Still, the top U.S. military officer said the goals of the international campaign are “limited” and won’t necessarily lead to the ousting of Gadhafi.

Asked on NBC’s “Meet the Press” whether it was possible that the mission’s goals could be achieved while leaving Gadafi in power, Adm. Mike Mullen said, “That’s certainly potentially one outcome.” Pressed on this point later in an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Mullen was more vague, saying it was too early to speculate. He said the Libyan leader is “going to have to make some choices about his own future” at some point.

Gadhafi vowed to fight on. In a phone call to Libyan state television, he said he would not let up on Benghazi and said the government had opened up weapons depots to all Libyans, who were now armed with “automatic weapons, mortars and bombs.” State television said Gadhafi’s supporters were converging on airports as human shields.

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SHAUN CASEY (Wesley Theological Seminary): Whether you act or whether you don’t act, the stakes are really quite high, and that’s what makes it so daunting from a moral perspective: trying to find the right way to know when to intervene and when not to because the consequences, the body counts are quite high.

LAWTON: In the wake of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, the United Nations hammered out a set of principles known as the “Responsibility to Protect.” The principles say that nations must protect their population from genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and ethnic cleansing. And if a state doesn’t live up to that responsibility, the international community has a responsibility to step in. The United States has endorsed those principles.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA (from Nobel acceptance speech, December 209): I believe that force can be justified on humanitarian grounds, as it was in the Balkans, or in the other places that have been scarred by war. Inaction tears at our conscience and can lead to more costly intervention later.

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The US, UK and France have attacked Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi’s forces in the first action to enforce a UN-mandated no-fly zone.

Military officials are said to be assessing the damage after at least 110 missiles were fired by the US and UK.

After one attack, some 14 bodies were lying near destroyed vehicles near the rebel-held city of Benghazi after strikes by French planes, Reuters says.

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Allied warplanes are stopping Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi’s forces attacking the rebel-held city of Benghazi, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said on Saturday.

Gaddafi’s troops on Saturday morning pushed into the outskirts of Benghazi, the second city of some 670,000 people, in an apparent attempt to pre-empt Western air strikes that came after a meeting of Western and Arab leaders in Paris.

But as the meeting ended, Sarkozy announced that allied air forces had already gone into action.

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Pro-Gaddafi tanks are inside Libya’s rebel stronghold of Benghazi, a BBC journalist has witnessed, as the city came under attack.

A jet appears to have been shot down over the city in spite of a declared ceasefire and a UN no-fly resolution.

World leaders are due to meet in Paris to discuss military action.

The rebel leader has appealed to the international community to stop the pro-Gaddafi bombardment, but the government denies claims of attacks.

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Trying to outmaneuver Western military intervention, Moammar Gadhafi’s government declared a cease-fire on Friday against the rebel uprising faltering against his artillery, tanks and warplanes. The opposition said shells rained down well after the announcement and accused the Libyan leader of lying.

Wary of the cease-fire, Britain and France took the lead in plans to enforce a no-fly zone, sending British warplanes to the Mediterranean and announcing a crisis summit in Paris with the U.N. and Arab allies. In Washington, President Barack Obama ruled out the use of American ground troops but warned that the U.S., which has an array of naval and air forces in the region, would join in military action.

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Egypt’s military has begun shipping arms over the border to Libyan rebels with Washington’s knowledge, U.S. and Libyan rebel officials said.

The shipments””mostly small arms such as assault rifles and ammunition””appear to be the first confirmed case of an outside government arming the rebel fighters. Those fighters have been losing ground for days in the face of a steady westward advance by forces loyal to Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi.

The Egyptian shipments are the strongest indication to date that some Arab countries are heeding Western calls to take a lead in efforts to intervene on behalf of pro-democracy rebels in their fight against Mr. Gadhafi in Libya. Washington and other Western countries have long voiced frustration with Arab states’ unwillingness to help resolve crises in their own region, even as they criticized Western powers for attempting to do so.

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The United Nations authorised military action to curb Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi on Thursday, hours after he threatened to storm the rebel bastion of Benghazi overnight, showing “no mercy, no pity.”

“We will come, zenga, zenga. House by house, room by room,” he said in a radio address to the eastern city.

Al Jazeera television showed thousands of Benghazi residents in a central square celebrating the U.N. vote, waving anti-Gaddafi tricolour flags and chanting defiance of the man who has ruled for four decades. Fireworks burst over the city.

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The Obama administration may not care to admit it, but it did make a decision, and one of benefit to Gaddafi. Why? One factor was surely Obama’s preference for a less activist foreign policy in general.

But there were special considerations in Libya, and they were clearly stated in a piece by General Wesley Clark for the Washington Post last Friday. The former US commander in Kosovo and a 2004 Democratic presidential candidate wrote: “We don’t have a clearly stated objective, legal authority, committed international support or adequate on-the-scene military capabilities, and Libya’s politics hardly foreshadow a clear outcome.”

The key phrase here is “Libya’s politics”. For the past few days, Washington policy circles have been worrying over a piece of research circulated last week: “On a per capita basis ”¦ twice as many foreign fighters came to Iraq from Libya ”“ and specifically eastern Libya ”“ than from any other country in the Arabic-speaking world. Libyans were apparently more fired up to travel to Iraq to kill Americans than anyone else in the Middle East. And 84.1 per cent [74] of the 88 Libyan fighters ”¦ who listed their hometowns came from either Benghazi or Darnah in Libya’s east.”

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Possible interventions include not only a no-fly zone but also providing weapons to the rebels, offering inducements to Gaddafi loyalists to defect, jamming Libyan military radio transmissions or bombing Mr. Gaddafi’s tanks and artillery when they move east. Each option carries risks for the United States, and Mr. Obama’s caution is understandable.

On the other hand, Mr. Gaddafi’s military is weak, and many Libyans clearly are desperate for change. And a Gaddafi victory also carries risks for U.S. interests, as Mr. Obama himself has said. A sacking of Benghazi will be accompanied and followed by a horrific bloodbath. A revitalized dictator is likely to be distinctly unfriendly to Western interests. And other despots will conclude that Mr. Gaddafi’s brand of merciless revenge brings better results than the Tunisian and Egyptian models of accommodating people’s yearning for freedom ”” and that American threats to the contrary can be discounted.

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World leaders on Tuesday refused all forms of military intervention in Libya, abandoning Col Muammar Gaddafi’s fleeing opposition to its fate.

France and Britain failed to persuade other world powers meeting in Paris to impose a no-fly zone over the country, where pro-Gaddafi forces claimed to have taken the last major town before the rebel capital, Benghazi.

The no-fly proposal was absent from the G8 foreign ministers’ closing statement in Paris, following resistance from Russia, Germany and the US. China, a United Nations security council veto-holder, is also opposed.

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But if any single African country has attracted American ire, it is Uganda. Is this because of a spate of anti-gay attacks? When a tiny college newspaper organized an egregious hate campaign last October against prominent gay activists, including Kato, a Ugandan court issued a permanent injunction against the publication. And David Kato’s death is among only a handful of documented instances in which homosexuals have been killed in Uganda in recent years, with police now claiming that Kato was murdered by an acquaintance for reasons unrelated to homophobia. Despite Rachel Maddow’s running commentary on Uganda””under the headline “Uganda Be Kidding Me!”””more Ugandans consider homosexual behavior morally acceptable or neutral””almost one in five””than people in any other major African country, including sexually tolerant South Africa, according to a 2010 Pew Forum survey.

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Austin Ihiekwe knows firsthand just how deadly malaria can be. He grew up in Nigeria and watched as his baby brother died from the mosquito-borne disease even though his parents could afford medicine and were diligent in treating their children.

“In the rainy season, all kids had malaria, every month or every other month,” said Ihiekwe, 67, of Cottage Grove. “But the availability of medicine is not universal. Some could afford it, some could not.” And the medicines didn’t always prevent the disease.

From Ash Wednesday through Easter Sunday, Ihiekwe and members of Christ Episcopal Church in Woodbury are raising money to buy 364 insecticide-treated mosquito nets to be sent to Africa. The 364 nets represent one for each member of the congregation. The effort is part of a larger mission project during Lent involving Episcopal churches statewide and their nearly 20,000 members, said Brian Prior, bishop of the Episcopal Church in Minnesota.

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For the Rev. Cannon Felix Orji, pastor of St. Francis on the Hill on El Paso’s Westside, the news that he had been elected bishop for the Convocation of Anglicans in North America, or CANA, came as a big surprise.

He didn’t even know he was a candidate.

The last time he learned he was a candidate for bishop, he removed his name from consideration.

“I’ve not been a contender for the position,” Orji told El Paso Inc. “My interest in ministry is to serve the church and to preach the gospel, not to become a big shot. I’ve not really been interested in being a bishop.

“However, this time they did not want to talk to me because they didn’t want me to wriggle out of it again. But I’m delighted.”

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A strategic town is lost in the east with another expected to follow soon. In the west, a symbolic centre of resistance is about to suffer an onslaught that it is unlikely to survive. With no international action to stop Muammar Gaddafi’s fierce offensive, the survival of Libya’s revolution hangs in a precarious balance.

Just four days ago the picture was very different: the rebel fighters were seemingly on a march to the capital, Tripoli, and the enemy was in disarray and retreat. But a series of misjudgements, and chronic lack of planning and organisation, have resulted in a dramatic reversal. The regime’s troops are poised to strike at Benghazi, the capital of “Free Libya”.

By yesterday afternoon, the opposition had abandoned Ras Lanuf, an oil port on the key coastal route. They withdrew to Aghala, outside Brega, another petrochemical complex. Control of the two locations would provide the regime with the reserves of fuel needed for the tanks and armoured cars arriving in increasing numbers on the frontline. It would also put Tripoli in a position to shut down power supplies to Benghazi.

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The Arab League has backed the idea of a no-fly zone over Libya, as rebels continue to be pushed back by Colonel Gaddafi’s forces.

A special meeting in Cairo voted to ask the UN Security Council to impose the policy until the current crisis ended.

The UK and France have pushed for the idea, but have failed so far to win firm backing from the EU or Nato.

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A few days ago I stirred a hornets’ nest with a column [the post immediately preceding this one on the blog] looking at why the Middle East lags economically and politically behind the rest of the world. The column was based on a terrific new book, “The Long Divergence: How Islamic Law Held Back the Middle East,” which was written by a Duke University scholar, Timur Kuran, who is an expert on the economic history of the region.

It’s difficult to address the issues comprehensively in 780 words (the length of a column), so I’ve asked Professor Kuran to expand a bit and address three common points raised by readers. The first question raised by many readers is about women: isn’t one major factor in the Middle East’s long stagnation the fact that it underutilized the female half of its population? If you’re only playing with half a deck, is it any wonder you lag? The second common question was about Western colonialism ”” many Arab readers thought that was far more important a factor in inhibiting Muslim countries than my column suggested, so I’ve asked Professur Kuran to address that. And, finally, many readers were left profoundly uncomfortable with the exercise itself ”” asking “Is Islam the Problem?” Is this a dangerous, unhelpful line of inquiry that ultimately creates polarization and cross-cultural antagonisms?

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Many Arabs have an alternative theory about the reason for the region’s backwardness: Western colonialism. But that seems equally specious and has the sequencing wrong. “For all its discontents, the Middle East’s colonial period brought fundamental transformation, not stagnation; rising literacy and education, not spreading ignorance; and enrichment at unprecedented rates, not immiserization,” writes Timur Kuran, a Duke University economic historian, in a meticulously researched new book, “The Long Divergence: How Islamic Law Held Back the Middle East.”

Professor Kuran’s book offers the best explanation yet for why the Middle East has lagged. After poring over ancient business records, Professor Kuran persuasively argues that what held the Middle East back wasn’t Islam as such, or colonialism, but rather various secondary Islamic legal practices that are no longer relevant today.

It’s a sophisticated argument that a column can’t do justice to, but for example, one impediment was inheritance law.

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The uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East have been widely described as secular rebellions led by middle-class, tech-savvy young people seeking economic and political justice. Protests have generally called for democratic, not Islamic politics, and for the rule of law, not Shariah law. Islamists were late to join the crowds, and they have participated only as one group among many. Because of all this, most Westerners have embraced the revolts. We should not, however, assume that the protesters seek to build replicas of the societies that exist in the West.

That assumption is erroneous because the Arab world is only beginning to debate basic questions of civic and political life””especially what role religion should play in government.

Westerners should avoid the so-called problem of transference: the natural tendency to assume that our historical experience is universal. It is misguided to assume that because the West””after centuries of bloodshed and experimentation””arrived at a broad consensus around democracy and secularism, so has the rest of world. The historical experience of Arab and Muslim societies has been qualitatively different.

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The turmoil in Libya and elsewhere in the region has toppled or undermined North African dictators who negotiated a web of benefits from Europe, including aid and diplomatic standing, in return for stopping immigrants seeking to cross the Mediterranean.

Without the assistance of those leaders, many in Europe worry that they will face new waves of illegal immigration not only from the liberated areas in the north, but from much of sub-Saharan Africa as well.

The immigrants would arrive at a time when much of Europe ”” struggling with high unemployment and lethargic economies ”” is already awash with anti-immigrant sentiment, and many countries say they are simply incapable of absorbing poor migrants.

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France and Britain on Thursday agreed that Libya strongman Moamer Kadhafi “must go” and called on the EU to consider the country’s rebel national council a valid political interlocutor, Sarkozy’s office said.

“To stop further suffering of the Libyan people, Muammar Gaddafi and his clique should leave,” French President Nicolas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister David Cameron said in a joint letter to European Union president Herman Von Rompuy.

France earlier recognised the rebels as the country’s rightful representatives.

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As the Obama administration wrestles over what to do about Libya, the voices on Capitol Hill offer no consensus on military action.

Influential senators John McCain, a Republican, and John Kerry, a Democrat, have kept up a drumbeat for U.S. military action such as a “no-fly” zone to aid the rebels fighting Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.

But other senior lawmakers, like Republicans Senator Richard Lugar and Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, are warning against getting the United States into a Libyan war.

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Check them out.

NATO foreign ministers are preparing to discuss imposing a no-fly zone over battle-torn Libya amid some of the fiercest fighting of the uprising against Moamar Gaddafi.

Counter-attacks by Gaddafi loyalists suggest the embattled leader, in power for four decades, will not go as quietly or quickly as fellow leaders in Egypt and Tunisia did in a tide of popular unrest rolling across the Arab world.

The rebellion against the Libyan leader is now in its fourth week.

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The Libyan leader Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi has “tens of billions” in cash secretly hidden away in Tripoli, allowing him to prolong his fight against rebel forces despite an international freeze on many of the Libyan government’s assets, according to American and other intelligence officials.

Colonel Qaddafi has control over the huge cash deposits, which have been stored at the Libyan Central Bank and other banks around the Libyan capital in recent years, the officials said.

Since the protests and fighting erupted, some of the money may have been moved into Colonel Qaddafi’s Tripoli compound, Bab Al Azizia, according to one person with ties to the Libyan government. While United States intelligence officials said they could not confirm such a move, one official said that Colonel Qaddafi “likely has tens of billions in cash that he can access inside Libya.”

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SPIEGEL ONLINE: Gadhafi doesn’t even shy away from bombing his own people. Doesn’t this raise the question of whether the West should intervene militarily?

Schulz: Gadhafi’s methods are brutal. But we have to choose carefully between an emotional reaction, which is understandable, and decisions that could lead to a protracted war. All of the measures that can be taken within the context of the Charter of the United Nations must be considered. I am deliberately emphasizing the word “all” there — in other words, including the military option. But that’s only possible with the involvement of the Security Council and the Arab countries.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Why?

Schulz: Military intervention without their involvement could even have the effect of strengthening Gadhafi….

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…there’s one thing those optimistic assessments play down: Imposing a no-fly zone is an act of war, and we’re already at war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

If the United States sent aircraft to patrol the skies of Libya, the first step would have to be to knock out the country’s antiaircraft batteries; that’s an act of war too.

And any time the United States is at war ”” even at the limited level of a no-fly zone ”” the question of further military involvement often follows.

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As Colonel Gaddafi, with his army and air force, his tribal supporters and his propaganda machine, begins to counter-attack, only one thing is certain. He is a man utterly without mercy. The history of his regime demonstrates how he deals with opponents: hanging them from lamp-posts, sending death squads to assassinate them as ”stray dogs”, killing them in their jail cells. His offer of amnesty is not believable and will not, in any event, be believed by the insurgents. Will the world stand idly by once he starts to deliver on his threat to ”fight to the last man and woman”?….

The lesson of Iraq ’03 is not that the US and its allies should never use force against another country, but that never again should they do so in breach of international law.

Which begs the big question, namely the circumstances in which there is a right – or, more importantly, a duty – to use force to relieve a humanitarian nightmare….

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