As one of the first public disagreements between President Dmitri Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin shows, Russians are split on the wisdom of imposing a no-fly zone over Libya. Rossiyskaya Gazeta columnist Yevgeniy Shestakov warns those who were hoping for a Russian veto of the U.N. Security Council resolution on Libya, that had Moscow done so, the consequences would have been extremely damaging...

If only Jeffrey Goldberg et al. became this exercised when major U.S. news organizations refer to the C.I.A.’s torture program as “what some call torture.”

Libya: Not so much a question of “if” as of “when” by Prairie Weather True: “Qaddafi poses no threat to America.” Well, except for an airliner full of people brought down by Qaddafi or the recent killings of Americans in Berlin. Even leaving aside those incidents, D.B. Grady, writing in The Atlantic, is right about what Obama has managed to do. Here is the rare alignment...

Clean Coal and the Price of Eggs in Japan By D. R. Welch As many environmentalist dance around the grave of nuclear power, Japanese farmers are busy trying to allay fears of radioactive produce. Ok, maybe not the fear of eggs but, the fear of radioactive spinach and milk. As all six reactors have had power reestablished, workers, engineers and scientists will begin trying to restart the cooling pumps. The damage...

All of the articles I’ve linked to below came to me via my Twitter feed.

The troubles at the Fukishima nuclear facility have all but disappeared from the US media and I believe it’s intentional.  Public opinion in the US is already turning against nuclear power and the corporate media doesn’t want to do anything to encourage that trend.  I’m sure that the situation in Japan is much worse than the Japanese are saying but even what they are saying is dire. There...

What is the ‘international community.’ Does it represent nations working things out in concert, or is it closer to pure fiction? Columnist Olivier Picard of France’s Les Dernières Nouvelles d’Alsace laments that the events of the past few days reflect the sad truth of the politics of our fast-globalizing world. For the Les Dernières Nouvelles d’Alsace, Olivier Picard writes in part: We...

EGYPTIAN AIR FORCE FIGHTER JETS To paraphrase the great military blogger Tom Ricks, the only people not freaking over Libya are those who didn’t like the idea of a no-fly zone in the first place. That noted, the U.S.-led NATO air forces have accomplished what they set out to do in a mere three days. Radar and anti-aircraft missile sites are in ruins and Moammar el-Qaddafi’s air force is effectively...

UPDATE: According to the blog Israel Matzav there has been one death. Carl live-blogged, the newest updates are at the bottom of the post. ================================= MSNBC just reported that a bus blew up in Jerusalem and there are many casualties. This may signal a new reign of terror by Palestinians. A bus explosion in Jerusalem has caused dozens of casualties, police said Wednesday. Scores of ambulances...

The selective memory is John McCain’s:

Hajo de Reijger, The Netherlands This copyrighted cartoon is license to run on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited. All rights reserved.

A new CBS poll finds that nearly 7 in 10 support air strikes in Libya — a sign that the U.S. public will give early efforts a chance. But if the history of past wars is any indication, patience won’t last forever — and probably even less in the case of Libya: Nearly seven in ten Americans support the use of military air strikes in Libya in order to protect civilians from attacks by Libyan leader...

I had just finished paying for some magazines at Hartford’s Bradley International Airport before heading back to San Diego when the cashier asked me: “Do you want some gum with that?” “No,” I told her.” “Some water?” “No.” “A newspaper? “ “No!” “How about a candy bar?” “No!! Just the magazines.” I went to my doctor due to a stomach problem. After the exam the doctor asked...

If all you have is a hammer — which in this case is the world’s biggest military — then every problem ultimately resembles a nail. ~ WILL BUNCH I have reluctantly come around to supporting the no-fly zone over Libya because, as belated as the action may be, it is in the service of a larger cause — the democratic transformation of the Arab world, warts and all as well as risks and all...

QADDAFI AND BERLUSCONI MAKE NICE Napoleon famously observed that no Italian state had ever finished a war on the same side as that on which it had started, except when it had changed twice, and no European nation has had a closer if sometimes ambivalent relationship with Libya than NATO partner Italy. Libya became an Italian colony in 1910 and remained so until 1947 when the Italian empire, such as it...

In a word – it’s complicated. First and foremost, I am supporting the president because he is Commander in Chief and he has taken the United States to war. He didn’t take the Obama administration to war, or the Democratic party, or (many) liberals. He has taken the country to war – my country, our country. If we have disagreements – and believe me, I’ve got a ton – they...

I’m still on the fence over the intervention in Libya, though I’m leaning more towards support than opposition. (Yes, I’m still something of a liberal interventionist, despite Iraq, despite Afghanistan.) Well, maybe. It depends. (The humanitarian objectives are noble, but I just can’t see how this plays out well.) But I genuinely feel for Obama, who finds himself in a no-win situation...

Greatly overshadowed by the ongoing crisis in Japan and the imposition of a no-fly zone over Libya, President Obama has been on his first visit to Brazil and its first woman president, Dilma Rousseff. This news item from Brazil’s O Globo reports that while the mood music was great, actual progress on issues of importance to Brazil were very thin on the ground. For Brazil’s O Globo, reporters Eliane...

While natural or man-made disasters rarely have a lasting impact on the global economy, Financial Times Deutschland columnist Thomas Fricke warns that there is a good chance that, as with the tremendous loss of confidence in the banking system in 2008, the tragedy in Japan could trigger an extremely damaging loss of confidence in the global energy supply – leading to yet another global recession. For...

UPDATE, March 28 Yokota Air Base, just outside Tokyo, has become the nerve center and logistical hub for “Operation Tomodachi,” the U.S. humanitarian assistance efforts to help earthquake/tsunami/nuclear-power-plant-disaster-ravaged Japan. In the weeks that have followed the disaster, some 1,300 military and government workers have converged on Yokota, and “[s]uddenly, this usually sleepy airlift base...