Libya conflict: US refuses to rule out arming rebels as conference begins

Source: Guardian

Libya conflict: US refuses to rule out arming rebels as conference begins
Ambassador says there is no sign Gaddafi is prepared to leave as foreign ministers gather in London to discuss future

Julian Borger , diplomatic editor
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 29 March 2011 13.48 BST

The US government has not ruled out arming Libyan rebels to help them topple Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, the country's ambassador to the United Nations said, as ministers from more than 40 countries gathered in London for a conference aimed at preventing the conflict sliding into a humanitarian disaster.

In an interview with ABC television, Susan Rice said: "We have not made that decision, but we've not certainly ruled that out."

Rice also said there was no indication Gaddafi was prepared to leave power without continued pressure from the international community. Referring to reports that members of Gaddafi's inner circle are reaching out to the west, she said: "We will be more persuaded by actions rather than prospects or feelers."

US officials have previously said Washington could potentially arm the rebels, but it remains unclear how this would be done, as it is illegal under the terms of the UN arms embargo on the country.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/29/libya-conflict-us-rebels-conference

.... :banghead:

The administration suggests it may send weapons to the rebels, raising thorny legal questions

(UPDATED) The Obama administration is now openly talking about arming the rebels in Libya, raising the question of whether such a move would be legal given that there is a U.N. arms embargo covering all of the country. The answer: It depends on whom you ask.

The possibility of giving weapons to the rebels -- who, by all accounts, have mostly relied on small arms and American bombing in the fight against Gadhafi -- also shows that the mission in Libya may end up going far beyond the original concept of a no-fly zone.

Some observers, like the Atlantic's Max Fisher, have already pointed to the troubled history of the U.S. arming rebels in Afghanistan and Central America, places where rebel elements later turned on the U.S. or committed war crimes. That history is particularly relevant today given reports that there are Islamic extremist elements among the Libyan rebel coalition.

http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2011/03/28/obama_libya_arming_rebels/

It would seem this is far far beyond the NFZ to "protect innocent civilians".

I'm afraid that the end result won't be pretty. :(

"On December 6, 1984, as the U.S. increased its funding to anti-Soviet Afghan rebels to tens of millions of dollars in weapons and supplies, CIA Director William Casey wrote in a classified memo, "Unless U.S. policy is redesigned to achieve a broader attack on Soviet vulnerabilities it cannot restore independence to Afghanistan." The next year, he got a quarter of a billion dollars, all quietly siphoned out of leftover Pentagon budgets by secret Congressional authorization. In the search to spend that money, a CIA officer wrote in another classified memo, "analytically, the best fighters -- the best organized fighters -- were the fundamentalists." The memo concluded that the best such fundamentalist fighter and target for U.S. funding was one Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a brutal mujahideen commander who would later join the Taliban, with which he is still battling the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan."

so we need to help those poor people fight the onslaught from our weapons.

so we need to help those poor people protect themselves from the onslaught from our weapons.

Mission Accomplished.