'Victory' In Libya - View From America

It's only been a few days since the fall of Tripoli, but high-fives and victory dances abound.

 

"Rebel Victory in Libya a Vindication for Obama," screamed the headline in US News & World Report.

 

"Libya Vindicates Obama's Multilateral Leadership," claimed CNN. Slightly later: "A Major Win for Obama's Libya Policy."

 

On the political Left, the anti-interventionist website Antiwar.com called it "Libya: Obama's Pyrrhic Victory".

 

But it was still a victory - and still Obama's.

 

Even the Right, which belatedly rediscovered the War Powers Act and the US constitution's assignment of the right to declare war to Congress three months into the NATO-led bombing campaign in Libya, was grumblingly supportive of the initial results.

 

"[Fox News'] Sean Hannity was never happy about the US involvement in the Libyan conflict, because he believed that the president displayed weakness by not leading the charge and that he was wrong to drag America into what could end up being another intractable conflict in the first place," notes Sadhbh Walshe in the UK Guardian. "Now that, a tidy five months later, a brutal dictator has been overthrown, paving the way for Libyans to get a shot, at least, at democracy, Hannity's focus of discontent has shifted to the fact that President Obama has not yet presented a plan for how a post-Gaddafi Libya should be governed."

 

Here's Bill O'Reilly, also on Fox: "Here's the box score. No Americans killed, costs kept down. If the full brunt of American airpower in the Mediterranean had been unleashed, you would have had a lot of civilian casualties. Very difficult to do the bombing that they did. The bottom line is: Gaddafi's gone after six months not to come back again. No American dead."

 

The only major right-wing talker to completely deride recent events in Libya was Michael Savage, a man not commonly given to introspection: "Who do you think is more dangerous, Gaddafi or those who will replace him?" asked Savage.

 

Overall, says Walshe, "Obama Gets B Grade on Libya" from the Right.

 

My favourite headline appeared on the news opinion site Sodahead: "Rightwing Americans Punk'd by Obama and Libyan Rebels!"

 

Libyan rebels? Oh, yeah, them.  From Al Jazeera.