Why attack libya

A military training centre in the Libyan town of Zliten was hit by a truck bomb today, causing dozens of casualties, witnesses said. ISIS terrorist group launched attacks near key oil facilities in northern Libya today but were pushed back, an army official said. Tunisia announced Wednesday it is closing its land border with war-torn Libya for 15 days after a deadly bus bombing in Tunis claimed by the ISIS. More News ». The rise and fall of Gaddafi. Leaked UN report reveals torture, lynchings and abuse in post-Gaddafi.

Renewed clashes hit Libya capital. Slouching Towards Sirte. Chicago: Baraka Books, p. Libya: coalition attacks Sirte for first time. Libya After Qaddafi: lessons and implications for the future. Rand Corporation. Stuenkel, O. The impact of the Libya intervention debates on norms of protection.

Global Society , 30 1 , pp. Military Review , 90 1 , p. Gaddafi, M. Oakland: University of California Press. Brockmeier, S. Chivvis, C. Garrett, W. Krasner, S. Structural causes and regime consequences: regimes as intervening variables. International organization , 36 2 , pp.

Lawson, S. Conceptual issues in the comparative study of regime change and democratization. Comparative Politics , pp. Pattison, J. Wedgwood, A. Barfi, B. Eight years later he was dead, with NATO warplanes tallying an assist. Other dictators from Pyongyang to Tehran are likely now far less willing to turn over their protective arsenals to a United States that will then happily hasten their demise. Like Afghanistan and Iraq, Libya reverted to corruption and factionalism when the dictator and his security state were overthrown.

Casualty estimates for both civil wars vary wildly but are probably in the low tens of thousands. Libya also became a proxy war, as the recently repaired Gulf Cooperation Council split led to the United Arab Emirates and Qatar backing opposing sides in Libya.

Turkish-Egyptian antipathy also fueled the conflict, while Russia supplied mercenaries to the Libyan National Army. Obama eventually acknowledged that the Libyan catastrophe was his greatest failure in office — specifically the failure to plan for the aftermath.

In fact, not only was the Western coalition not limiting its missions to the remit of the U. Security Council resolutions, but it also actively chose not to enforce them. Resolution was supposed to prohibit arms transfers to either side of the war in Libya, and NATO officials claimed repeatedly that this was not occurring.

Yet, the most damning piece of evidence comes from a public relations video that NATO itself released on May 24, In truth, the Libyan intervention was about regime change from the very start. Afterward, NATO began providing direct close-air support for advancing rebel forces by attacking government troops that were actually in retreat and had abandoned their vehicles.

Fittingly, on Oct. The dictator was injured in the attack, captured alive, and then extrajudicially murdered by rebel forces.

Unfortunately, duplicity of this sort is a common practice in the U. Civilian and military officials are often instructed to use specific talking points to suggest the scope of particular operations is minimal relative to large-scale ground wars or that there is no war going on at all. Meanwhile, the public learned just this week — only because Staff Sgt. Louis F.