Commentary: A no-fly zone in Libya is a war cry

[unhappycamper]

Commentary: A no-fly zone in Libya is a war cry
By Doyle McManus | Los Angeles Times
Posted on Friday, March 4, 2011

It didn't take long for well-meaning members of Congress this week to come up with an easy sounding proposal to help the Libyan opposition topple Moammar Gadhafi: Just impose a no-fly zone.

"We spend $500 billion on defense and we can't take down Libyan air defenses?" Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., told the Washington Post. "You tell those Libyan pilots that there is a no-fly zone, and they are not going to fly."

Sen. John F. Kerry, D-Mass., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, agreed. "A no-fly zone is not a long-term proposition ... and I believe we ought to be ready to implement it as necessary."

But there's one thing those optimistic assessments play down: Imposing a no-fly zone is an act of war, and we're already at war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

If the United States sent aircraft to patrol the skies of Libya, the first step would have to be to knock out the country's antiaircraft batteries; that's an act of war too.