British military to advise Libyan rebels: where does it end?
This morning the British Foreign Secretary William Hague set about tweeting that meaningful steps were being pursued in order to bolster support for the rebels in Libya – through bolstering support for the UN resolution to protect civilians via “all means necessary”.
Those words are critical. Because just a short time after the Prime Minister was insisting that resolution did not and would not, mean boots on the ground – boots on the ground in the form of British military advisors is precisely what has been announced.
So we move from air attacks … to providing flak jackets and mobile phones … to supplying communications equipment … to soldiers on the ground acting as advisors to the rebels about whom we still know very little. Mission creep? Some conclude that it is. Foreign Office and UN lawyers will say it is not because of that catch-all phrase “all means necessary”.
Read more: Libya war – strike against Gaddafi special report.
History of course tells us that many wars – Vietnam to name but one – began with the positioning of military advisors on the ground with a view merely to sharpening up the forces supported by the government back home.
And this is not the only sense in which foreign soldiers could find themselves on the ground upon Libyan soil.
Let it be said Baroness Amos is only the latest in a long line of people saying this is not imminent – but, at least technically, the EU is now just one step away from fighting on foreign soil for the first time.
Of course they will not put it in those terms. In fact they won’t put much. But we know that plans are well advanced for EU soldiers to enter Libya, as in “boots on the ground” to protect aid going into and out of Misrata. Few would bet that under present circumstances those troops would not come under fire, either from government forces seeking to stop aid entering the beleaguered city, or from rebel forces intent upon drawing foreign soldiers into a shooting war for their own purposes.
So far little is being released by way of information beyond that. The possible force will though, have its command centre in Rome and be led by an Italian Rear Admiral Claudio Gaudiosi. Of course the Italians have the best knowledge of Libya due to recent colonial history – of course others might say that makes them a peculiarly insensitive choice of country for the job. Though how far this will be either an Italian or Italian-dominated force is yet to be revealed.
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Perhaps the Military Advisors are wearing sandals rather than boots eh…?
But the way this conflict has been going recently, it really does show that airpower is only ever going to have a limited effect. Hermann Goerring learned that lesson the hard-way in WWII and Col Gadaffi, hats off to him actually (but stop killing your civillians, you idiot!), has certainly worked out how to beat NATO’s strategy in 2011…!
Libya looks like being a new Suez…
The situation in Libya is not like any other. There is no civil war. There is Gaddafi et al (clan and mercenaries) and there are the Libyans.
The most irritating thing about these analyses is that Libyans know that the intelligence and diplomatic corps in the West know that he has a 1% rating, and those are people who have blood on their hands and know that they will not have a safe haven to go to, that is why they fight. The other fighters are mercenaries and he has the money to pay them.
His whole regime is bunch of thugs that lie in your face and do not have any ethics.
That gang will fall apart, it just needs a few more strategically delivered cracks and they will all run, there is no ideology to fight for.
As a mercenary you do not fight to the end, who will spend that blood money.
As i understand it they will not be wearing uniform so the government can claim it’s not boots on the ground – it’s shoes.
David Cameron leapt into this, seeing it as his Falklands moment no doubt, and now we are getting more and more embroiled.
At a time when we are cutting services for old people and children, clsoing libraries, reducing the number of hip operations because of the financial situation, it appears we always have enough money to fight wars.
If you add up what we’ve have spent in Afghanistan, Iraq and now Libya, we would hardly have a national debt. And to what end? Afghanistan and Iraq are still a mess and there’s no sign that Libya is going to be any better.
I hope this mission creeps all the way to the tunnels of Bab AlAzizia and to the lair of this murdering madman. I am losing more friends and family by the day, and when this is all over and we look back, those who argued from the comfort of their free societies to refuse the same to others will appear nearly as cynically selfserving as those who seek power at the cost of countless lives right now in Libya.
The media is showing a picture of an injured child, yet this is only 1/100,000th of the death cause by Bush’s “Shock and Awe” campaign in Iraq. The media never showed pictures of the limbless children from Bush’s war of choice. Does the media think Americans are that stupid and irrational that they can now get us to fight a war over what Bush did 100,000 times over?
The rebels are a force of 1,500. Many are al Qaeda. They are not wearing uniforms and are placing civilians at risk by hiding behind civilians. This is an international war crime as is hiding behind civilians and in population centers. Why won’t they move into the open and fight like an army? They are not an army, nor are they representative of the people.
They will never consolidate power without foreign occupation. The rebels represent less than .005 % of the population. The advisors ought to tell the rebels to flee. That should be their advice. War for regime change is an international war crime.
On the alleged use of Cluster Munitions in Misratah;
I find it interesting that all the stencilled-on markings are in ENGLISH. Surely weapons allegedly manufactured in Spain and allegedly sold to an Arabic-speaking nation would be marked-up either in Spanish or Arabic.
There too, the allegedly recovered specimens look a little too pristine to have been fired, come apart in midair and then to have fallen back to ground.
If these weapons had been supplied to the Libyan Government there would also (IMHO) be an extensive trail of paperwork attached to the transaction. Are journalists actively looking for the records, or are they just regarding the allegation as proven – because the allegation looks bad for Gaddafi?
UNSCR 1973 does not explicitly authorise any form of “regime change”, notwithstanding the phrase “all necessary means”. To get such authority would require another Security Council resolution.
Unfortunately both Russia and China (Permanent Members of the Security Council; with powers of Veto) are unhappy about the “mission creep” that has already happened – so the probablity of any further Resolution looks just about nil.
Some UK MPs are also becoming more vocal about the way the Government is taking action before it has obtained Parliamentary approval.
“… to soldiers on the ground acting as advisors to the rebels about whom we still know very little.”
I appreciate you pointing out this fact. Who are these ‘rebels’? What is their end game? Who do they represent?
I’ve heard nothing about a broad popular democratic uprising for weeks. Just Gadaffi is the devil and we must support the rebels.
If the end game is to protect civilians from harm and suffering, where is the diplomatic effort? Where is the compromise from either side?
There’s been too much lazy reporting that the ‘mission’ and the ‘mission creep’ are defacto right, true and totally justifiable. I don’t see this at all so I appreciate your questioning POV. It is singularly refreshing.
I could see this coming. Our government shouldn’t be ‘aiding’ any group that seeks regime change through violence and avows that it will ‘fight to the last man’ to achieve it. I don’t support Gadaffi or his power base but the UN ‘allies’ have no mandate from the people of Libya just the uncorroborated demands of an armed opposition that has offered no practical, peaceful solution or willingness to protect it’s own people from harm.
This is what I see…
There is a reason U.S. intervened in Libya without congressional approval while Syria gets to slaughter protesters with impugnity. Gaddafi tried to end central banking in his country.
Why would government borrow at interest the trillions it could create for free? Central banks turn people into corpses and slaves. “End the Fed”. Americans should heed the words of our founders regarding central banks. Google “Central Banking Quotes”.