Sunday 6 March 2011

Libya - The Next Bloody Act

Sadly, a week has passed by and the domino effect that appeared to be rolling across Muslim North Africa and the Middle East, appears to have been halted in Libya, where Gaddafi has managed to hang on to about half of the territory, two thirds of the population, and the majority of the economic levers

Gadaffi And His Female Bodyguards
Gadaffi And His Female Bodyguards

 ..... In a command economy everything goes through Tripoli.

He appears to have determined that he has a reasonable chance of using armed force to recapture the lost areas with his own militias and mercenaries, and no one right now seems to be in a position to stop him doing this. His recent pronouncements are not encouraging for those who hoped that he would simply fade away ....

"I am a fighter, a revolutionary from tents ... I will die as a martyr at the end." ..... "I have not yet ordered the use of force, not yet ordered one bullet to be fired ... when I do, everything will burn."

The Libyan leader has also alleged that all of those who were protesting against his rule were "drugged", and called on people to capture them and bring them "to justice", and not to back down from "cleansing Libya house by house" unless the protesters surrendered.

The UK, which no longer has the forces to do anything after we abandoned our carrier forces, and started issuing redundancy notices to soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, have been suggesting no fly zones (such as we imposed on Iraq, prior to invasion, in order to protect the Kurds and southern Shias), over Libya to protect the rebels.

As we wouldn't be enforcing it, and are in fact just risking US airman's lives, this suggestion has been slapped down by the US military .... Defense Secretary Robert Gates said

"If it's ordered, we can do it. But the reality is there's a lot of, frankly, loose talk about some of these military options. Let's just call a spade a spade: A no-fly zone begins with an attack on Libya to destroy the air defenses"..... "In my opinion, any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should have his head examined, as General MacArthur so delicately put it" .... so that puts and end to that idea.

It would take three US Carriers to enforce a 'No Fly Zone'
It would take three US Carriers to enforce a 'No Fly Zone'

A very bloody Civil War, or a coup by one of his generals (A Romania style bullet through the head), appear to be the only options ..... the world (EU and US), should brace themselves for hundreds of thousands of "Refugees" and 'Asylum seekers' ..... there is a domino effect in this as well.  

Update: As the world now knows, NATO did step in just before Gaddafi won, and Gaddafi was overthrown ..... he was killed 20/10/2011 .... he didn't die a martyr, but was dragged out of a sewer drain where he was hiding from a mob.

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4 comments:

  1. Disgusted On Looker11 March 2011 at 13:55

    Looks Like Gaddafi is going to be left to slaughter his way back into power, while the EU squabbles about whether it should continue doing nothing, or be bold, and do next to nothing.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous16 March 2011 at 13:08

    That previous comment seems to be correct. The EU has done nothing, and Gaddafi has probably done enough to impose rule.

    As the Blog states, we can expect a million Libyans to try to enter the EU as 'refugees'. That's all it needs, more Muslims.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous24 August 2011 at 19:11

    The events didn't pan out as you thought, but there has been a long struggle.

    Here's a thought though ... will the West now be swamped by refugees who were Gaddafi 'Loyalists'?

    ReplyDelete
  4. No PC26 October 2011 at 18:56

    This post was essentially wrong, at the last moment the UK and NATO stepped in and the rest as they say is history. However the bullet in the head (amongst other things allegedly) was the end for Gaddafi.

    ReplyDelete

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