What, You Thought The U.S. Was Done Bombing Libya?

[Feuer Frei!]

U.S. pilots are doing exactly what the Obama administration promised they wouldn’t be doing after NATO took command of the Libya war: bombing Libya. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, never an enthusiast for this third simultaneous U.S. conflict, pledged to Congress that America’s combat commitment to Libya stopped when NATO came to lead what’s now called Operation Unified Protector. Pressure from senators led him to qualify that U.S. warplanes would be on “standby” if NATO pilots felt overwhelmed. They’ve apparently felt overwhelmed.
Pentagon officials confirm to NBC News that U.S. pilots have attacked Libyan air defenses three times in the past week. They’ve not hit Moammar Gadhafi’s ground forces, the ones that continue to attack rebel positions and Libyan civilians. And the Pentagon swears it’s kept its pledge to remain in a “supporting” role for NATO by pointing to that distinction.
“We do not characterize those as ’strikes,’ because [air defense suppression] is considered a defensive, vice offensive, mission,” said Col. David Lapan, a Defense Department spokesman.
You decide if that’s a distinction without a difference. The mantra from the Obama administration was that the U.S. contribution to the hot end of the war in Libya would last for “days, not weeks.” According to Lapan, six F-16s, supported by five of the Navy’s EA-18 Growler jamming jets, have flown 97 sorties to suppress Gadhafi’s air defenses since NATO fully took charge of the war without U.S. gunships on April 4.


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