At NATO’s Behest, US to Continue Libya Strikes

Officials Cite 'Poor Weather' as Excuse to Continue Strikes

by Jason Ditz, April 03, 2011

Despite making much of the idea that the US would be taking a “supporting role” in the Libyan War as of Sunday, it seems to have taken very little convincing for the Obama Administration to agree to the continuation of its air strikes.

Early Sunday NATO officials started talking up the “request” for the US to launch missiles at Libya, and the Pentagon quickly confirmed that the attacks will continue through at least Monday.

The official explanation is that “bad weather” has hindered the number of US strikes launched over the past few days. Apparently, then, the war is operating on something akin to a flex-time schedule, with the US making up for its lack of blowing things up in recent days with a fresh salvo Monday.

At the same time, despite all of this weather, NATO has been launching scores of strikes on a daily basis over the past several days. There’s no indication what exactly is being hit in these strikes, but it appears the weather hasn’t stopped them.

But perhaps a more important issue is that the two sides appear virtually stalemated now, and it doesn’t seem that air strikes are going to change that. With complaints of civilian deaths in NATO strikes rising, it is perplexing to see the US looking to lob extra missiles at Libya at this point.

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