NEW YORK (Reuters) — Former U.S. President Bill Clinton said the United States should enforce a no-fly zone over Libya to allow a fair fight between insurgents and troops loyal to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.

The international community has been debating whether to impose a no-fly zone as Gaddafi’s warplanes carry out air strikes unhindered by insurgent anti-aircraft guns mounted on the back of pick-up trucks.

Clinton’s comments echoed those of some prominent U.S. senators calling for a no-fly zone to police Libyan air space and went beyond the caution of the Obama administration.

“I wouldn’t do it if they hadn’t asked, but if the (insurgent) leaders are on television pleading for it, “I think that we should do it,” Clinton told the Women in the World conference in New York late on Thursday.

“Gaddafi has internationalized the conflict himself by hiring people from other countries who do not give a rip about the Libyans,” Clinton said. “So that’s why (the insurgents) said, ‘Just give us the chance to have a fair fight,’ and I, for whatever it’s worth, think that’s what we should do.”

Clinton said previous no-fly zones had worked, noting such efforts over Iraq and Bosnia during his presidency, which spanned from 1993 to 2001.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the former president’s wife, has said it was up to the United Nations to decide whether there should be a no-fly zone.

She told a congressional hearing on Thursday the no-fly zones over Serbia and Iraq had not stopped the killing of civilians and did not push leaders out of power. (Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Doina Chiacu)

The commentary below by The New Republic‘s Leon Wieseltier reflects the frustration and anger of many pro-democracy activists around the world at U.S. President Barack Obama’s shameful refusal to help Libyan freedom fighters.

Barack Obama’s policy toward the Libyan struggle for freedom is no longer a muddle. It is now a disgrace.

Here is what his administration and its allies have told the world, and the Libyan dictator, and the Libyan rebels, in recent days. The director of national intelligence declared before the Senate Armed Services Committee, in a chilling example of self-fulfilling prophecy, that “over the longer term Qaddafi will prevail.” The secretary of defense continued to insist that the imposition of a no-fly zone over Libya is too much for America to do, and to frighten the public with the warning that it would constitute a military operation, as if all military operations are like all other military operations, and therefore the prelude to the sort of wars that would require us, as he put it in an earlier outburst about Iraq and Afghanistan, to have our heads examined. Of course nobody is suggesting that a single American soldier step foot on Libyan soil: Gates’s exaggeration of the logistics and the implications of a no-fly zone, which the Libyan resistance is begging for, is the purest demagoguery, a way of inhibiting the discussion of what really can be done in this plainly just cause…

It may be, as Clinton said, that the consequences of a no-fly zone would be unforeseeable, but the consequences of the absence of a no-fly zone are entirely foreseeable. They are even seeable. We see them daily, most recently in the massacre at Zawiyah. And in a press briefing prior to the NATO ministerial meeting in Brussels, the secretary general of the alliance began by intoning that “the whole world is watching” and then announced that “NATO has no intention to intervene in Libya.” He did not grasp the heartless illogic of what he said—though if his remark could be construed as saying that the whole world is watching NATO have no intention to intervene in Libya, there was some truth to it. And he followed with these unforgettable observations: “If these systematic attacks against the Libyan people continue it may amount to a crime against humanity. And many people around the world may be tempted to say let’s do something to prevent this massacre against the Libyan civilian population.” Some of us may indeed be so tempted. But “on the other hand,” Rasmussen continued, “there are a lot of sensitivities in the region as far as foreign military intervention is concerned, or what might be considered a foreign military intervention.” Get it? We will not act to prevent a crime against humanity because by doing so we will offend—who, exactly? Not the Libyans who are clamoring for Western assistance, or the Egyptians who looked to us for unequivocal support in their fight for freedom, or the Iranians who made a similar mistake. No, we will offend only a certain doctrinaire Western notion of what the contemporary Arab world thinks about the West, a notion that the democratic upheavals in the Arab world are making manifestly obsolete. We will offend not their assumptions, but our assumptions about their assumptions… [read the full text here]

Reuters is reporting that Libyan freedom fighters today have pushed back Gaddafi forces in Ras Lanuf. Yesterday it was reported that Gaddafi forces took over the eastern Libyan town after heavy bombardments with fighter jets, helicopters and tanks.

“There has been intense fighting with Gaddafi’s forces. They have withdrawn from the residential area to the west. We are now combing the area,” said rebel fighter Mohammed Aboul Hassan, told Reuters by telephone from the town.

Police in Saudi Arabia opened fire Thursday to disperse a protest in the Eastern Province, injuring at least one person.

The rare violence raised concern about a crackdown ahead of more planned protests after Friday prayers in different cities throughout the oil-rich kingdom, Washington Post reports:

Despite the ban and a warning that security forces will act against them, protesters demanding the release of political prisoners took to the streets for a second day in the eastern city of Qatif. Several hundred protesters, some wearing face masks to avoid being identified, marched after dark asking for “Freedom for prisoners.”

Police, who were lined up opposite the protesters, fired percussion bombs, followed by gunfire, causing the crowd to scatter, a witness said, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of government retaliation.

The witness said at least one protester was injured and lifted by others to a car for treatment. It was not clear how the protester was injured.

Scores of protesters in Qatif had also marched in the city streets Wednesday night.

James Clapper, the US national intelligence director, has told U.S. Senate today that Muammar Gaddafi will defeat the rebels. That seems to be the Obama Administration’s wishful thinking. Some senators were furious at Clapper’s comments and asked for his resignation. The Libyan people are pleading for help in liberating themselves from a mass murderer, and instead of providing some help (no-fly zone), the Obama White House comes out with a moral boosting statement for Gaddafi forces.

(BBC) — James Clapper told the US Senate that Col Gaddafi’s superior military force would prevail over the long term.

In Washington, Mr Clapper, who is the top intelligence adviser to US President Barack Obama, told the Senate he saw no evidence Col Gaddafi would step down from power. He warned Col Gaddafi’s military was stronger than had previously been described.

In response to calls from some senior US Senate figures to establish a no-fly zone, Mr Clapper said Col Gaddafi’s air defences were “quite substantial.”

(Fox News) — U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham, in an exclusive interview with Fox News correspondent Carl Cameron, called for Gen. James Clapper to resign or be fired as Director of National Intelligence, citing his comments before the Senate Armed Services Committee this morning, on which Graham sits.

Graham told Cameron that he lacks confidence in Clapper’s understanding of his job, that President Obama should “repudiate” Clapper’s remarks, and that this is the third time Clapper has faltered in this way. “Three strikes and you’re out,” Graham said.

(Politico.com) — “The situation in Libya remains tenuous and the director’s comments today on Qadhafi’s ‘staying power’ are not helpful to our national security interests. His comments will make the situation more difficult for those opposing Qadhafi,” Graham said in a statement released a few hours after his comments to Fox. “It also undercuts our national efforts to bring about the desired result of Libya moving from dictator to democracy.”