Kristof: No-Fly Zone A No-Brainer
img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-74104" title="kristof" src="/files/wxrimport/2011-03/kristof.jpg" alt="" width="205" height="105" /><Nicholas Kristof writes in the New York Times:
“This is a pretty easy problem, for crying out loud.”
For all the hand-wringing in Washington about a no-fly zone over Libya, that’s the verdict of Gen. Merrill McPeak, a former Air Force chief of staff. He flew more than 6,000 hours, half in fighter aircraft, and helped oversee no-fly zones in Iraq and the Adriatic, and he’s currently mystified by what he calls the “wailing and gnashing of teeth” about imposing such a zone on Libya.
I called General McPeak to get his take on a no-fly zone, and he was deliciously blunt:
“I can’t imagine an easier military problem,” he said. “If we can’t impose a no-fly zone over a not even third-rate military power like Libya, then we ought to take a hell of a lot of our military budget and spend it on something usable.”
He continued: “Just flying a few jets across the top of the friendlies would probably be enough to ground the Libyan Air Force, which is the objective.”
General McPeak added that there would be no need to maintain 24/7 coverage over Libya. As long as the Libyan Air Force knew that there was some risk of interception, its pilots would be much less motivated to drop bombs and more inclined to defect.
“If we can’t do this, what can we do?” he asked, adding: “I think it would have a real impact. It might change their calculation of who might come out on top. Just the mere announcement of this might have an impact.”
Along with a no-fly zone, another important step would be to use American military aircraft to jam Libyan state television and radio propaganda and Libyan military communications. General McPeak said such jamming would be “dead easy.”
As he acknowledged, any intervention also has unforeseeable risks, and, frankly, it’s a good thing when a president counts to 10 before taking military action. But I hope that President Obama isn’t counting to a googolplex.
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