Such as a “no fly zone” over all of northern Africa, spreading across the globe, because while we broke Muammar Gaddafi’s army, we didn’t fix the problem of tens of thousands of mobile surface-to-air missiles.
As reported by the Christian Science Monitor:
At newly discovered weapons-storage sites, thousands of shoulder-held surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) are unaccounted for. At one unguarded facility, empty packing crates and documents reveal that 482 sophisticated Russian SA-24 missiles were shipped to Libya in 2004, and now are gone. With a range of 11,000 feet, the SA-24 is Moscow’s modern version of the American “stinger,” which in the 1980s helped the US-backed Afghan mujahideen turn their war against the Soviet Union….
“If these weapons fall in the wrong hands, all of North Africa will be a no-fly zone,” says Peter Bouckaert, the emergencies director of Human Rights Watch (HRW), who has brought a number of weapons-storage sites to the NTC’s attention.
The weapons already are in the wrong hands, having been smuggled into Gaza:
Terror groups based in Gaza have acquired anti-aircraft and anti-tank rockets from Libya during its six-month civil war, Israeli officials told Reuters on Monday.
The officials said the weapons from Libya have enlarged, but not significantly improved, the arsenal in Gaza. They emphasized that while the rebellion against Muammar Qaddafi has stirred concern abroad about the fate of Libya’s chemical weapons stockpiles, there is no indication Hamas or other Gaza-based terror groups have sought them.
They noted, however, that an inflow of SA-7 anti-aircraft missiles and rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) has been detected as entering Gaza. One official described an overland supply route that opened up between eastern Libya, after it fell to the rebels, and the Gaza Strip, via Egypt.
Smuggling into Gaza in many ways is the least of the problems, because there are no commercial flights at risk and the Israeli military knows how to deal with anti-aircraft missiles. More worrisome is that the missiles will fall into the hands of random al-Qaeda groups and will be used against defenseless commercial aviation.
This all was entirely predictable. We faced the same problem when the Iraqi Army fell in 2003, but in that case we had boots on the ground able to address the problem. Here, Libya is chaos now.
So when one of these weapons ends up in the wrong hands and is used, call it what you will, but don’t call it “unexpected.”
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Comments
Don’t worry, children. Everything will be fine. After all, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are in charge.
If this isn’t the textbook definition of the law of unintended consequences, I don’t know what is. Did State really think that this was going to be a walk in the park?
Maybe the administration should not have spiked the football so early. TWEET! Fifteen yards, unsportsmanlike conduct, excess celebration.
The inmates at the Department of State are running the asylum. If they were in the private sector, they would have been fired long ago. I’d love to hear what John Bolton has to say about this mess.
How long before one is walked across our border ala Fast and Furious?
So when one of these weapons ends up in the wrong hands and is used, call it what you will, but don’t call it “unexpected.”
I hope you’re not addressing that to Reuters. “Unexpectedly” is an article, conjunction, and preposition all rolled up in one at Reuters.
LukeHandCool (who wonders how many times something unexpected has to happen before a writer at Reuters discerns a pattern).
With all due respect to Professor Jacobson, I think the use of the words “unintended consequences” is assuming facts not in evidence. What data is there to indicate that the arming of the enemies of our country and Western civilization was either an unexpected or undesired consequence of the Libyan goat rope.
Invocations of faith in the desire of the most anti-American and anti-Constitutional president and administration to protect us in the end will require step by step citations of facts and actions to be credible. I submit that said proof would have to involve quantum physics with a variation of the “Schroedigger’s Cat” thought experiment; wherein Obama can simultaneously be a mortal enemy of this country and a patriot, depending on which box you look in.
Subotai Bahadur
Mr. S. B.
Very elegantly communicated – although I don’t give these circumstances the benefit of the doubt – ala your Schroedigger’s Cat example (which I had to Bing and read twice).
The whole Middle East is lined up for the next Caliphate, a a best case scenario – for which suggestion Glenn Beck was roundly attacked, even by the Right.
The worst case scenario is the 12th Imam – or are these one and the same?