Something to think about

News out of Libya is not looking good for the rebel forces. Forces loyal to Gadhafi may or my not have taken the strategic town of Ras Lanuf and are definately pounding the rebels. At this point it appears to me that the only way Gadhafi will be removed from power is by a civil war, a conflict that will likely last for some time.

The Arab League has voted to back the idea of a no-fly zone and will attempt to sway the UN towards authorizing the action. However, the United States and NATO appear to be rather hesitate to carry out a no-fly zone, likely because it will be perceived as the West once again involving itself in Arab affairs.

There is another reason why Western nations should be cautious in assisting the rebels in eastern Libya. Andrew Exum, over at Abu Muqawama brings up the interesting report written by the Harmony Project at West Point. He links to the actual report on his blog which I won't bother to do, but it is a fairly good read. The report is an analysis of some captured Islamic State of Iraq documents discovered near Sinjar (west of Mosul near the Syrian border) in October 2007. The documents are essentially a record of foreign fighters coming into Iraq to fight for ISI and includes in many cases town and country of origin as well as the reason for coming to Iraq.

Not surprising, a majority of the fighters were from Saudi Arabia but a good number were from Libya, northeastern Libya to be precise. In fact, of the fighers documented, 18.8% were from Libya, second only to Saudi and Libya contributed more fighters per capita than any other nation. The most common cities of origin were Darnah and Beghazi...both along the eastern Libyan coast and both are current rebel strongholds. 85% of the Libyan foreign fighters noted that they came to Iraq to be suicide bombers.

Of historical note, Darnah and Beghazi were the scene of an uprising in the mid 1990's organized by the Islamic fundamentalist organization Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) that has ties to Al Qaida.

I of course am no fan of the Gadhafi regime and would love to see him swinging from a lampost in the near future. I also do not believe the current rebellion was started by any fundamentalist group but was a reaction by average Libyans to the protests sweeping the Middle East and North Africa. However, the West, and the United States in particular, should be vary cautious in assisting a group of people who appear to be more than willing to travel to another country in order to kill Americans.