From Reuters:
West’s strikes on Libya hit Arab League criticism
Sun, 20th Mar 2011 14:55
By Maria Golovnina and Michael Georgy
TRIPOLI, March 20 – Western forces pounded Libya’s air defences and patrolled its skies on Sunday, but their day-old intervention hit a serious diplomatic setback as the Arab League chief condemned the ‘bombardment of civilians’. …
European and U.S. forces unleashed warplanes and cruise missiles against Gaddafi on Saturday in a United Nations-backed intervention to prevent the veteran leader from killing civilians as he fights an uprising against his 41-year rule.
But Arab League chief Amr Moussa said what was happening was not what Arabs had envisaged when they called for the imposition of a no-fly zone over Libya.
‘What is happening in Libya differs from the aim of imposing a no-fly zone, and what we want is the protection of civilians and not the bombardment of more civilians,’ he said.
In comments carried by Egypt’s official state news agency, Moussa also said he was calling for an emergency Arab League meeting.
Arab backing for a no-fly zone provided crucial underpinning for the passage of the U.N. Security Council resolution last week that paved the way for the Western intervention, the biggest against an Arab country since the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Withdrawal of that support would make it much harder to pursue what some defence analysts say could in any case be a difficult, open-ended campaign with an uncertain outcome.
The U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, said the no-fly zone was effectively in place. But he told CBS the endgame of military action was ‘very uncertain’ and acknowledged it could end in a stalemate with Gaddafi.
Mullen said he had seen no reports of civilian casualties from the Western strikes. But Russia said there had been such casualties and called on Britain, France and the United States to halt the ‘non-selective use of force’.
Libya: African Union Panel Opposes Military Intervention: here.
Cyprus says against use of British bases for Libya: here.
Concern over British action in Libya: here.
David Sirota: Obama & Clinton both explicitly promised to seek congressional declaration of war before doing anything like Libya: here. They Lied.
“All Out War on Libya, Surge in the Price of Crude Oil”: here.
Maintaining Libya no-fly zone has cost more than $100 million so far: here.
Australia and the Libya war: here.
Dear Kitty. Some blog 
From bernd_hermann_f@googlemail.com [retrieved from over sensitive anti spam software]
How fast can it go, if a country has oil. More than a hundred cruise missiles, jet fighters, electronic warfare: On Saturday evening, American, British and French units in Libya positions and important logistics of Gadhafi troops attacked. In Africa, where hundreds of thousands are slaughtered, mass rape, because you do nothing. What hypocrites. What we have as elected. This Obama is so much worse than Bush.
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Re #2: I would not agree that “Obama is so much worse than Bush”, considering the over a million dead in Bush’s Iraq war. Rather, there is a problem that Big Business in the USA basically rules, whoever is elected President.
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The problem with the Western intervention is that there is a possibility that the West wouldn’t be able to topple Qaddafi´s regime. Hundreds of lives would, therefore, be lost for nothing. As for the Arab League I think some other Arab leaders are a bit scared that what is happening to Qaddafi could happen to them as well.
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Re #3: “As for the Arab League I think some other Arab leaders are a bit scared that what is happening to Qaddafi could happen to them as well.” The Arab League spokesperson who made the criticism today, Egyptian Amr Moussa, was against Egyptian dictator Mubarak when Mubarak was still in power.
“Some other Arab leaders” fear that to them will happen not just what happened to Gadaffi, but what haoppened to Mubarak and Ben Ali of Tunisia: that they would have to quit. The most enthusiastic Arab suporters of intervention in Libya are Qatar and the UAE, themslves absolute monarchies whose soldiers are right now helping Saudi Arabian invaders to massacre the democratic opposition of Bahrain.
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Re #3, the first sentence: yes, that is always the problem with wars. Any idiot of an politician with enough power to do so can start a war. However, what happens after starting the war is beyond the control of people who started it.
The Iraq war started swith talk about WMD which were not there, and about democracy which still isn’t there. The pile of dead bodies grew to over a million and still counting.
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What did he think was going to happen? It boggles my mind what some civilian “leaders” think of as a no fly zone. What was the Arab League thinking when they approved of a no fly zone? What do you think happens when bombs are dropped on target? I hope the Allies will prosecute this war to the fullest until Qadaffi is gone. This is what war is about! If you do not have the stomach or the balls then don’t go around saying “we favor a no fly zone”. Your incompetence is unbelievable!
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Re #6: “I hope the Allies will prosecute this war to the fullest until Qadaffi is gone.” The United States government has explicitly denied that that is the aim of the war.
Getting rid of Gadaffi should be done by the Libyans themselves, NOT by foreign intervention (see sign pictured at the top of this thread.)
“What do you think happens when bombs are dropped on target?” And what when they are NOT dropped on target, but kill civilians; which the Arab League objects to?
And what about dictatorships in Yemen, Bahrein, Saudi Arabia, etc., still getting US military aid right at this moment (like Gadaffi also got Western military and police aid until extremely recently)?
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Strike against Libyan forces is very bad
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