May happen – from CBS:
The United States may consider sending troops into Libya with a possible international ground force that could aid the rebels, according to the general who led the military mission until NATO took over.
Army Gen. Carter Ham also told lawmakers Thursday that added American participation would not be ideal, and ground troops could erode the international coalition and make it more difficult to get Arab support for operations in Libya.
Ham said the operation was largely stalemated now and was more likely to remain that way since America has transferred control to NATO…
This is what comes of not moving at the right time. As I’ve said, had we moved early, a bit of air power would have been enough to topple Gaddafi when the rebels were right outside Tripoli. By the time we did move, air power was only sufficient to ensure that Gaddafi wasn’t able to roll over the rebels. At that time, ground forces should have been on the table – and right off the coast of Libya…and, at need, an airborne division and Marine regiment or two should have dropped on Tripoli as the rebels were advancing. That would have finished it. Now, air power is insufficient and we’d probably have a pretty nasty fight on our hands if we tried to get right in to Tripoli.
So what’s next? If we don’t just wash our hands of it, it will have to take a major ground force effort…both to back up the rebels as well as ensure they can advance. At least a division of troops (about 20,000 or so) will be necessary to finish this thing off – as well as the willingness to both take and lose lives. What will Obama do? I don’t know, but I’m not at all hopeful that we’ll either get out or go all the way in…my fear is that we’ll just hang around as things get worse.
As an aside, anyone besides me note how rebel movements in the Moslem world seem to have cooled down? Its like they no longer have any faith that the international community will help them, or something…
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