War On Libya In The Headlines

July 27, 2011

The Brits are now joining the French in suing for peace in Libya: Muammar Gaddafi could stay in Libya, William Hague concedes. This after, certainly with White House support, the U.S. Joint Chief Of Staff Mike Mullen admits stalemate could leave Gaddafi in charge.

Their puddle in Libya was pressed to agree: Rebel Chief Says Gadhafi, Family Can Stay in Libya. We can be sure his troops will disagree with that even though the Libyan rebels have conceded ground since bombing began. The puppet at The Hague hadn't yet read the memo, Gaddafi can't be left in Libya, says international criminal court, but we are sure that it will fall in line:

There were several editorials in the U.K. press today lauding and damning the Cameron government for coming to its senses. The Guardian: Libya: about turn, the Independent: Ceasefire and negotiate, the Daily Mail: Mr Cameron's sorry retreat over Gaddafi and the Telegraph's neoconned MI6 agent Con Coughlin: The Libyan campaign is running into the sand.

That was too much. So the British government today took another stupid step: Britain recognises Libyan rebels and expels Gaddafi's London embassy staff. This will make negotiations more difficult.

The "concessions" the "west" made in allowing Gaddhafi to stay in Libya does not mean this conflict is over: Bombing of Libya to continue as needed: NATO. Having no military targets left it can hit NATO has switched to destructing civilian infrastructure. The announcement in typical NATO propaganda style: Nato warns Qadhafi over use of civilian facilities. The results: Libya accuses NATO of bombing clinic, killing 7, Libya: bishop denounces NATO bombing of food store and Brega: NATO bombed "Great Man Made River"factory.

Bombs do not win wars. There will be No Negotiations Until NATO Attacks Stop, Libya PM Says.

We ain't there yet. Remember, there are five stages of grief those "western" leaders will have to go through to get to the end. After their plan for a fast Gaddhafi exit turned out be nonsense they were in Denial. Their Anger led to an intensified bombing and the sending of helicopters. Now they are Bargaining. What will follow next is Depression and only after that will there be Acceptance that they lost the war of aggression they started. Then they will create and/or use another crisis to divert from their sneaking away from the affair while showing the white feather.

Posted by b on July 27, 2011 at 18:13 UTC | Permalink

Comments

thanks b, for the synthesis

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jul 27 2011 19:17 utc | 1

Throw into this mix the fact that on Aug 2nd the holy month of Ramadan begins.
From Financial Times July 7th.

Libyan rebels must make a breakthrough within weeks or risk running into logistical problems during the Muslim Ramadan fast, western officials said. Diplomats said the question of how vigorously Nato pursued its military campaign over the holy period, due to start early next month, was an increasing concern at the alliance’s headquarters, although there was no consensus on what to do.

Source: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/4dfa536c-a886-11e0-8a97-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1TKmR1GqW
From The Globe and Mail (Canada) July 11th.

Whatever the case, within the cluster of highly defended hotels that form the international diplomatic community in Benghazi, there was a deep sense of alarm among officials from most countries that a month-long pause or severe slowdown could push an already tenuous campaign into outright failure or retreat, requiring many months more combat in order to return to current positions.
Underlying this is a sense of alarm that the rebels have almost no sources of funds to provide food, fuel, weapons and paycheques to their military and government – a situation that TNC leaders have described as unendurable during Ramadan.

Source: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/africa-mideast/libyas-rebels-fear-a-setback-as-ramadan-approaches/article2094008/
6 Days left until Ramadan begins.

Posted by: Colm O’ Toole | Jul 27 2011 19:18 utc | 2

Tory blogger I read

But Cameron’s reaction was more than merely hysterical. Together with the government’s reneging on its pledge to ditch the DNA records of the innocent, the Bowdlerisation of the Localism Bill to leave practically nothing worth having, the debacle in Libya, his poor judgement on Coulson, the pusillanimous mess of the Public Services White Paper and a clutch of other failures, this was the latest indicator that Cameron has gone native. He’s always been a lazy man, only motivated to reaction at the last moment, and appears to have allowed Whitehall to run the roost in exchange for an easy life. And Whitehall has led him into the usual mess of error, cock-up and confusion that uniquely brands the inadequate under-performance of the wartime Central State we have.
The old Cameron of brave words and loud principles would not allow the civil servants at the MOD to spend £1bn on credit cards and then refuse to disclose what they had spent it on. That Cameron would not spinelessly give way to senior police officers – themselves mired in an endemic and institutional corruption – on matters of civil liberty. But that Cameron has gone, to be replaced by an indolent man smug in the trappings of office and looking to the Mandarins to help him secure a second term. He’s lost contact with the zeitgeist, as all but the most capable of PMs do, shielded from the real world by the make-believe stage set erected around him by Whitehall, the Mandarins willingly feeding his delusions.
No Conservative can look to Cameron for any hope of leadership any longer. He’s in hock to Europe, in thrall to Whitehall and in cahoots with a hollow Party HQ utterly alienated from the grass roots of conservatism, inward-looking, metropolitan and exclusive. It’s time to scrub through his name and write him off./BLOCKQUOTE>

Posted by: Cloned Poster | Jul 27 2011 20:54 utc | 3

I don’t want to counter your argument, b, because I don’t know which way things will go.
Qaddafi is pretty weak now, as is evidenced by the appearance of a rebel territory in the west. No counter-attack.
On the other hand, the rebels’ offensive capacity is close to zero. The militia may defend their territory, but go to Tripoli is another thing.

Posted by: alexno | Jul 27 2011 21:16 utc | 4

Qaddafi is not the issue, internal Libyan alliances are.
The Guardian sums it up, here
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jul/27/expelling-libya-diplomats-gamble-hague
“Hague admitted indirectly that Britain and its allies have no actual control over what happens next in Libya. That is ultimately up to the Libyan people, and their collective wishes are difficult to gauge.
It may be true that they yearn impatiently for Westminster-style democracy and the warm, unselfish embrace of the west. Or it may be that a compromise internal political settlement that is altogether less clear-cut, and less wholly favourable to western interests, will emerge despite all Britain’s not so subtle cajoling.”
the western coalition cannot be sure their TNC will survive, so a deal with Qaddafi might be better for the western coalition than the unknown they get without him. Qaddafi has made clear that he talks to the US only …

Posted by: somebody | Jul 27 2011 22:16 utc | 5

The axis of weevils may need councilling!

Posted by: brian | Jul 28 2011 1:51 utc | 6

The axis of weevils may need councilling!

Posted by: brian | Jul 28 2011 1:51 utc | 7

I guess they -whoever they are – had planned the end game to be like Kosovo:
http://globalspin.blogs.time.com/2011/07/27/new-violence-in-kosovo-could-pose-a-quandary-for-nato/
“The original Kosovo war was sparked by a very small number of ultra-nationalists in the Kosovo Liberation Army (on the State Department’s list of terrorist organization until that became impolitic since the war would obviously put it in power). The KLA, led by Thaci, engaged in a systematic campaign of attacks on local Serb officials, which eventually succeeded in provoking a spectacularly brutal Serbian retaliation, which in turn prompted the NATO intervention.”
they might not get that, however, Libyans might not get their country back.

Posted by: somebody | Jul 28 2011 6:26 utc | 8

Someone should tell the ICC that Thaci and the KLA have been accused, by the Council of Europe, of butchering prisoners and selling their organs.

Posted by: bevin | Jul 28 2011 12:33 utc | 9

Can anyone comment on this:BENGHAZI, Libya, July 28 (Reuters) – The head of the Libyan rebels’ military campaign against Muammar Gaddafi was shot dead by assailants on Thursday, the top rebel leader said.
Abdel Fattah Younes was part of the group involved in the 1969 coup that brought Gaddafi to power, and was interior minister before he defected and took a senior position in the rebellion in February.
“We received news today that … Younes and two of his bodyguards were shot at after he was called in to appear before a judical committee investigating military issues,” rebel leader Mustafa Abdel Jalil told reporters in the rebel stronghold of Benghazi.

Posted by: georgeg | Jul 28 2011 22:37 utc | 10

Younes death halts momentum for Libyan rebels

The death of rebel military commander Abdel Fatah Younes has brought a screeching halt to efforts to organise the makeshift opposition army and risks throwing Benghazi, perhaps the wider effort to oust Gaddafi, into disarray.
Younes was the subject of much scrutiny and scepticism among anti-regime Libyans both in the country and abroad since he became the highest-profile government figure to defect to their side, on February 20, after five days of increasingly bloody protests in Benghazi and elsewhere in the country.
Though the opposition National Transitional Council quickly made Younes chief of staff of the ragtag rebel armed forces, a power struggle ensued between Younes and longtime exile Khalifa Hifter, a former general in Muammar Gaddafi’s army.
…
Younes was never enthusiastically embraced by Libyans in the east, and that made him vulnerable to a challenge.
Hifter, despite having left for exile in 1987, was warmly welcomed when he returned in March.
Hifter had led troops during Libya’s war with Chad in the 1980s, after which he switched sides to join the long-simmering anti-Gaddafi movement. Hifter settled in the United States, in Virginia, five miles from the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency. For roughly two decades, he was involved in coordinating the Libyan opposition in exile.

Posted by: b | Jul 29 2011 6:16 utc | 11

Could be that the US wants to take over the direction of the Libyan war? Who was backing Younes? The Gulf countries, France? Because it’s pretty clear from where Hifter receives orders. The current ‘backers’ of the Libyan gang show a lot of incompetence may be Obama is losing patience with the whole charade.
BTW, now that we talk about assassinations. Is just a coincidence that most of the leadership in Kandahar is being slaughtered at the same time there is a transition of power in the CIA and DoD? With ‘Sectarian Death Squad’ Petraus as new CIA boss and ‘Drone Killer’ Paneta as Secretary of ‘Defense’ who knows.
I wonder if we should also worry about all the new talk from the US army and administration against Iran. I found quite surprising and disturbing a report yesterday about the US Treasury saying that Iran has an arrangement with Al Qaeda to transport men and money through its territory!!
Is the Obama election strategy to become a ‘real’ war president? Libya or Iran, or double the bet, both at the same time!

Posted by: ThePaper | Jul 29 2011 6:51 utc | 12

I guess he got killed because he was negotiating. anybody powerful enough to cut a deal with Gaddafi now, has got the deal and the rest is left with nothing. if Libyans manage to get a deal themselves, the West is left out, or has to invade.

Posted by: somebody | Jul 29 2011 7:21 utc | 13

Frankly, if Younes was running the rebels’ military effort, and now he’s been assassinated, he’s no great loss. As the rebels’ military capacity under his direction has been close to zero. It makes you think that he was actually a double agent.
The rebels might well be better off with an alternative military leader.
For example, the organisation of a more effective army, necessary for moving on Tripoli. Not much seemed to be happening.

Posted by: alexno | Jul 29 2011 8:33 utc | 14

Some headlines at the BBC:

Islamist militia ‘shot Libya rebel Abdel Fattah Younes’

Egypt uprising: Islamists lead Tahrir Square rally

Posted by: nobodee | Jul 30 2011 12:08 utc | 15

As reported even by the AP today (and buried in the last line – literally – of a New York Times report), was this:
General Younes’s son Ashraf said at this father’s funeral yesterday (after the NATO-backed NTC was forced to admit to his murder at their hands) “We want Muammar to come back…we want the green flag back!”
In reply to the current situation, NATO bombed Libyan media yesterday, apparently hoping to stop the people from hearing the truth about the situation in Benghazi, where it appears there is a popular rebellion against the NATO-backed council. But despite the bombings, Libyan TV was on the air last night.
Don DeBar

Posted by: brian | Jul 31 2011 21:38 utc | 16

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