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.
Anyone remember Baghdad Bob (Muhammad Saeed al-Sahhaf)? I have as much confidence in what the current Libyan leadership says as I did in Baghdad Bob’s pronouncements.
Yesterday’s announcement that Libya would abide by the U.N. resolution sure didn’t last long for it to be undermined by Muammar Gaddafi’s actions.
There is one thing that seems to be missing from all of this action. Our president promised that he would take actions that would bring terrorists to justice. Why isn’t there an effort to capture Gaddafi and bring him to trial for the Lockerbe Pan Am bombing? It seems that the US has officially decided to not do anything. I understand that clandestine operations may be occuring as I write but I wonder what our president’s promise to bring terrorists to justice really meant. Gadaffi has no intention of submitting to any outside sanctions, so what does the US do? Are our officials in any conversations with allies to decide what is really going to be done or do we even have any allies left? We need strong leadership to be conspicuous and I haven’t seen any coming from the Whitehouse. The US policy seems to be one of confusion and incompetence. This situation and even our economy will remain unstable and weak as long as there is no leadership being shown. When will we see lthis eadership, or, has candidate Obama found that he is not able to rise to the “pay grade” of president? I have heard his words, but is he backing them up with action? I do not see any.
Vive le Sarko!
There’s a story about an Italian mafioso guy, who, upon being led to prison after his conviction, said, “The day is coming when you’ll wish you had us back.”
“Whether it remains confined to air strikes — and it will not — or escalates into something no one can predict at the moment, the impending intervention in Libya is a stupid, unnecessary war of choice. There are many good reasons against it, ranging for “we have no right” to “we are broke.” But remember, this is the view from the “reality-based community,” to which the Imperial policymakers are entirely immune. To them, this looks like a perfect short victorious war, something to boost Empire’s flagging reputation and influence. In actuality, it is the foreign policy equivalent of the Fukushima meltdown.”
Read the entire article here:
http://original.antiwar.com/malic/2011/03/18/to-the-shores-of-tripoli-2/
The plane shot down over Libya looks like a Mig 23 to me. That means it is a Libyan aircraft. No way that is a French or British aircraft.
carl
It’s a Mig 23, alright. The wing joint is a dead giveaway.