Remind me Again Why we Spent $800,000 to Celebrate the Libyan Victory?

"Gadhafi's days are over.  Never again will he be in a position to support terrorism or to turn guns on his own people. The Libyan people can finally turn the page." Stephen Harper

The Harper government spent $800,000 on a celebration marking the end of the attack on Libya.  Besides being costly in an era of "austerity", the celebration it turns out was premature.  This was not a case of "mission accomplished" but back slapping accomplished.

The stronghold of Bani Walid has been reclaimed by Gadhafi loyalists and fighting there continues:

Moammar Gadhafi loyalists seized control of a Libyan mountain city in the most serious challenge to the central government since the strongman's fall, underlining the increasing weakness of Libya's Western-backed rulers as they try to unify the country under their authority. The taking of Bani Walid, one of the last Gadhafi strongholds captured by the new leadership late last year, was the first such organized operation by armed remnants of Gadhafi's regime. A simultaneous outbreak of shootings in the capital and Libya's second largest city Benghazi raised authorities' concerned that other networks of loyalists were active elsewhere.

There is also a growing concern that weapons provided to the western backed regime are falling into the hands of terrorist organizations.   Real terrorist organizations, like al Qaeda, not those who oppose Harper's pipeline.

The Western-backed overthrow of Libyan strongman Muammar Gadhafi likely provided huge stocks of heavy weapons to terrorist groups and criminal organizations operating in the Sahel region of North Africa, the United Nations confirmed January 26 in a report. Among the groups benefiting from the arms are al-Qaeda and the deadly Islamic terror organization Boko Haram, which is currently on a killing spree in Nigeria.

The UN report explained that “due to the Libyan upheaval ... governments in the region are faced with the return of millions of economic migrants, the smuggling of weapons from Libyan stockpiles, terrorist activities, youth unemployment, trafficking in drugs and human beings, and a surge in criminality,” the international body summarized in a press release on its findings.

Westpoint had warned in 2007 that the eastern region of Libya, the epicenter of the NATO-backed rebellion, provided more fighters per capita to combat US troops in Iraq than any other nation, including Saudi Arabia. The report noted that most of these Libyan fighters were members of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) who were involved "in an increasingly cooperative relationship with Al Qaeda."

That's coming from Westpoint, not some "left-wing hippie dippie rag".

The LIFG was also on the UK Terrorist watch list as late as November 2011.

The LIFG seeks to replace the current Libyan regime with a hard-line Islamic state. The group is also part of the wider global Islamist extremist movement, as inspired by Al Qa’ida. The group has mounted several operations inside Libya, including a 1996 attempt to assassinate Mu’ammar Qadhafi

Instead of worrying about LIFG, NATO used them to overthrow Ghadafi, and create a leader who would be more willing to work with them; Mustafa Abdel Jalil. But apparently it was all smoke and mirrors as the Foreign Policy magazine is now reporting that Jalil has declared Libya to be an Islamic state.

...interim leader Mustafa Abdel Jalil, thought to be a moderate, declared in his "liberation" address that Libya would be an Islamic state and that sharia law would be a fundamental source of legislation.

What in the hell have we done? The Green resistance movement is growing stronger and a civil war appears imminent.

So remind me again why the Harper government spent $800,000 on a photo-op, declaring their victory in Libya.  Reminds me of George Bush declaring that the war in Iraq was over in 2003.