We agreed … that meeting the UN mandate of civilian protection cannot be accomplished when Gaddafi remains in Libya… And we are joined in resolve to finish the job.
(Joint statement by NATO leaders – Obama of the U.S. Sarkozy of France, and Cameron of the UK, Chicago Chronicle, May 28, 2011)
NATO is making much of the “horrific day” of airstrikes it unleashed on Tripoli yesterday. But far from being impressed, this merely reminds me of the way the Pentagon made much of the “shock and awe” it unleashed on Bagdad on the first night of the war in Iraq. And look how well that turned out. But I digress….
What I find most troubling about this bombing campaign is the quizzical insouciance with which NATO is variously destroying Libya’s infrastructure and killing innocent Libyans all in a vain effort to put pressure on Gaddafi to leave.
[It’s] just a matter of time before Gaddafi goes.
(President Obama, Reuters, June 7, 2011)
But it’s been four months. And far from feeling any pressure to leave, here is the defiant message Gaddafi sent to NATO after yesterday’s bombing:
We will not kneel! We will not surrender: we only have one choice – to the end! Death, victory, it does not matter, we are not surrendering!
(Associated Press, June 7, 2011)
Hell, that’s positively Churchillian. Indeed, if he’s allowed to continue spouting this heroic rhetoric in the face of such clear, present and overwhelming danger, Gaddafi might soon change his image from one of creepy pariah to international folk hero.
This, notwithstanding how many Libyans he’s killing in order to stay in power; although, reports are that NATO and its rebel allies in Benghazi are killing many more in their stalemated bid to oust him.
This is why I urge the growing coalition of world leaders, which now includes Merkel of Germany and even Medvedev of Russia, to stop making patently feckless calls for Gaddafi to leave. Instead, I urge them to save Libya and NATO’s credibility by dispatching the British or French equivalent of the U.S. Navy Seals to go into Tripoli and take him out. Not least because he has already demonstrated a bin-Laden like ability to survive massive and unrelenting airstrikes.
After all, it’s not as if anyone even thinks Gaddafi is hiding in a cave in some remote region of Libya. More to the point, the killing of bin Laden in Pakistan reinforces the tragically obvious fact that there’s no need to wage war (wasting hundreds of billions of dollars and killing tens of thousands of people) just to take out a few terrorists or, in this case, one bad man.
So here’s to killing Gaddafi already!
NOTE: For the same compelling reasons, I urge NATO leaders to have Special Forces mount coordinated hits on Bashar al-Assad of Syria and Omar al-Bashir of Sudan as well. Because what they’re doing to hold onto power makes the genocidal crimes Gaddafi is being accused of seem like misdemeanors….!
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