Radio Smart Talk for Wednesday, March 23:
NATO allies have agreed to warship patrols off of Libya’s coast, in order to maintain a United Nations arms embargo. Meanwhile, the top U.S. Commander for the international military operation in Libya, General Carter Ham, says most missions being flown are by pilots from other countries in the coalition. Still, the United States, in participating in assaults on Libyan air defenses, has played a key role in the establishment of a U.N.-authorized no-fly zone.Meanwhile, most recent fighting within the country itself has taken place hundreds of miles from the capital. Loyalists to Muammar Gaddafi are battling rebels trying to force him out. President Obama says the U.S. wants to see Gaddafi leave, but that the international effort's goal is more limited – to set up the no-fly zone and protect civilians.
Is this air assault and establishment of a no-fly zone, then, a responsible step by the international coalition in Libya? Or is it overreaching, and a dangerous indication to the rest of the region of further Western interference? Should it – as Germany is calling for – be coupled with a full oil and gas embargo of Libya by the European Union? And does America really want (or can it even afford) military involvement – of any kind – in yet another Middle East nation?
We'll take up these and other questions with former Congressman and U.S. Senate candidate Joe Sestak, who has been critical of the Obama administration in recent days, and John Craig, a former political officer at the American Embassy in Libya, and the former U.S. Ambassador to Oman. Ambassador Craig is a Scholar-in-Residence at Elizabethtown College, and just returned from Kuwait last week, where he heard Middle Eastern views of what's going on in the region, including concerns about Western influence. He can also tell us more about Gaddafi, whom he's met several times, and can confirm or clarify whether the conventional wisdom that Gaddafi is a crazed dictator is accurate, or lacks nuance. We'll also explore whether Americans are really for democracy everywhere, or merely where it serves our economic or political interests.
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comments
If politicians do not move on to a higher office, are they entitled to forever be addressed by the title they formerly held? I don't know why, but this really bugs me.
I'm curious what others think about this. Feel free to chime in if you have any thoughts about how former officials should be addressed.
- Craig
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