AUSTRALIANS AT WAR

AUSTRALIANS AT WAR
THE NEW AMERICAN CENTURY is a compelling factual history of neoconservatism and its influence on US Foreign Policy in the Middle East during the first decade of the twenty-first century. Click on image above for details.

Monday, March 21, 2011

DOES ALLIED INTERVENTION IN LIBYA GO TOO FAR?

The idea of the UN sponsored intervention in Libya was to essentially stop the slaughter of civilians as a result of the civil war that had evolved from protests by Libyans against their leader Muammar Gaddafi.

At first, as the protests morphed into a civil war and the protestors became rebels, they seemed to be getting the upper hand over Gaddafi’s forces and the rebels seemed on the verge of victory as rumours spread that Gaddafi had fled the country. But then, as Gaddafi’s forces regrouped and recovered from the initial shock of being routed by the rebels in the west and the east, Gaddafi loyalists fought back and retook the central and western part of the country quite quickly and headed toward the east and the rebel’s stronghold based in Benghazi.

The Gaddafi forces advance on the eastern part of the country held by rebel forces was accompanied by threats from Gaddafi and his son that they would annihilate the rebels, ‘showing them no mercy’. Since Gaddafi had already demonstrated his barbarity by having his own security men executed for refusing to open fire on unarmed demonstrators, (warning: this link shows graphic content) it seemed clear that Gaddafi was in no frame of mind to forgive those that had rebelled against his rule so the ‘showing them no mercy’ threat was taken very seriously. The ‘showing them no mercy’ threat was, furthermore, implied to included anyone that was found to have supported the rebels as Gaddafi threatened to hunt them down ‘house by house’ and ‘inch by inch’, This was taken as an implicit threat against civilians that supported the rebels.

All in all, what with Gaddafi’s threats and past history together with the fact that his forces were gaining the upper hand, it seemed a bloodbath was imminent as Gaddafi’s forces were set to make a final thrust on the rebels holed up in Benghazi and in other pockets in eastern Libya.

When the battle was going the rebel’s way, they asked specifically for no foreigners to intervene. However, as the battle began to swing in favour of Gaddafi’s forces with his superior firepower and airpower and Gaddafi increasingly became more threatening, Libyan rebels changed their minds about intervention and asked for a no-fly zone to be established. At first the West were wary of the idea fearing that it would be seen as typical Western interference against an Arab nation that has oil and that any intervention may be seen as a cynical ploy to gain influence in an oil-rich state. But, as the battle quickly seemed to be inevitably lost from the rebel’s point of view and the possibility of a bloodbath seemed increasingly possible, the international community, especially after many of the Arab states also supported the idea after initially being against the idea, relented and authorised intervention.

However, now that intervention has been authorised and participating nations are taking action against Gaddafi’s forces, there are concerns that the allied forces taking part in the ‘intervention’ are going beyond the intended mandate of stopping Gaddafi forces from committing crimes against the Libyan people and the rebels he is fighting. As well as targeting Gaddafi forces that are rolling east to reinforce those attacking the rebels, the international forces are also hitting targets not at the front lines and are targeting Libyan infrastructure that can be used by Gaddafi in his fight against the rebels particularly its air defence facilities. While it is true that hitting Libya’s air defence facilities will deny Gaddafi the ability to hit back at the allies air offence, one also needs to realise that these facilities are not so much Gaddafi’s but Libya’s, and the chances of Gaddafi being able to hit back at the allies air offensive even with his air defence facilities intact are very remote. Many of Gaddafi’s air defence facilities are based in civilian areas and some of these areas have been hit by the allied assault which is said to have killed civilians.

It is clear that the motive now behind the allied assault against Gaddafi is not just to level the playing field in order to ensure there is no massacre of rebels and dissidents in the event of Gaddafi prevailing in this war, but to actually ensure that Gaddafi is defeated and either sent packing to any country that would have him, or killed in the assaults and fighting, or arrested and brought to justice for crimes against humanity and war crimes.

If it is, and always has been the intention, of the allies to be rid of Gaddafi for good, then the international community has been conned. If Gaddafi chooses to stick it out to the bitter end then there will be a lot of people dying on both sides regardless of the strength of the allied assault on Gaddafi – and that means a lot of those dying will be civilians.

Finally, the question that really needs to be asked now is; if Gaddafi is going to be attacked for killing unarmed civilians, will the allies attack those other governments that attack unarmed civilians; like Bahrain, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and, dare I mention, Israel?

9 comments:

IDHolm said...

About 265,000 results (0.40 secs) for "Hillary Clinton" "Gaddafi must go"

Same as Saddam, Gaddafi was "their bastard."

The US knows (almost) only murdering violence, as the Zs.

The exceptions to 'almost' are threats, coercion, 'commercial action s' (the 'normal' 'resource-rent' rip-offs and so-called 'sanctions,' say) - like those which killed Mme "worth it" Albright's ½mio Iraqi children - and the equivalent ½mio adults killed.

It's a fallacy to argue that the US, Saddam & Gaddafi are *all* bad, therefore no intervention, but we've seen - the US (&Zs) have 'form' - that when the US&/Zs invade, they do it primarily to steal something; murder for spoil, soil, oil.

Just as for Saddam, Gaddafi *could*, most probably *should* be the object of some sort of UN-police action, i.e. be arrested, charged and packed off to the ICC.

BUT: Letting Western powers (US + sycophantic quisling hangers-on) loose on a 'military' intervention is *not* the way to go. Should be obvious, but consider this: a) We the sheople are continually lied to, and b) the US is a known trouble-maker, proof = the $US400mio exposed as having been spent on 'destabilisation' of Iran. The total US budget for 'dirty tricks' is unknown (secrecy is un- and anti-democratic); the US (+ 'sidekick' Zs) are not merely almost never to be trusted to do any *correct* thing, they can almost always be trusted to be *bad*.

Anonymous said...

I have found, during this liberating but tragic time, it very interesting to assess the commentary regrding the events. It has helped identify Russian/China backed sites and Sirael first sites and persons. IO notice Julia was against ridding of Kadaffi despite Rudd rampaging and garnering support, that is also an i opener.

Regime change for all the right reasons, will rarely not be bloody when it means death or trial for the loser tyrant.

ciao Annie

IDHolm said...

An absolutely vital point:

We know - or by now bloody-well should know - that we're being lied to = propagandised, and that continuously. I 'monitor' the output of several state-supported broadcasters; they've *all* been sending the same 'tone' = demonising Gaddafi, reporting 'his' atrocities by attacking his own people etc.. Some of it is undoubtedly true, but the important 'hook' here is the 'some,' namely what proportion really is true (as opposed to mainly US-sourced propaganda), and how much/many of the atrocities are really being done by Gaddafi forces, as opposed to how much is being done by infiltrator/destabilisers?

The intervention itself was done with what appears to have been unseemly haste; one report held that the French aircraft were on the way before/during Sarkozy's Paris conference, a fact which was notified *only* at the end, another - equally hastily revised, perhaps, to say that Sarkozy'd advised the conference 'beforehand.' Hmmm. Haste was of course required everywhere, because it looked like the 'rebels' were headed for a loss or the exits, if not both.

The next and obvious question is Q: How much of the supposed 'revolution' was being instigated/done by 'ring-in' (CIA etc.) subversives?

Let me put that, another way: Recalling the known fact that the MSM conduits and *actively* assists lies being transmitted to us, so exactly how far have we been led down the garden path - this time?

Atlanta Roofing said...

We are backed into a corner with statements like Gaddafi must go. Regime change is what the rebels are counting on. The coalition to do the job for them. Lucky rebels. Once again into the fray with no exit strategy in place.

Anonymous said...

I have read this blog admiringly for several years, but in this instance find myself in disagreement.
Gaddafi,like Castro, Chavez and Morales has always been subjected to vicious demonisation.
There is little or no evidence, other than unsupported allegations, that the offenses attributed to him are genuine.
His real crime is his insistance on maintaining Libya's control over its own resources and banking system, which has given
the people the
highest per capita income and quality of life on the African continent. Higher in some instances than some European countries.
Naturally the impostion of neo-liberal economics will soon change all that.
It has been estimated that the number of disparate groups opposing him equate to about 600.000 out of a population of approximately 6 million.
The lies and misinformation in the MSM are at about the level of those in the lead-up to the Iraq war, which began exactly 8 years ago to the day.

Damian Lataan said...

Anonymous, the difference between Gaddafi and Castro, Chavez and Morales is that Gaddafi is a fascist whereas the others are socialist, though they still have a way to go before they really are socialists.

Anonymous said...

With respect Damian,I dispute your assertion that Gaddafi is a fascist. Of the 14 classic signifiers of fascism more are displayed by the western 'democracies' than by Libya.
Gaddafi's ideology shows a rather muddled sicialism, imperfect certainly, and not wholly realised, but socialism nevertheless.

Damian Lataan said...

Sorry Anonymous, but you'll find that Gaddafi actually complies with virtually all of Britt's characteristics of fascism.

There are many that label themselves 'socialist' when in fact they are fascist; Gaddafi is one of them. He's no more 'socialist' than Hitler was.

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