Sunday, March 20, 2011

Arab League criticizes West's strikes on Libya

WAMC: Arab League criticizes West's strikes on Libya (2011-03-20)

Arab League chief Amr Moussa called for an emergency meeting of the group of 22 states to discuss Libya. He requested a report into the bombardment, which he said had "led to the deaths and injuries of many Libyan civilians."
"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," Egypt's state news agency quoted Moussa as saying.
Arab backing for a no-fly zone provided crucial underpinning for the passage of a U.N. Security Council resolution last week that paved the way for Western action to stop Gaddafi killing civilians as he fights an uprising against his rule.
The intervention is the biggest against an Arab country since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Withdrawal of Arab support would make it much harder to pursue what some defense analysts say could in any case be a difficult, open-ended campaign with an uncertain outcome.
It's time for the Arab League to put up or shut up.

Gaddafi isn't worried about civilians. Gaddafi is fighting his civilians. Gaddafi is fighting in civilian areas and using those same civilians as human shields. If the Arab League truly is decrying the fact that there are civilians among the casualties, then perhaps they should put jets in the air to help establish and maintain the no-fly zone. If they can't or won't do this, then there are 2 options. Either shut up about the civilian casualties or shut up about having the Western nations' help. It's that simple. The west contains the culture(s) that seek to minimize civilian casualties and don't attack their own allies or people, often to the detriment of effectiveness. Can any government in the Middle East say the same in the last 3 months other than Israel and Egypt?

Thought not.

Oh, and note to Reuters and AP:  If they won't let you investigate their claims, you probably shouldn't be reporting the numbers as accurate.  Just sayin'

No comments:

Post a Comment