Yes, I’m overwhelmed by the images of the natural disaster in Japan in the past week.
But the images (if they’re ever seen) of the human disaster about to occur in Libya in the coming weeks will far outweigh the tragedy of Japan (in numbers, if not seismic scope).
The difference is that something can be done about the looming Libya disaster before it happens.
Moammar Gaddafi is gaining strength from international uninvolvement, pushing back against the disorganized rebel forces that scared the living shit out of him two weeks ago.
If the world gives this asshole dictator too much room, they’ll be kissing his blood-stained ass again in a couple of weeks.
With complete control of the skies over Libya, Gaddafi and his mercenary forces — not just ground forces from Chad and Niger, but also technical/air mercenaries from Serbia, Ukraine and Syria — are pushing back the disorganized rebels toward Benghazi .
Believe it or not, Gaddafi could win the whole thing and kill a hell of a lot of people who risked their lives to say No to a 40-year crazy dictatorship.
So how do you feel about that? Are you happy to welcome dear old psycho Mo-Mo back into the international club after he rips, rapes and razes enough of his country to regain some semblance of control?
No, I didn’t think so.
So why are all the big-time governments not doing anything to step in and stop Gaddafi from having his revenge on the insolent dogs who dared to think Libya was their country and not Gaddafi’s personal playground?
Yes, the U.S. is supersensitive about being seen intervening in what could be described — if you were a lawyer or an idiot — as a domestic Libyan affair. Barrack Obama doesn’t have the guts for this kind of stuff anyway, so don’t expect anything from that U.S. fleet cruising around the Mediterranean at the moment. Unless things go all to hell, and even then it’s not a sure bet.
Thank God for French military adventurism. I never thought — in my life — I’d say that, but it’s true.
Nicolas Sarkozky, you little dickens with the hot wife, you could save the European Union and the world from its dithering, dundering blundering over Libya before it’s too late.
But you can’t wait for any kind of consensus. It’s not going to come .
Sarkozy, the self-anointed Napoleon of the 21st Century, formally recognized the rebel Tunisians on Thursday and called for “targetted air strikes” against the Gaddafi regime.
This, of course, came on the eve of a meeting of European Union meeting of leaders to decide a “united” response to the latest developments in Libya.
(Trust me, if you ask your cousins what pants you should wear, you’ll be sitting in underpants for weeks — or months.)
Nothing came out of that EU meeting — of course — except meaningless warnings.
But France is still on the record as saying it’s willing to kick a little Libyan (Gaddafi, that is) ass if push comes to shove.
The whole thing — from a North-American/European perspective — comes down to two things:
1. We/they don’t want to be seen as foreign aggressors who trigger a ripple effect of unknown consequences throughout the region by coming in as heavy-handed neo-colonists to overwhelm the legitimate aspirations of the people of Libya. Fair enough. But those self-same “free” Libyans are screaming to keep Gaddafi’s warplanes, helicopters and troop transports out of the air.
2. Who does it? Because, really, somebody has to. With deadlock at NATO (Turkey) and the UN (Russia and China at the security council), who actually does something in Libya before it’s too late?
I’m hoping France is ready to step up.
It doesn’t have the economic and political ties to Libya that Italy has, but it has a geographic and strategic stake in what goes on just across the Med. And it also has decades of annoyance at Libyan mischief-making in what France considers its sphere of influence in the former French colonies of North Africa.
All it needs is a few French Mirage military aircraft to come in low over Gaddafi’s staging areas around Tripoli and drop one attention-getting bomb on a runway to put this thing back into a diplomatic stalemate where people fighting for their lives and the concept of freedom aren’t having their livers ripped out by Gaddafi torturers.
Granted, seven or 12 Libyan anti-aircraft positions may have to be taken out along the way but, hey, right now, if I’m a waveringly committed Gaddafi military supporter I need a good push in the direction of Get the fuck out and don’t look back.
As a North American/European, the one thing I don’t want to be is the Soviet Army sitting uselessly across the Vistula River from Warsaw for two months in 1944 while Joseph Stalin allowed the Nazis to kick the shit out of an incredible national Polish uprising that deserved the world’s support — and didn’t get it.
You don’t really want to be that useless, piece-of-crap bystander, do you?
Let the rest of the world dip and dive. I’m counting on Sarkozy to deliver that one bomb to that one airfield to take Gaddafi’s air power/mercenary element out of the eventual Libyan equation.
Somebody’s got to do it, or we’ll we all be ashamed in a few weeks or months.