Let’s see, “No Fly Zone”. Where have I heard this before? It appears there are some in Congress who never want to miss an opportunity to start another war. And we elect these people to run our country. Is it any wonder we’re in such a mess?

The US should start with an apology. We must apologize for the colonial interests that carved up the middle east to the benefit of distant powers. Apologies are for the oppressor, not as much for the oppressed. We need to acknowledge that our interests have been middle east resources, not its people.

The world is rapidly changing, by clinging to colonial ideology we are mirroring England’s contraction of world influence post maritime superiority .
By readily accepting our past mistakes we may actually be a change agent worldwide.

The schism in the US is that we are currently in our own struggle. Two models, a capitalistic scarcity model verses a socialistic managed safety net model that protects those on the bottom of the economic ladder. We are divided ourselves, and we are unable to see a clear resolution to decades of exploitation in the name of cheap energy.
The US is unaware of the degree of change we must make to survive in this new world. We must reinvent our concept of economy base on energy other than fossil fuel.
I would like to see our leaders admit that we are unsure of the way forward in Libya as we encourage the UN to act with apologies for the US empowerment of this brutal dictator.

Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez can step up and pop that boil on the searing soul of the Libyan nation, with a ‘rescue flight’ and ‘refuge’ for his friend Gadhafi.

Under King Idris, elected by traditional, rural population (80 percent of Libya in 1952), before oil, the country imported three times more than it exported (remind you of anything), and depended on foreign aid, and “Britain and the United States established military bases and assumed responsibility for the training of the Libyan army.” I quote Barnaby Rogerson, A Traveler’s History of Libya. Oil revenues swelled Libya’s coffers, and there became a very rich class, and in 1964 revolts against the military bases showed Idris’s isolation from his people. When Gadaffi took over, he sent the British and Americans packing. The Libyans negotiated for 51% share in any oil interests, and instead of taxing the people, the government shared out their oil income. Gadaffi created a government that was a medium path between capitalism and socialism, and his revolution offered much promise, as I read about it.
I note Idris didn’t want his sons to take over. Page 319: “In `969 there were at least four coups being plotted against King Idris, one of which was apparently sponsored by the king himself. He had no faith in his heirs and so while all his attempts to abdicate failed, he gave private encouragement to his army chief-of-staff, Abdul Azzi el-Shehli, to seize power in a palace coup.”
This book says that Gaddafi’s “blow delivered to the existing power structure by Qaddafi’s popular committees had begun to unwind the coherent direction of the state.” NOTA BENE: the powerful interests, those who succeeded because of oil wealth, were getting out of hand, dissatisfied. Oh, I’m learning a lot.
Numero uno, if Senator Kerry’s idea that you don’t have to take out airfields, just crater the runways, is reasonable, it’s reasonable because those airfields were probably American made. We know the weak points.

We helped the rebels fighting the Russians in Afghanistan decades ago and the net result was the Taliban in power, providing a safe place for al qeada’s terrorist training camps. We are still fighting th Taliban in Afghanistan.

I have every sympathy for the poor citizens of Libya but we have to stop interjecting ourselves into everyone’s civil wars. Those trying to overthrow Qaddafi have no political plan nor structure. We could be ‘helpful’ and make it even worse for the Libyans.

John McCain is a war monger, he wants to provide arms to the ‘rebels’ in Libya. Thankfully he is not the president of this country.

It is almost like we are back to the diplomatic hand wringing and tut-tutting of the 1990′s while the slaughter was going on in the Balkans. The longer we vacillate, the bloodier and more protracted the outcome.

Of Islamist militancy, crushing the militant party was tried (I’m trying to remember from my reading) in Tunisia, and led to popular unrest. In other words… I read that in the impoverished Arab lands, people have turned to Islam because of the close to perfect polity established by Mohammed at the time of the origination of Islam. People’s historical memory may be a bit distorted, but the ideal is there.

From Huffington Post, an article about Canvas, of Otpor, a group of Serbs who toppled Milosevic and have since used their know-how in advising other nations:
“Popovic spoke in his office in a drab communist-style neighborhood of Belgrade where youth activists from around the world take five-day workshops on how to topple their autocrats.

“On a wall-mounted drawing board are diagrams with arrows describing peaceful tactics by demonstrators that feature in lectures by the Serb instructors, all former members of Otpor, which means resistance in Serbian.

“‘We tell them first to identify the pillars of power of their autocratic regimes, like the police, army and media,” Popovic said. “Then we say don’t attack those pillars, that would lead to violence, but try and draw support from inside of those pillars.’

“He said protesters did this perfectly in Egypt, engaging with the army, which refused to crack down.

“The Egyptians did not adopt some of Otpor’s more whimsical tactics. At the height of the Belgrade uprising, Otpor erected a giant cardboard telescope to let people watch a falling star dubbed “Slobotea,” and gave people a chance to punch a Milosevic effigy for a penny. But they used other means to ridicule Mubarak, such as waving cartoons of him cooking Egypt in a pot for over 30 years.”

(End of quote, Google Otpor, Canvas, Serbia, revolution.)

I always thought that I made a mistake when I did not try to implement my idea on the internet just after 9/11. I thought that if we set up a website to donate for a bounty for Osama bin Laden’s head that there would easily have been billions of dollars donated and with that amount of money someone near him would have taken him out in a few days.

I disagree with you host that libya does not represent big enough national security concern for the US. It is imperative for the US to support this movement for the simple reason that US needs to project an image of alignment with the democratic forces otherwise it will jeopardize its relations with the future governments that will be in charge. If Israel is to be protected you have to make nice with countries that surround it. The US will have very little credibility and will face a diplomatic dead end if it stands aside and let Ghadafi slaughter his own people. And this needs not be done in any overt way. Think back to how many despotic regimes were supported in very secret ways in central america. Surely some of those same methods could be used to lend a hand to desperate people with more honorable intentions.

you have the robot opera at the Libya link…can you fix it?

I heard that the opposition (rebel) forces fighting in Libya are in some cases being directed by the Muslim Brotherhood. This came to me via today’s interview on Fresh Air with two former CIA agents. Can you verify this? If it is true, what are the ramifications of this? So the big question is, who is NATO/US supporting if they impose a no-fly zone over Libya?

no fly zones are part of a larger concept called strategic control that was introduced in the late 19902 at a conference at Harvard. It is one of many activities that are better defined as “overwatch” activities that allow the president and the NSC to anticipate and be ready to act. It’s primary purpose is to use all of our capabilities to influence with more credibility and less risk. It needs to be compared to the debacles we are involved in over the last ten years that project mass–blood and tresure that do not achieve our political objectives. Haas is right history does not help us.

But we have Ksovo..where an over watch activity stopped ethnic cleansing and created the conditions for the overthrow of Milosevic. The most important fact being that the local people overthrow and put Milosevic at the Hague.

Limited ends and getting the balance right in suing the different tools of diplomacy is an art form.

The next step is a direct feed from our intel assets to Al Jazari and CNN…Transparency builds the narrative that destroys Khadafi

Some times I wonder where do the guests get their info, last nite program one the Guest was saying that Iran and Syrian have killed tens of thousands of their people. I tried to find out when that happened I couldn’t. So , I am asking you, is NPR another mouth piece for state of Israel.

A surgical strike might be easier than a no fly zone. Why not use cruise missiles and whatever resources are used to take out air defenses to bomb runways, planes and air facilities. Maybe there are good technical reasons this can’t be done. Seems like it would be less risky than a no fly zone and might obtain a large fraction of the same result.

We should help the rebels in a way that is consistent with what they are asking for and in their best interest. That is the best chance of getting a government that isn’t hostile to the US in the future but more importantly the right thing to do ethically.

Support could boast the morale of the Rebels and weaken morale of the loyalist.

A resolution for a no fly zone is not likely to get support from countries trying to keep the lid on their own rebellions.