Congressional leaders push Obama administration for more aggressive Libya response

[steve2470]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/03/06/AR2011030603825.html

By Joby Warrick and Scott Wilson
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, March 7, 2011

Congressional leaders prodded the Obama administration on Sunday for a more aggressive U.S. response to Libya's increasingly brutal attacks on opposition groups - calling for a no-fly zone and other military measures - but White House officials cautioned against being drawn into a potentially protracted and costly military campaign.

Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, for the first time raised the possibility of bombing military airfields in Libya to deny the use of runways to Moammar Gaddafi's air force. Two of the Senate's top Republicans, Mitch McConnell (Ky.) and John McCain (Ariz.), also spoke in favor of U.S. military involvement to keep Libyan warplanes grounded.

"We can't risk allowing Gaddafi to massacre people from the air," McCain, the ranking Republican on the Armed Services Committee, said on ABC's "This Week With Christiane Amanpour."

But White House officials appeared to play down expectations of an expanded U.S. military role in the immediate future. While insisting that no options have been ruled out, White House Chief of Staff William M. Daley cited the difficulty of enforcing a no-fly zone over Libya, a vast country armed with modern, Russian-supplied antiaircraft defenses.

[still_one]

1. Gee Senator Kerry who wouldn't defend himself during his run for President, what gives us the right

to invade an independent country?

This is from the man who is probably the greatest triangulator in the Democratic party

[tabatha]

2. He stated that boots on the ground is NOT and NEVER will be an option.

[still_one]

9. That may be, but bombing a country is declaring war on that country /nt

[tabatha]

12. See #10.

[jaxx]

3. Remember what they ask for......war.

Why would anyone listen to McConnell, McCain and Lieberman? They have one interest in this, getting Obama to start his own war. Kerry I'm not sure where he is coming from, but he needs to let the President lead on this. It makes for fine rhetoric...no troops on the ground, just a little no-fly zone, nothing to look at here folks. Look at what Gates and the military say...that it will involve taking out ground sites and it will be war that takes them out.

Those who oppose Afghanistan, are you sure this is what you want?

[tabatha]

4. Did you even hear the Kerry interview?

He does not even want to do a no-fly zone.

By the way, many Libyans have repeatedly asked for a NFZ.

[jaxx]

6. No, I didn't hear the interview, I just read about it.

Are the reporters lying about what was said?

[tabatha]

11. See #10.

[gratuitous]

5. Paid for how? Using what resources?

Aren't these the same yammerers telling us we're broke so poor people shouldn't get too comfortable on that lavish minimum wage they're earning? And what would our "mission" be? How would we know when our "more aggressive" response had accomplished its goal? What's our escape plan? Seems to me we're already mired in a couple of quicksand pits. These guys sound like they're scouting locations for a third one.

[bemildred]

7. Anything to avoid talking about our domestic problems. nt

[Starry Messenger]

8. Well there's always money for *that*.

God forbid we should fund anything else adequately though.

[tabatha]

10. I heard Kerry's interview on Al Jazeera twice, but cannot find a link.

But he said much of what he said here:


WASHINGTON — Senator John Kerry yesterday urged the United States and its allies to draw up plans for a no-fly zone over Libya, to be ready to intervene if Libyan leader Moammar Khadafy commands his air force to slaughter his own civilians.

Kerry, the Massachusetts Democrat and chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, quickly got some qualified support for the idea yesterday from two influential Republican senators — John McCain of Arizona and minority leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky — even as Kerry’s position put him at odds with Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

Gates has said a no-fly zone is tantamount to going to war because, for the safety of US pilots, Libyan air defense installations would have to be bombed.

But in edging toward the idea that the United States should at least plan for military action, Kerry said that enforcing a no-fly zone would not necessarily require overt attacks on planes or air defense installations, which could be seen as an act of war against Libya.

In an interview on CBS’s “Face the Nation’’ yesterday, Kerry said the United States and its allies could “crater the airports and the runways and leave them incapable of using them for a period of time,’’ as an effective means of grounding Khadafy’s air force. A no-fly zone over Libya would not “step over the line’’ into an unwanted military intervention into that country’s ongoing strife, said Kerry. He stressed that the plan should be done in conjunction with allies, and only to stop a civilian crisis.


Btw, how many people think that the slaughter in Rwanda should have been stopped?

[JVS]

13. As a dog returns to his vomit, so a fool returns to his folly.

[BumRushDaShow]

14. The media wants to stir the pot so they can have something to report

other than what is going on in the Midwest and the union-busters.

[sabrina 1]

15. It has been reported this morning that the U.S. along with its

NATO allies are discussing the possibility of a NFZ over Libya.

As for the Republicans pushing for intervention, there is all that oil there and the people they represent, Halliburton, BP, Bechtel et al all have huge contracts in Libya, and have demanded that the U.S. lift the recently applied sanctions so that they can continue 'their work' there.

I agree with the president on not interfering in Libya.