The NATO humanitarian project to free Libya from the grips of it's tyrannical dictator and spread democracy is well into it's seventh month. The mission started on March 19, 2011. It won't be long until it is March 19, 2012 and the mission our own President Obama promised to be a brief and limited war will reach one year. Time flies when you're having fun, right NATO.
The NATO mission that was originally approved for three months is still going strong. The brave people of Libya, a country with a population of about 6.5 million, similar to Washington State, Indiana, or Arizona, have had to endure severe hardship during this six month period with multiple thousands of bombs dropped on their land and the destruction of internal systems that has created another humanitarian disaster replacing the one the NATO humanitarians sought to stop.
I remember the pipe bomb scare in Spokane, Washington earlier in 2011 that made national news. No one was hurt but the concern among citizens from such a danger was palatable and the mainstream media insured we knew all about it. A pipe bomb.
Over the last six months, NATO has flown 24,682 sorties over Libya including 9,204 strike sorties. That's when a military jet actually drops a bomb on something. The mission has lasted 195 days to date (the October 2nd NATO statistics), so 9,204 strike sorties divided by 195 equals 47.21 bombing strikes PER DAY on Libya over the last six months. Nearly fifty bombing strikes per day for six months on a country with a population of Indiana. Imagine that.
http://www.nato.int/...
On October 2, 2011, according to NATO's own statistics, forty strike sorties were conducted. The bombing of Libya continues unabated.
I live in Washington State with a population nearly identical to Libya. I can't imagine what life would be like with fifty bombs per day being dropped from the sky by jets I could barely see.
Let's hope it doesn't last another six months. That could mean another 10,000 more bombs. But as Madeleine Albright, former Democratic Secretary of State under Democratic President Bill Clinton famously said about the "No Fly Zone" over Iraq in the nineties, "We think it was worth it". I sure hope Hillary Clinton doesn't say the same thing in a few years.