If the French leader had his way, war planes would leave Paris the following day, an air base would be set up in Corsica and another of north Africa's bully-boys, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, would be forcibly ejected from power after a dramatic and memorable battle for the heart of rebellious Benghazi.
Or would it? Instead, maybe, Gaddafi would play his cards right, just like he did in the 1980s, making a laughing stock of the French leader and those who chose to join him in a mission that is at best frivolous, but more likely than not, foolhardy.
Sarkozy keeps his eye on the prize
While the French president publicly stated that democratic countries could not stand by and watch as Gaddafi "waged war on his people," you have to wonder whether Sarkozy's commitment to equality, fraternity and liberty -- the catch-cries of the French Revolution -- is more opportunistic, than real.
Indeed, his commitment to the widely-held ideals has already been publicly called into question. Recently a number of highly-visible members of his own government, including Foreign Minister Michèle Alliot-Marie, who herself has become the object of public scorn over too-close-for-comfort ties with ousted Tunisian dictator Ben Ali, has questioned his thinking on Libya
But there's a simple answer. With dismal approval ratings even across his political base, and with a presidential election in May 2012, 'Sarko' needs a coup.
The betting is on the probability that these two factors are likely to have persuaded the French leader "to appear authoritative and presidential on the international stage" explained Jon Frosch, a journalist at FRANCE 24, who has written extensively about Sarkozy.
Same place, different time
After all, Sarkozy (and the rest of the UN) appears to have forgotten that this is the second time the Libyan leader faced-off foreign military attacks.
In 1986, former US President Ronald Reagan ordered operation El Dorado Canyon as a response to Gaddafi's involvement in the terrorist bombing of West Berlin's La Belle discotheque. Years later, the Stasi archives revealed the operation had been carried out by Libyan agents prosecuted by reunited Germany in the 1990s.
Reagan's air raid on April 15, 1986, failed to kill the African strongman. Instead it left 60 people dead including Gaddafi's youngest daughter, Hannah. Gaddafi's troops did not battle American forces. Libya's tribal chief laid low for a while, inconspicuously arming left-wing terrorist groups such as the IRA in Ireland, or the German Bader-Meinhof group, or offering sanctuary and training facilities to the anti-Israeli terrorist group Abu Nidal, which killed about three hundred people and wounded hundreds more in its reign of terror during the 1980s in twenty countries across the globe.
Same old Gaddafi
However, the point is not whether French diplomacy is making a global comeback, but the fact that Muammar Gaddafi has managed to master the diplomatic tyrant's dance for years, courting even the thorniest of countries.
And all the while managing to quash dissenters and consolidate his power. Just like in 1986, this time around could well just be more of the same
Amidst the waves of popular uprisings that are taking place across the Arab world, it's become a faux-pas to claim that a single formula can't be applied across the board.
Popular Uprisings?
More important, though, is to put into perspective the legitimacy of a popular movement if it cannot stand on its own without the military intervention of the international community.
There is no question that without the application of a no-fly zone, Gaddafi's forces would have certainly reclaimed even the most rebellious towns captured by the rebels.
And while western democracies state that Libyans should have a say in the future of their nation, the more compelling issue is how much is France willing to risk in order to drive out another dictator.
And so...
There are reasons why Germany did not approve of the 'no-fly' zone despite being one of the biggest proponents of the departure of Mubarak in Egypt. Perhaps, the fear that Gaddafi could replicate the Berlin bombing or fund new radical groups is among those reasons.
And then there is also the specter of Germany's own past that has made it reluctant to get involved in military actions, home or away. German Chancellor Angie Merkel is no fool and knows that the German public would have little stomach for any such campaign.
Unfortunately that which The Economist reported back in its April 16, 1986, edition still rings true today: "One of the things on the European side is fear. Europeans are more vulnerable to terrorism... they have had more of it; they are closer to its Middle East command centers; their entry controls are sloppier; they have bigger pools of Arab immigrants among whom terrorists can swim."
Sadly, what is certain for France as well as the rest of us is that "people of the region will pay for Muammar Gaddafi's megalomania, and the security and stability of the Mediterranean will suffer."
Heavy anti-aircraft fire and loud explosions sounded in Tripoli after nightfall, possibly a new attack in the international air campaign that so far has focused on military targets. But conditions have deteriorated sharply in Misrata, the last major city in western Libya held by the rebel force trying to end Gaddafi's four-decade rule. Residents of the city 125 miles (200 kilometers) southeast of Tripoli, say shelling and sniper attacks are unrelenting. A doctor said tanks opened fire on a peaceful protest on Monday.
"The number of dead are too many for our hospital to handle," said the doctor, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals if the city falls to Gaddafi's troops. As for food, he said, "We share what we find and if we don't find anything, which happens, we don't know what to do."
Neither the rebels nor Gaddafi's forces are strong enough to hold Misrata or Ajdabiya, a key city in the east that is also a daily battleground. But the airstrikes and missiles that are the weapons of choice for international forces may be of limited use.
"When there's fighting in urban areas and combatants are mixing and mingling with civilians, the options are vastly reduced," said Fred Abrahams, a special adviser at Human Rights Watch. "I can imagine the pressures and desires to protect civilians in Misrata and Ajdabiya are bumping up against the concerns about causing harms to the civilians you seek to protect."
It is all but impossible to verify accounts within the two cities, which have limited communications and are now blocked to rights monitors such as the International Committee for the Red Cross.
Most of eastern Libya is in rebel hands but the force - with more enthusiasm than discipline - has struggled to take advantage of the gains from the international air campaign, which appears to have hobbled Gaddafi's air defenses and artillery and rescued the rebels from impending defeat.
Despite the U.S. fears for Misrata, the Obama administration is eager relinquish leadership of the hurriedly assembled coalition. With NATO divided, France on Tuesday proposed the creation of a political steering committee to run the operation. If accepted, the committee's job might be to bring order to what some observers has said seems a chaotic effort by countries with differing objectives.
Ajdabiya, a city of 140,000 that is the gateway to the east, has been under fought over for a week. Outside the city, a ragtag band of hundreds of fighters milled about on Tuesday, clutching mortars, grenades and assault rifles. Some wore khaki fatigues. One man sported a bright white studded belt.
Some men clambered up power lines in the rolling sand dunes of the desert, squinting as they tried to see Gaddafi's forces inside the city. The group periodically came under artillery attacks, some men scattering and others holding their ground.
"Gaddafi is killing civilians inside Ajdabiya," said Khaled Hamid, who said he been in Gaddafi's forces but defected to the rebels.
Ahmed Buseifi, 32, said he was in Libya's special forces for nine years before joining the opposition. He said other rebellious special forces had entered Ajdabiya and Brega, another contested city, hoping to disrupt government supply lines. The airstrikes, he said, leveled the playing field.
"If not for the West we would not have been able to push forward," he said.
A U.S. fighter jet on a strike mission against a government missile site crashed overnight in eastern Libya. Both crewmen ejected safely as the aircraft spun from the sky during the third night of the U.S. and European air campaign.
The crash, which the U.S. attributed to mechanical failure, was the first major loss for the U.S. and European military air campaign.
By Tuesday afternoon, the plane's body was mostly burned to ash, with only the wings and tail fins intact. U.S. officials say both crew members were safe in American hands.
"I saw the plane spinning round and round as it came down," said Mahdi el-Amruni, who rushed to the crash site with other villagers, about 25 miles (40 kilometers) outside the rebel capital of Benghazi. "It was in flames. They died away, then it burst in to flames again."
One of the pilots parachuted into a rocky field and hid in a sheep pen on Hamid Moussa el-Amruni's family farm.
"We didn't think it was an American plane. We thought it was a Gaddafi plane. We started calling out to the pilot, but we only speak Arabic. We looked for him and found the parachute. A villager came who spoke English and he called out 'We are here, we are with the rebels' and then the man came out," Hamid Moussa el-Amruni said.
A second plane strafed the field where the pilot went down. Hamid Moussa el-Amruni himself was shot, suffered shrapnel wounds in his leg and back. He propped himself up with an old broomstick and said he bore no grudge, believing it was an accident.
The pilot left in a car with the Benghazi national council, taking with him the water and juice the family provided. They kept his helmet and parachute.
Since the uprising began on Feb. 15, the opposition has been made up of disparate groups even as it took control of the entire east of the country. Only a few of the army units that defected have actually joined in the fighting, as officers try to coordinate a force with often antiquated, limited equipment.
In Misrata, the doctor said rebel fighters were vastly outgunned.
"The fighters are using primitive tools like swords, sticks and anything they get from the Gaddafi mercenaries," he said.
Mokhtar Ali, a Libyan dissident in exile who is still in touch which his family in Misrata, said rooftop snipers target anyone on the street, and residents trapped inside have no idea who has been killed.
"People live in total darkness in terms of communications and electricity," Ali said. "Residents live on canned food and rainwater tanks."
U.S. Navy Adm. Samuel J. Locklear said intelligence confirmed that Gaddafi's forces were attacking civilians in Misrata, Libya's third-largest city, and said the international coalition was "considering all options" there. He did not elaborate, but Misrata is one of the cities that President Barack Obama has demanded that Gaddafi forces evacuate.
Airstrikes overnight into Tuesday hit a military port in Tripoli, destroying equipment warehouses and trucks loaded with rocket launchers. Col. Abdel-Baset Ali, operations officer in the port, said the strikes caused millions of dollars in losses, but no human casualties
But while the airstrikes can stop Gaddafi's troops from attacking rebel cities - in line with the U.N. mandate to protect civilians - the United States has so far been reluctant to go beyond that. The Libyan leader was a target of American air attacks in 1986.
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and others said the U.S. military's role will lessen in coming days as other countries take on more missions and the need declines for large-scale offensive action.
Two dozen more Tomahawk cruise missiles were launched from U.S. and British submarines, a defense official said earlier in the day. Locklear, the on-scene commander, didn't give details but confirmed that brought to 161 the number of Tomahawk strikes aimed at disabling Libyan command and control facilities, air defenses and other targets since the operation started Saturday.
Locklear said the additional strikes had expanded the area covered by the no-fly zone.
In a joint statement to Gaddafi late Friday, the United States, Britain and France called on him to end his troops' advance toward Benghazi and pull them out of the cities of Misrata, Ajdabiya and Zawiya.
Locklear said the coalition is "considering all options" but didn't elaborate. Asked if international forces were stepping up strikes on Gaddafi ground troops, Locklear said that as the "capability of the coalition" grows, it will be able to do more missions aimed at ground troops who are not complying with the U.N. resolution to protect those seeking Gaddafi's ouster.
The US, France and Britain successfully enforced a UN Security Council-approved no-fly zone over Libya to stop Gaddafi's forces from attacking rebels in the east. Complicating matters is a growing chorus of criticism from a number of nations including Turkey, China and India. Also, Vladimir Putin, Russia's prime minister, has called the UN resolution a "medieval call to crusade".But many are wondering if those airstrikes will be enough to deter a defiant Gaddafi and whether international troops are needed to push back Libyan government forces. We will be discussing those issues with US congressman Dennis Kucinich who has been critical of Barack Obama's decision to strike Libya; Ali Suleiman Aujali, the former Libyan ambassador to the US, who now represents the Libyan National Transitional Council in Washington, DC; and military strategist Sam Gardiner, a retired American Air Force colonel. |
No comments:
Post a Comment