Obama lied, people died?

False pretense for war in Libya? - The Boston Globe

EVIDENCE IS now in that President Barack Obama grossly exaggerated the humanitarian threat to justify military action in Libya. The president claimed that intervention was necessary to prevent a “bloodbath’’ in Benghazi, Libya’s second-largest city and last rebel stronghold.

But Human Rights Watch has released data on Misurata, the next-biggest city in Libya and scene of protracted fighting, revealing that Moammar Khadafy is not deliberately massacring civilians but rather narrowly targeting the armed rebels who fight against his government.

Misurata’s population is roughly 400,000. In nearly two months of war, only 257 people — including combatants — have died there. Of the 949 wounded, only 22 — less than 3 percent — are women. If Khadafy were indiscriminately targeting civilians, women would comprise about half the casualties. ...

But intervention did not prevent genocide, because no such bloodbath was in the offing. To the contrary, by emboldening rebellion, US interference has prolonged Libya’s civil war and the resultant suffering of innocents.

As I wrote on March 29,

President Obama said that there would have been a massacre in Benghazi if Qaddafi's army had not been turned back. This is a reasonable assumption - but it is no more reasonable (or necessarily more accurate) than President Bush's assertion that Saddam Hussein possessed stocks of WMDs that would be turned against Iraq's neighbors or even the United States.

But was protection of civilian lives really Obama's objective, or was this?