Sunday 20 March 2011

Shooting fish in a barrel

Odyssey Dawn? Sounds like a dodgy '70s prog-rock album, but no, it's our new war; 'Krieg ohne Strategie'* as Spiegel aptly calls it. I note this, as I'm straining my language skills in the hope of getting a more accurate view from what the Ministry of Truth will be telling us.

What exactly is the plan? From the outside, it has the air of a hastily-arranged benefit gig to save the local orphanage - and no doubt its result will fill a few of those.

The West is going to stop Gaddaffi killing civilians? That's okay, then. Who could object.... what about the rebels, those under arms, who are actively engaged in a war against Gaddaffi's regime? Is he allowed to attack them? It seems not, as the destruction of the loyalist forces outside Benghazi indicate. But are the rebels to be held to a cease-fire, or is Gaddaffi supposed to do nothing while they reverse the territorial losses Gaddaffi has inflicted?

Given that, as far as I can see, Gaddaffi does still have support from a proportion of the population, and there's no way of judging how big that proportion is, how is this thing going to end? Is the West going to do what the rebels demand and assassinate Gaddaffi? That might make it easier to find an eventual solution, but there is no guarantee.

This new adventure has to be the most bare-facedly hypocritical act of aggression in a long time. Hypocritical because only a couple of weeks ago Cameron was touring the Middle East selling weapons to all the other tinpots, with which to massacre their restless populations, but for some reason, that's fine.

* 'War without strategy'

2 comments:

Sean Mansell said...

A barrel of Crude that is. I read a great article on the internet about Libyan Crude. Takes less refining and is a much higher octane than normal oil so is used predominantly for Jet engines. Ironic really. That's why we are interfering. trying to secure future oil supplies.

Trooper Thompson said...

It's certainly a key reason, amongst others, such as Cameron wanting to be blooded, so he can sit at the table with the big boys.