From SALON.COM:
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…
Click here to read the full article.
