Obama Authorizes Covert Operations in Libya!

I confess this is a wow! kinda moment. Obambi basically declared victory in his address to the nation on Tuesday, and now he's going all Nixon-Kissinger on us with some CIA action.

At Los Angeles Times, "CIA officers in Libya are aiding rebels, U.S. officials say." And also ABC News, "President Obama Authorizes Covert Help for Libyan Rebels: Head of House Intel Committee Says Arming Unknown Rebels May Be a Mistake" (via Memeorandum). This part's the best:

Earlier this week, Obama declined in an interview with ABC News anchor Diane Sawyer to rule out arming the Libyan insurgents. When asked by Sawyer whether he would consider sending weapons to the rebels, Obama said, "We are examining all options to support the opposition."

White House spokesman Jay Carney repeated echoed Obama today saying the president is "not ruling something in or ruling something out in terms of lethal assistance to the opposition... We're coordinating with the opposition and exploring ways that we can assist them with nonlethal assistance. And we'll look at other possibilities of assistance as we move forward.

Rep. Mike Rogers, head of the House Intelligence Committee, warned the Obama administration against sending arms to the Libyan insurgents.

"It's safe to say what the rebels stand against," Rogers, R-Mich. said. "But we are a long way from an understanding of what they stand for. We don't have to look very far back in history to find examples of the unintended consequences of passing out advanced weapons to a group of fighters we didn't know as well as we should have."

"We need to be very careful before rushing into a decision that could come back to haunt us," Rogers said.

As always, the fear is that Islamists may end up in power, and thus the U.S. will have backed a (new) regime opposed to American interests and those of our allies, especially Israel. Not only that, the administration's been all over the map, with confused and contradictory statements, and of course a Jello policy on regime change or not. More on that from Melanie Phillips, "Humpty in Toytown and the Arab Boomerang."