A Blessing from the Arab League?

The administration really pushed the notion that Obama's mind was finally made up when the Arab League got behind the UN push to enact a no-fly zone. Then they changed their mind. But who makes up the Arab League? Aren't they a bunch of tinpots, oil sheikhs, terrorist enablers and pan-Arabists?

Here's some history from 2003 as Bush was preparing his attack on Baghdad to save civilians when it wasn't cool, featuring former Ba'ath insurgency funder/leader and still wanted man Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri debating with the Kuwaiti foreign minister at a meeting of the Organization of the Islamic Conference [emphasis added]:

Sheikh Mohammed Sabah al-Salem al-Sabah, the Kuwaiti minister of state for foreign affairs, interrupted Douri with comments that were inaudible to viewers at home and to reporters in Doha allowed only to watch via closed-circuit, but which officials in the summit chamber later said referred to the Iraqi’s remarks as lies.

Douri responded: “Shut up you monkey. Curse be upon your moustache, you traitor.” “This is hypocrisy and falsehood,” Sheikh Mohammed shot back.

Nice. Sounds like an old Johnny Carson joke. And, at an Arab League Summit meeting around the same time:

Gadhafi said Saudi King Fahd had acknowledged to him a willingness to “cooperate with the devil” to protect his country from Iraq during the 1990-91 Gulf crisis.

Abdullah called Gadhafi “an agent for colonizers,” and the Arab League session was abruptly halted.

By the way, al-Douri, who still has a bounty on his head as Iraq's most-wanted outlaw, addressed last year's AL summit on tape calling for Arab leaders to "recognize the formations of resistance, armed and unarmed, and cut diplomatic relations with the power imposed by the occupying forces in Iraq."

Good thing the president got permission from these guys instead of Congress.


PS--

With all the talk about possible al Qaeda participation in the Libyan rebellion, here's a blast from the past:

Much of his work seems to be done together with Anas al-Liby, a top al-Qaeda leader with a mysterious link to Western intelligence agencies similar to Mohamed’s. In 1996, British intelligence will pay al-Liby to assassinate Libyan leader Colonel Mu’ammar al-Qadhafi (see 1996), and then will let him live openly in Britain until 2000

He's still at large. And here's a United States public service announcement about another member of AQ with an al-Libi in his name. Talking about exploding heads, imagine these guys running around the desert firing on Gaddafi forces protected by coalition air support.