NATO moves against Libya -- Déjà vu Yugoslavia
by rad Sunday, Mar 27 2011, 10:14pm
international /
peace/war /
other press
and the Kosovo partition solution is well under way
NATO is to take command of all international military operations over Libya, including air strikes on Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's ground forces. [But remember NATO's track record in the Balkans and how they installed a KNOWN murdering criminal as the PM of illegally partitioned Kosovo. Libya is so far an exact repeat performance; an intervention based on fraudulent humanitarian grounds, supporting questionable 'rebels' and (soon) a strategic partition (if regime change fails) in order to appropriate valuable Oil resources and allow for a conduit to existing Mediterranean Oil ports. Brazen organised crime today is undertaken at State levels. The USA and NATO stand condemned while Russia and China stand mute and impotent!]
NATO had previously agreed to take charge of enforcing the United Nations no-fly zone and arms embargo.
However some member states - notably Turkey and Germany - had balked at taking on the air strikes as well because of the risk of civilian casualties.
NATO secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen said that it was a "very significant step" by the alliance.
"Our goal is to protect civilians and civilian-populated areas under threat of attack from the Gaddafi regime. NATO will implement all aspects of the UN resolution. Nothing more, nothing less," he said.
The move will come as a relief to David Cameron who has consistently argued that NATO has the command structure needed to lead such a complex military operation.
It came as rebel forces were celebrating the seizure of the key oil towns of Brega and Ras Lanuf, potentially giving them control of much of Libya's export capacity. The rebels were reported to be continuing their rapid advance westwards as the regime's forces fell back in the face of coalition air strikes.
Defence Secretary Liam Fox said that the loss of Libya's oil export capacity could weaken Col Gaddafi's grip on power in Tripoli.
"As they move round the coast, of course, the rebels will increasingly control the exit points of Libya's oil," he said. "That will produce a very different dynamic and a very different equilibrium inside Libya. How that will play out in terms of public opinion and the Gaddafi regime remains to be seen."
© 2011 The Press Association