Two air force pilots jumped from parachutes from their Russian-made Sukhoi fighter jet and let it crash, rather than carry out orders to bomb opposition-held Benghazi, Libya's second largest city, the website Quryna reported, citing an unidentified officer in the air force control room.
One of the pilots — identified by the report as Ali Omar Gadhafi — was from Gadhafi's tribe, the Gadhadhfa, said Farag al-Maghrabi, a local resident who saw the pilots and the wreckage of the jet, which crashed in a deserted area outside the key oil port of Breqa.
I guess the idea of refraining from "foreign interference" is gripping the White House right now. I think America should intervene whenever dictators massacre their people no matter what the outcome. That would be the kind of pro-dissident sentiment that used to be the hallmark of the Democratic Party. I guess the new "pragmatic" White House needs to wait until one side or the other gets the upper hand and then rush in late to the party. Well at least John Kerry is speaking out:
"The Gadhafi government's use of deadly force against its own people should mean the end of the regime itself," Kerry, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman, said in a statement. "It's beyond despicable, and I hope we are witnessing its last hours in power. Libyans should have the opportunity to choose leaders who respect their basic rights."
He called on the international community to "put (Gadhafi) on notice that his cowardly actions will have consequences."
These words should be coming out of the White House and not Capitol Hill. Maybe Obama wanted to meet Gadhafi "without preconditions" and this whole "Democracy thing" is putting a cramp on his arguments.
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