Who Is America Supporting In Libya? (and the rest of the Middle East)

Ostensibly we are supporting the "rebels" who are clashing with the government in Libya. The rationale for this has been somewhat unclear at best.

Now, it appears that we are supporting radical Islam. The next question would appropriately become: Why?

Lets look at the facts around this issue:

Admiral: U.S. studying Libyan rebels -- after going to war on their behalf

Admiral James Stavridis, commander of NATO and overall chief of U.S. and coalition forces in the Libyan war, says American intelligence agents are "examining very closely" the rebel forces for whom U.S. forces have gone to war.

So far, Stavridis says, the U.S. has discovered "flickers" of the presence of al Qaeda and other terrorist groups, although Stavridis calls the opposition leadership "responsible."

Well isn't that just grand. We will be pouring billions of dollars into the region, not to mention the lives of our soldiers, and we didn't bother to analyze just WHO we would be helping, in advance? Really?

And the "new terminology" that our administration is using is priceless: "flickers" of al Qaeda? Ok.....

Appearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Stavridis was asked by Republican Sen. James Inhofe to comment on "reports about the presence of al Qaeda among the rebels, among those with whom we are associated."

at this point I don't have detail sufficient to say that there is a significant al Qaeda presence or any other terrorist presence in and among these folks

So basically he is saying that we don't have enough information? And why is that? Shouldn't such information be obtained before engaging in such effort? OR - is this a form of tap-dancing in order to avoid the obvious?

Stavridis' testimony raises two questions. One is the extent of al Qaeda and other terrorist presence; what is a flicker? The second question is why the United States did not complete its "due diligence" before, and not after, going to war. "I don't say this critically of you, because you didn't make this decision," Inhofe said to Stavridis, "but wouldn't that have been a good idea to find out before we took the steps we are taking?"

Unbelievable. Just unbelievable.

The lack of knowledge about the Libyan opposition has become a major question in the Libya conflict. At Monday's Pentagon briefing, Fox News reporter Jennifer Griffin asked another top official, Vice Admiral Bill Gortney, a very simple question: "Do you know who the opposition is, and does it matter to you?" "We're not talking with the opposition," Gortney responded. "We have -- we would like a much better understanding of the opposition. We don't have it. So yes, it does matter to us, and we're trying to fill in those gaps, knowledge gaps."

Wow. This leaves me speechless.

West's fears over spectre of al-Qaeda among rebels

It should come as no surprise to the West that intelligence officials have identified "flickers" of al-Qaeda among the Libyan rebels seeking to overthrow the regime of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi.

...there is nevertheless disturbing evidence that the Islamist terror group is seeking to turn the current political unrest to its advantage.

The Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, a militant Islamist group committed to the establishment of a fundamentalist Islamic state in Libya, was set up in 1995 by groups of Libyan jihadi fighters who had returned home after fighting with the Mujahideen in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union.

What is not in doubt is that since the uprising various al-Qaeda spokesmen have surfaced to condemn Col Gaddafi's dictatorship and call for the creation of an Islamic state

And last week Abdel-Hakim al-Hasidi, a prominent Libya rebel leader, admitted to an Italian newspaper that many of the jihadists who had fought allied troops in Iraq were now fighting to overthrow Gaddafi's regime.

Al Qaeda: Arab revolts herald 'great leap forward'

Yet another article which informs us of what is really going on in the Middle East:

Al-Awlaki says rebels in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and "mujahideen brothers," calls on Muslims in West to kill "Jews and Christians."

Al Qaeda's most influential English-language preacher said revolts sweeping the Arab world would help rather than harm its cause by giving Islamists freed from tyranny greater scope to speak out.

al Qaeda preacher Anwar al-Awlaki, in an article published online on Tuesday, said the removal of anti-Islamist autocrats meant Islamic fighters and scholars were now freer to discuss and organise.

"Our mujahideen brothers in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and the rest of the Muslim world will get a chance to breathe again after three decades of suffocation," he wrote, using a term that refers generally to Islamic guerrilla groups or holy warriors.

The most disturbing aspect of this recent information is the unsettling idea that perhaps we DO know who we are supporting in the Middle East.

Its hard to figure which scenario is worse - complete ignorance regarding who we are supporting in these efforts vs. intentionally supporting radical Islam and then lying about it. What a dilemma.

Either way, what we are witnessing is a transformation of the Middle East in terms of the few countries who had been relatively stable and unlikely to participate in a coalition against Israel, into a highly unstable rabid, radical Islamic element who's sole basis for living is to destroy Israel and "reclaim" that holy land.

I guess it had to happen this way for the remaining prophetic events to unfold. What else can be said?