Free Republic

WASHINGTON, March 22 (Reuters) - The no-fly zone over Libya could end up costing the Western coalition more than $1 billion if the operation drags on more than a couple of months, defense analysts say. Zack Cooper, a senior analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, said the initial cost of eliminating Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's air defenses was likely to be between $400 million and $800 million. The expense of patrolling the no-fly zone once it is established is likely to be $30 million to $100 million a week, he said. The U.S. military has no official...

On CNN’s “Reliable Sources” show on Sunday, host Howard Kurtz asked, “One major question about the assault on Libya, what happened to the media’s skepticism?” He’s right, but his comparison to the war in Iraq was wrong. The correct parallel is President Bill Clinton’s illegal and unconstitutional military intervention in the civil war in Kosovo, then a province of Serbia. Serbia, like Libya today, did not present a threat to the U.S., but in both cases Democratic presidents went to war with those nations anyway, in order to strengthen international organizations. What the media are missing is the fact that...