Europe, not US, pushed for military force in Libya (AP) â 19 hours ago PARIS (AP) â America unleashed the heavier firepower, but Europe â to the surprise of some â was the driving force behind the assault on Libya's Moammar Gadhafi. France, perhaps hoping to purge memories of a dictator-coddling past, fired the first strikes Saturday. Britain, still stinging from its release of the Libyan agent behind the Lockerbie plane bombing, cajoled other nations into joining. And all 27 countries in the European Union insisted nine days ago that Gadhafi "must relinquish power immediately" â unexpected, from a bloc often accused of being too slow and too soft. President Barack Obama, initially reticent, joined in the call and seemed happy to let Europe take the lead publicly. The contrast with 2003 â when France led global opposition to the war on Iraq â shows how much has changed since then, and also how different things can be when the problem is on Europe's doorstep. Europeans fear a flood of refugees, making them particularly sensitive to the possibility of a humanitarian disaster in North Africa. But the reasons for Europe's anti-Gadhafi push are more complex than that, and may have as much to do with personalities as politics: The frenetic French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, eager for attention on the world stage and suffering in the polls at home; Britain's youthful prime minister, David Cameron, eager to deflect attention from tough austerity measures and score some foreign policy points. http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap...fS9lKg?docId=a375cfc7a0fd4c798d7c9dcff5a4d68f I did not know USA has now become a colony of France, seems like the Europeans are the puppet masters here, they tell US who to bomb and USA has to do it.
I see a lot of opinion that the US is trying to keep a positive world opinion by not "leading the charge" against the Libyan government.