By ELISABETH BUMILLER, DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK and ALAN COWELL
WASHINGTON — President Obama ordered Colonel Muammar el-Qaddafi on Friday to implement a cease-fire immediately and stop all attacks on Libyan civilians or face military action from the United States and its allies in Europe and the Arab world.
The real reasons behind the United Nations’ Libya vote
By Andrew Murray
National Chair, Stop the War Coalition
18 March 2011
A new war has been declared in the Middle East. With the bloody and failing occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan still in place, the USA, Britain and France are now committed to an escalating armed intervention in Libya.
THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION ADAPTS ITS ISRAEL TALKING POINTS FOR BAHRAIN AND SAUDI ARABIA
Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett
March 16th, 2011
Today, the White House confirmed, see here, that it was “aware, obviously, of the invitation” extended to Saudi Arabia to invade Bahrain. But U.S. government officials continue to decline to say what Secretary of Defense Gates said or did not say to his Bahraini interlocutors 36 hours before Saudi Arabia’s military offensive. And, U.S. government officials have refused to call for the removal of foreign troops from Bahrain.
For many in Iran, and indeed for Shia throughout the Persian Gulf, this is painfully reminiscent of American silence when Iraq invaded the Islamic Republic in 1980. And, as it became clear that the United States was supporting Saddam Hussein in his war of aggression against Iran, it seems increasingly likely that the Obama Administration will be seen as supporting the use of armed force against a Shia majority population in Bahrain.