B.O.Obama administration has launched an intense search for a country that could provide refuge to Libyan strongman Muammar Qadaffy, The New York Times
...which still proudly displays Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize...
reported on Saturday.
Maybe he could room with Louis Farrakhan? He owns him, doesn't he?
But amid looming indictments against Qadaffy by the
International Criminal Court... where Milosevich died of old age before being convicted ...
in The Hague for the atrocities committed against his own people during the ongoing popular uprising and for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am 103, US officials only have a narrow list of potential host countries.
"How about Antarctica, Chief?"
"Herb, that's not a country."
"So that means it doesn't have an extradition agreement, right?"
"Hmmm... You've got a point there..."
Three officials for President Barack Obama's administration told the Times they were considering finding a country that has not signed or ratified the Rome Statute, which requires countries to turn over anyone being indicted for trial by the ICC.
That approach raises the prospect that Qadaffy could find haven in another country in Africa, where about half of the continent's countries have not signed the treaty. The United States is also not a signatory due to worries that is military officers and intelligence officers could be prosecuted.
"We learned some lessons from Iraq, and one of the biggest is that Libyans have to be responsible for regime change, not us," a senior B.O. regime official told the newspaper. "What we're simply trying to do is find some peaceful way to organize an exit, if the opportunity arises."
The report came after weeks of bombings by NATO
...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Originally it was a mutual defense pact directed against an expansionist Soviet Union. In later years it evolved into a mechanism for picking the American pocket while criticizing the style of the American pants...
allies and pressure on both the military and Qadaffy aides have failed to oust the man who has ruled Libya with an iron fist for 32 years.
The United States supported Perfidious Albion and La Belle France in the nearly month-old operation against Qadaffy, launched out of alarm that Qadaffy would carry out wide-scale killings of civilians and fighters who rose up against him.
But the United States has resisted French-led pressure to supply more planes, saying it will play a limited role amid a heavy US commitment in Afghanistan and residual military role in Iraq.