Libya was supposed to be different. The lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan had been learned, David Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy insisted last year. This would be a real humanitarian intervention. Unlike Iraq, there would be no boots on the ground. Unlike in Afghanistan, NATO air power would be used to support a fight for freedom [...]

A leading human rights organisation has urged NATO to investigate fully the deaths of civilians in air strikes in Libya last year. Human Rights Watch believes NATO air strikes killed at least 72 civilians and says the organisation needs to bear responsibility where appropriate. “We’re calling for prompt, credible and thorough investigations,” HRW’s Fred Abrahams [...]

Al Jazeera will retell the Libyan civil war from a new perspective: through the eyes of Gaddafi and other top officials. They’re the conversations Muammar Gaddafi didn’t want the world to hear: Al Jazeera has had access to more than 12,000 recordings of Gaddafi, his son Saif al-Islam, and other high-ranking Libyan officials. Libya on [...]

The Syrian uprising began as a largely peaceful protest movement calling for change in the wake of similar uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya. The unarmed protests continue — and are still met by gunfire from regime forces. On Friday, security forces opened fire on demonstrators at Aleppo University, killing a teenager. The U.N. said [...]

Bashar al-Assad accused of wanting to ‘wipe Homs off the map’ as activists report 17 people killed by security forces UN observers must be swiftly deployed to Syria or “other options” will be considered, President Bashar al-Assad was warned as western countries kept up pressure on him to maintain a shaky ceasefire and comply with [...]

Power has always corrupted, and the British state is not and never has been immune. On Wednesday, the Guardian revealed how the man from Whitehall put the shredder to energetic use to conceal colonial crimes in the 50s. Allegations of British voices popping up to question abused suspects in far-flung places continue under this government [...]

A former Libyan dissident who was abducted and flown to one of Muammar Gaddafi’s prisons in a so-called rendition operation mounted with the help of MI6 has started legal proceedings against Jack Straw, who was British foreign secretary at the time. Lawyers representing Abdel Hakim Belhaj confirmed on Wednesday they had served papers on Straw [...]

WASHINGTON — Despite widespread praise in Western capitals for NATO’s leadership of the air campaign in Libya, a confidential NATO assessment paints a sobering portrait of the alliance’s ability to carry out such campaigns without significant support from the United States. The report concluded that the allies struggled to share crucial target information, lacked specialized [...]

“War is a racket. It always has been.” These words are as true now as they were when Major General Smedley Butler first delivered them in a series of speeches in the 1930s. And he should have known. As one of the most decorated and celebrated marines in the history of the Corps, Butler drew [...]

Proponents of foreign military intervention in Libya argued that giving air support to rebels there would spread liberalism and save Libyan lives. But the success of that revolution has thus far delivered political chaos destructive to both ends. That result is worth noting as backers of the Libya intervention offer it as a model for [...]