The National Journal’s current feature (Late Update: … subsequently changed):
The NJ story actually has it closer to right than the feature headline, reporting that the U.S. warships are on their way toward Libyan waters, but have not yet arrived. But in any case, it would be a very different thing for U.S. ships to actually enter Libyan territorial waters uninvited — any such move would surely mark a dramatic escalation in the U.S.’s response to the crisis.
Late Update: Those of us old enough to remember when Qaddafi played the role of Middle East boogeyman before Saddam Hussein recall occassional skirmishes between the U.S. and Libya in the 1980s over precisely the issue of what constitutes Libyan territorial waters. Qaddaffi claimed the Gulf of Sidra as Libyan waters in the early ’70s, and it became the focal point of U.S.-Libya military tensions, including a couple of Cold War-era dogfights between U.S. fighters and Libyan MiGs in the Reagan and Bush I years. So this isn’t an idle issue.
