“Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose” – Me & Bobby McGee (1970)
The war in Libya has taken a decidedly worse turn. Since NATO bombed a school for Down’s Syndrome, and the only plausible reason was they thought Kadaffi was there, followed by the direct attempt to kill him, that leaves no doubt what the real objective of NATO is – regime change, occupation, and stealing the assets of the country.
So Qadaffi and anyone who has supported him now have nothing left to lose. Every attempt at compromise or negotiation has been dismissed without so much as a discussion.
Up until now, Qadaffi’s forces have largely constrained themselves to not engaging in direct conflict with NATO assets, and avoiding random killing of civilians.
Misrata has remained a thorn in Qadaffi’s situation – it’s in the Western part of the country, and Benghazi is using it as a transit point to supply people in the city who want to keep fighting. Any notion of splitting the country into two won’t work if there is a “rebel” stronghold in Western Libya – not to mention it being in a strategic place relative to Tripoli.
So this low grade siege has been going on for weeks – several ships have ducked in and out to get people who wanted to escape and injured people, but it gets to be a fine line between “humanitarian aid” and “aiding combatants” when it is a civil war without a formal opposition.
So this weekend, Qadaffi’s forces blew up the oil storage tanks in Misurata, which they could have done any time in the last two months. According to the “Rebels”, the helicopters used were flying Red Cross and Red Crescent insignia. With the oil storage tanks blown up, electricity generation will soon stop, and when electriciy stops, desalinization plants will stop. (that may have already happened)
Life inside Misurata will become impossible. Even if NATO “won” today, it would take months to rebuild the infrastructure and some portion of the 650,000 people who used to live there will have to become refugees.
It’s hard to say what Qadaffi might do “on his way out”…. a few million gallons of crude pumped into the Mediterrean might slow down the tourist season on the beaches of France.
Russia may be the last hope (from the standpoint of ‘moral high ground’ vs China) to halt NATO ‘nation building’ under New American Century militarism.
Frankly, nothing would please me more than for Russian heavy armaments to arrive in north Africa to “liberate” Libya, et-al from the “naked aggression of NATObama”.
In fact, Russian & Chinese leaders ought to ask “where will the assassinations end”?
Imagine how quickly France, Italy, and their NATO ‘alliance’ might collapse!
China and Russia are reported talking about coordinating their response. China is a bit more motivated than Russia – China buys almost all of its oil, Rusia is a net exporter of oil.
An interesting “ploy” would be if Russia it announced it was sending a ship of “humanitarian aid” to Tripoli and watch for the all the demands to limit what they can send, and the inspection process – and then ask if the ships trying to get into Misurata are subject to the same set of rules.
One of the things that is interesting is the issue about Libya “mining the harbor” of Misurata. Mines are by their nature a defensive weapon. The U.N. claims that putting mines in the water (which is not international waters) is a violation of some humanitarian “law”. Oh really? So putting up submarine nets and deploying mine fields in Pearl Harbor would have been “illegal”?