Libya to meet with Gadhafi to offer American support.
In 2009, members of the US Senate -- Republicans Lindsey Graham and John McCain and an independent, Joe Lieberman -- would travel to Libya to meet with Gadhafi to offer further aid. Sen McCain said: "We discussed the possibility of moving ahead with the provision of nonlethal defense equipment to the government of Libya." President Obama would eventually meet with Gadhafi to reconfirm the same relationship established during the Bush administration.
By 2011, President Obama was arming Libyan rebels and ordering airstrikes to overthrow Gadhafi. Some of the president's most vocal supporters were the same Republicans who traveled to Libya two years before to help Libya's strongman acquire military equipment. Sen McCain said of the Libyan rebels: "I have met with these brave fighters, and they are not al Qaeda. ... To the contrary: They are Libyan patriots who want to liberate their nation. We should help them do it."
We did help them, something I opposed on the Senate floor as an unconstitutional overreach by the executive branch. We now have reason to believe that the Libyan rebels did contain elements of al Qaeda and other Islamic extremists.
The United States has a history of often picking sides in Middle East conflicts to its own detriment. (...)
Moammar Gadhafi eventually accepted responsibility in the 1988 bombing of an airplane over Lockerbie, Scotland, that killed hundreds of people, including American schoolchildren. [RB: “Responsibility in” is an interesting variant on the usual American phrase “responsibility for”. What Libya actually formally acknowledged in relation to Lockerbie can be read here.]
President Reagan called Gadhafi the "mad dog of the Middle East."
Fast forward to 2008, when Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice traveled to Libya to meet with Gadhafi to offer American support.
In 2009, members of the US Senate -- Republicans Lindsey Graham and John McCain and an independent, Joe Lieberman -- would travel to Libya to meet with Gadhafi to offer further aid. Sen McCain said: "We discussed the possibility of moving ahead with the provision of nonlethal defense equipment to the government of Libya." President Obama would eventually meet with Gadhafi to reconfirm the same relationship established during the Bush administration.
By 2011, President Obama was arming Libyan rebels and ordering airstrikes to overthrow Gadhafi. Some of the president's most vocal supporters were the same Republicans who traveled to Libya two years before to help Libya's strongman acquire military equipment. Sen McCain said of the Libyan rebels: "I have met with these brave fighters, and they are not al Qaeda. ... To the contrary: They are Libyan patriots who want to liberate their nation. We should help them do it."
We did help them, something I opposed on the Senate floor as an unconstitutional overreach by the executive branch. We now have reason to believe that the Libyan rebels did contain elements of al Qaeda and other Islamic extremists.
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