Obama To Declare Mission Accomplished In Libya War Tonight

Though Secretaries of War Adventure Robert Gates and Hillary Clinton are "leaving open" exactly how many years in Libya the United States will be fighting a war to remove a despot they say they don't want to remove, President Obama is continuing on with a scheduled address to the nation tonight on our cute new little war in which he will "discuss how our efforts in Libya have advanced our interests and averted a catastrophe," according to the White House. Which is interesting, because just yesterday Gates said Libya did not pose a threat to the U.S. and going to war there was "not a vital national interest." And our military says the gains made by the side we're supporting in this civil war could fast be reversed if we ever stop bombing the other side. So our Nobel peace laureate will simultaneously pretend he doesn't care if Gaddafi stays as dictator, sell the lie that we won't be in Libya for a long time, and convince America this war is in its interest while the guy in charge of its military says it isn't. Good thing he's so good at talking and such!

“The regime still vastly overmatches opposition forces militarily,” Gen. Carter F. Ham, the ranking American in the coalition operation, warned in an email message on Monday. “The regime possesses the capability to roll them back very quickly. Coalition air power is the major reason that has not happened.”

"Four more years! Four more years of Hope, Change, and Endless War!" — Obama re-election slogan

On “This Week,” ABC News’ Senior White House Correspondent Jake Tapper asked Gates, “Do you think Libya posed an actual or imminent threat to the United States?”

“No, no,” Gates said in a joint appearance with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. “It was not -- it was not a vital national interest to the United States, but it was an interest and it was an interest for all of the reasons Secretary Clinton talked about. The engagement of the Arabs, the engagement of the Europeans, the general humanitarian question that was at stake,” he said.

"The importance of the engagement of the Arabs and the Europeans is why you don't have a job right now. But don't let me make you think our objective is to defeat and remove Gaddafi. We don't! We just like to bomb things in Libya!" — alternate Obama re-election slogan

Meanwhile, the U.S. is not going to war with Syria because no other country wants to. And, of course, because that hated leader is apparently our friend, so we call him a "reformer," something the crowds being fired on by him seem to disagree with, but whatever, those particular humans aren't a "humanitarian cause."

Yep, this speech should definitely solve all the problems with our war machine! Cover yourself in the blood of Arabs and join us back here at 7: 30 ET for our liveblog of the festivities. [ NYT / ABC News ]