"Americans will be picking up a great deal of the tab" of war

Some notes on the Libyan war. From ABC News:

America may be handing off some of the responsibility of Operation Odyssey Dawn in Libya to other nations, but it is clear America's service men and women still will be bearing a heavy load, and Americans will be picking up a great deal of the tab.

Today, British fighter jets flew high above the Libyan desert searching for targets, taking out six tanks with precision guided missiles. Yet, despite a plan to get the rest of the world more involved, more than half of the nearly 100 strike missions in Libya in the past 24 hours were done by Americans. . . .

The U.S. Navy now has 12 ships in the Mediterranean, in less than a week, firing 184 Tomahawk cruise missiles.

The USS Kearsarge is the largest of these ships. The crew has actually been underway for 210 days, with only 4 days in port. In September it was Pakistani flood relief. In January, many of its Marines sent to Afghanistan. In February, it stood by for possible evacuations from Egypt, and now, it's targeting Libya.

Adding to that, American fighter pilots routinely are flying five- to six-hour missions along with 24/7 coverage from communications planes and those aerial refuelers.

But with other nations now taking the lead on enforcing the no-fly zone, the number of American fighter jets at least should be reduced, even though so many of the other aspects of this operation will continue to fall to the U.S. . . .

Libyan rebel commander admits his fighters have al-Qaeda links

One also has to wonder whether Obama's foreign policy is causing this to happen: "Pakistan Switches Sides, Expanding Arms Allegiance With China and Leaving U.S. Behind . . ."