In late 2016 Benghazi, a popular singer was arrested for performing during a high school graduation party to female students and their parents, accused of moral corruption and leading the youth astray. Only a year and a half prior, this same singer had released a song praising the armed forces which eventually arrested him. This paper surveys militia-directed praise songs in post-Gaddafi Libya, songs which have not always engendered protection for their authors from the same authorities for which they yearned and yet have contributed to the political-affective apparatus through which militia-centered power structures are constituted. Indeed, a range of quotidian sonic practices have produced militia authority in the post-Gaddafi years. From concerts to checkpoints, airport announcements to constructed silences, the daily interactions of militia members and civilians have built structures of possibility and constraint. In this context, the protest slogan, “we want an army and we want police,” has circulated not in opposition to ostensible chaos, but rather in relation to the uneven protections these structures have afforded. One of the approaches some musicians have taken toward gaining the protections and privileges that might come with militia proximity is to dedicate songs more and less explicitly to particular armed groups. Such songs often circulate with video imagery of soldiers training, fighting, and sometimes praying, alongside civilians singing together or as if in unison while alone. They use language that valorizes the “men of [the] army,” the men or the army of “my country,” men who “came for you [enemies/ terrorists].” A majority of these songs emerged in support of the particular militia faction that called itself “The Libyan Army,” that headed by Khalifa Haftar, and reflected developments specific to Eastern Libya. Yet across factions, the thematic repertoire of similar songs remains closely related. This paper examines the politics of these militia-directed praise songs, their circulations, and their conditions of production as sites for the working out of post-Gaddafi yearnings for non-war. It argues for two paradoxical readings: of the militarized language and imagery of these songs as desire for non-war, and of desire for non-war as a yearning for (post-)Gaddafi.