OPINION:
Africa isn’t called the Dark Continent for no reason. Africa has forever been a politi- cal nightmare full of overt corruption, tribal warfare, genocide, murderous regimes and brutal dictators.
There is no country in Africa that truly respects freedom or the rule of law. The majority of countries in Africa are in economic ruin because of political corruption and a history ugly with cruel despotism. That’s why starvation and disease are rampant. AIDS is projected to kill as much as half the populations of some countries. Genocide is a way of life. There is little light in Africa.
The evil Col. Moammar Gadhafi, the vicious dictator of Libya, is killing Libyans who want to string him up and replace him.
In order to keep Col. Gadhafi from killing Libyan rebels, the United Nations has instituted a no-fly zone and is bombing Libya. Though the action is led by the French, who once wouldn’t let us fly over their country to bomb Col. Gadhafi, it is the United States, as usual, that is - and will be - doing all the heavy military lifting.
For what? The president said America is “acting in the interest of the U.S.” Please tell us, Mr. Obama: Just what are those interests that are so precious that America will put military lives in harm’s way and spend tens of billions of dollars more that we don’t have bombing Libya and enforcing a no-fly zone?
The president stated that we will not put ground forces in Libya. Air power alone probably will not stop Col. Gadhafi. If anything, bombing Libya probably will embolden him.
As of this writing, America has fired at least 120 missiles into Libya. Are we prepared to fire 1,120 missiles at about a million bucks a shot in order to topple Col. Gadhafi, to whom the United States granted a visa just a few years ago so he could threaten to live in a big tent while he attended the den of thieves meeting at the United Nations?
If precision-bombing Libya and destroying the country’s limited air force fails to stop the colonel, what’s next on the agenda, Mr. President? How long will you order our military to stick around off the coast of Libya, and at what financial burden? Will you reverse course and send in ground forces if bombing doesn’t work? What is the message to the other African thugs and thugs in the Middle East if Col. Gadhafi isn’t toppled?
If the real goal of the United Nations is to topple the Libyan leader, kill him and all his henchmen. Flatten the area of Tripoli where it is believed he is holed up with a human shield surrounding him. Kill all those people and get it over with. Implement total war for a week, and cockroach Gadhafi will be entombed in a pile of rubble.
Because we won’t implement total warfare, we run a real risk that he will remain in power. Col. Gadhafi knows the key to his victory is to wait us out. He knows we can’t afford to float our Navy off the coast of Libya and launch rockets against tactical targets forever. Most important, he knows the America people will soon begin to ask: What the heck are we over there for when we have no strategic interest and Libya does not pose a military threat to the United States?
Granted, a dead tyrant is a good tyrant, but there have been any number of murdering African thugs and punks who have deserved to be killed over the years, including Robert Taylor of Liberia, Omar al-Bashir of Sudan, Idi Amin of Uganda, Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe and others who have killed millions of Africans.
As I write this, hundreds of thousands of Africans have been killed and a couple of million more have been displaced in Darfur. Are we prepared to go in there and drop bombs and fire missiles until we get the results we want?
Africa is an international scab. Bono of the band U2 advocates that if we forgive debt African nations owe, peace and tranquillity will sprout up mystically. The real problem is murdering, corrupt thugs and punks like Col. Gadhafi. Once we swat one of these African cockroaches or intervene in their civil war, where do we stop?
America can’t solve all the world’s problems, nor should it try. We have enough of our own problems to address without getting involved in a Libyan civil war.
Spending national treasure by bombing Libya is not wise when we have no strategic interest in Libya and we are bankrupt. It would have been much cheaper for the CIA to arrange for the cockroach colonel’s demise than to spend billions and billions of dollars that we don’t have in hopes he is toppled. Whatever happened to that wonderful American ingenuity of improvise, adapt and overcome?
Ted Nugent is an American rock ’n’roll, sporting and political activist icon. He is the author of “Ted, White and Blue: The Nugent Manifesto” and “God, Guns & Rock ’N’ Roll” (Regnery Publishing).
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