The Wall Street Journal reports:
The Arab League on Saturday called on the United Nations Security Council to enforce a “no-fly zone” over Libyan airspace, marking a decisive diplomatic victory for rebel forces opposed to Moammar Gadhafi, the Libyan ruler.
The announcement will bolster calls by some European leaders to intervene in the violent confrontation between rebels and Col. Gadhafi’s military.
The U.S. and the European Union had deferred to the 22-member league of Arab nations to determine whether outside military forces should intervene.
The air superiority of forces loyal to Col. Gadhafi has helped tip the balance of power against the antigovernment uprising based in the eastern part of the country. On Saturday, government forces tightened their grip on the coastal road linking government-held territory to the rebel-controlled east, the Associated Press reported.
Col. Gadhafi’s forces all but routed rebels in the coastal oil-refining city of Ras Lanuf earlier this week and completed their assault on Zawiya, a rebel stronghold west of Tripoli, Libya’s capital.
Deliberations will now go to the U.N. Security Council, where permanent members China and Russia are thought to oppose the proposed no-fly zone.
Abdel Hafeez Goga, the deputy head of the Benghazi-based provisional rebel government, the Transitional National Council, praised the Arab League decision.
“We welcome and salute their decision and look at it as a step forward to the imposition of no-fly-zone imposition,” he told a news conference in Benghazi.
Now that the Arab League has endorsed a no fly zone Gates has changed his political speak a bit.
“A little bit too much has been read into some of my remarks last week.” “If we are directed to impose a no-fly zone, we have the resources to do it,” he said. “This is not a question of whether we or our allies can do this. We can do it. The question is whether it’s a wise thing to do. And that’s the discussion that’s going on at a political level. But I just want to make clear we have the capacity to do it.”
And the misidentified as smart continue to ask ask dumb questions….
“Are you willing to escalate if it doesn’t work?” asked Anthony H. Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, who has studied Libya’s military capabilities. “Will they even bother” to challenge a no-fly zone?
Well Anthony you won’t know until you try it will you? And no we don’t have to escalate, we have to do the minimum the opposition has asked the US and NATO to do.
I have to ask why anyone listens to those like Cordsman, they are bizarre creatures. Cordsmans want the US to triple troops in Afghan, build up a 134,000 man security force in Afghan, remove the current corrupt ruler we plucked from exile and installed and replace him with another US chosen. Because as he says;…..
“ Afghanistan cannot become an instant model of democracy, human rights and the rule of law. Victory means a reasonable level of security and stability for the Afghan people; a decent standard of living by current Afghan standards; and the end of Afghanistan as a sanctuary for international terrorism. That may not be much to most of the rest of the world, but for the Afghans it means real hope and an end to three decades of war and suffering. “
So we invade Afghan ‘unasked’, and intend to stay, and spend trillions in a country that is the graveyard where other countries go to die.
But we must be too timid to respond after being ‘invited’ to respond to Libya……”to end decades of suffering”.
Truly these ‘thinkers’ have S*** for brains.
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