The situation in Libya seems part of the madness that comes out of that part of our world
Gaddafi is an evil so and so but also an extremely experienced in manipulating the various revolutionary councils in the districts of Libya.
Reducing his fairly poor and ancient air power will not topple him from power and is most likely to strengthen his position via his total control of the media.
I find the words used that we have to enforce a no fly zone to prevent civilian deaths in Benghazi a bit hollow. Gaddafi has been murdering his opposition on a daily basis for the last 40 years and is not going to stop now.
There is a vital self interest to the West… Oil Where were the champions proclaiming their commitment to saving innocent civilians in Rwanda , in Srebrenica in Cambodia where we stood and looked the other way.. But there was no oil there.
Is it the politicians who drive us forward to launch us into in this case a bombing campaign of Libya with all the risks of escalation into a full scale war in the Middle East, giving all those extremist organisations great material for their recruitment campaigns?
No thought again appears to have been given to ‘what next?’ an exit strategy, any plan b , c or onwards. Seems as dangerous as giving children matches to play with... I can only hope there are some seriously hard headed advisors in the decision making department of the MOD who are not swayed by any politician!
We must win the propaganda war both in Libya and elsewhere in the Middle East... we have excellent pathways via BBC world service and no doubt we could beam in our own TV channel. We can disrupt his supply chain to his troops at the front line at Benghazi, try and stop arms reaching Gaddafi. We still need to be offering ways out for Gaddafi who is a totally arrogant and self cantered person but if peace for the residents involves us giving him some meaningless plastic bauble ..So what/?
The whole lot of the nations in the Middle East are a total disaster when you look at the field of human rights. Seems we are selective to the point of blatant hypocrisy... why do we allow the politicians to get away with it?
what do you think
Ian Roibertson Councillor and chair walsall Amnesty International group.
