Grief for Qaddafi

Gentle reader, please do not construe the recent criticism of the Obama administration's Libya action as support in any way for Muammar Qaddafi. Qaddafi has been a brutal and unrepentant dictator who has fostered terrorism and committed acts of terror over the years. I certainly hope Qaddafi meets justice and my primary concern is what eventually will replace him. There is a possibility that after the West dispenses with one tyrant, he may be supplanted with Islamic extremists of one stripe or another. Would a Taliban-style regime emerging in Libya not be vastly worse that Qaddafi? If the West is unwilling or unable to engage in the long and costly process of "nation building" that would involve ground troops and be seen as occupation by the Libyans and more broadly by the Arab world, then it is quite possible those with sympathies for al-Qaeda will have a share of power or at least find sanctuary in Libya. My other concern is about the process that Obama has used to take us to war (which is what our Libya involvement is without any semantic acrobatics) without following the US Constitution by consulting Congress. If a Republican were President, the leftist elite and the dinosaur press would be screaming for impeachment right now.