As a long time head of a wealthy oil state and past supporter of terrorism, Gaddafi has the kind of resources that make his threats credible. I am surprised -- or maybe not really surprised but only dismayed -- at the foolish bravado of the "bring it on" chest-thumpers. Of course, they are but the chorus to the lead actors in government that were in so great a rush to indict the man for war crimes before he could be safely captured, (if not killed), that they had to make their grandstanding point nevermind the risks. Doesn't anyone, here or in Europe, worry about consequences anymore?Gaddafi threatens attacks on Europe
By Ernesto Londono, Published: July 1
TRIPOLI, Libya — Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi on Friday threatened to attack Europe if NATO continued bombing his country.
In a recorded message broadcast to a large crowd gathered in Tripoli’s central square, Gaddafi said that Libyans would “target your homes, offices, families, which would become legitimate targets.”
Showing posts with label NATO. Show all posts
Showing posts with label NATO. Show all posts
Saturday, July 2, 2011
Gaddafi threatens attacks on Europe
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Gaddafi's doom and NATO's survival
I believe the strategic thinking among the most influential foreign policy elites is that Gaddafi is doomed. He may win military battles but his victories will only force the rebels into a guerrilla insurgency which, under international sanctions, he cannot win. Does this sound like a good outcome? Not to these strategists. It would mean the rebels will have succeeded without Western military support. A no-fly zone will, naturally, be accompanied by "coordination" with the rebels including intelligence sharing and strategic advice, In due course, there will follow weapons and other military supplies and training. By the time the civil war is over, the rebel armed forces will be militarily dependent upon the West and our Generals will have become chums with their Generals. This is the intended result.
Besides, NATO is an enterprise supporting many military careers within itself and peripheral suppliers and organizations. It is in need of new missions to justify its existence. To a large extent, that is what the continued presence in Afghanistan is about, but that effort isn't going so well. Libya would be a second chance.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
NATO the hammer
NATO has outlived its founding purpose. Its participation in Afghanistan is the clumsy attempt of an obsolete organization to stay alive. The next time NATO is needed will be when a major military power, not a terrorist organization, threatens Europe.
In the aftermath of the French revolution, "the West" tired of political theory. The age of ideology, which applied to social movements, was over, replaced by the age of Realpolitik -- a way for nation-states to deal with one another the primary tool for which was military force or the threat of it. Even when Communism arose in the East, the West dealt with it basically as a military problem, NATO being key. In the end, however, Communism was never defeated militarily. It died from its internal faults and failings and its inability to compete with the economic strength of the West.
Today the West, like the man who has a hammer but lacks the screwdriver he needs, misuses military force -- pitting it not really against nation-states, they being just collateral damage that gets in the way, but against political Islamic terror. NATO is deployed only because it is the hammer that the West has.
The result, I say, has been a great victory for Osama bin Laden. He has tricked the West into sending hundreds of thousands of its citizens, civilians as well as military, to be endlessly slaughtered on his home ground instead of having to cope with the difficulties of attacking them in their home countries where they are more effectively, and MUCH less expensively, defended.
Political leaders, like most of the public, refuse to develop a proper understanding of the politics of international Islamic terror, probably because it would be too unsettling to various parochial biases and prejudices as well as against the Realpolitik style of thinking they have been schooled in. It is likely, therefore, that blood and treasure will continue to we wasted on ineffective to counterproductive military exercises until Islamic terror dies from its own poisonous malice.
In the aftermath of the French revolution, "the West" tired of political theory. The age of ideology, which applied to social movements, was over, replaced by the age of Realpolitik -- a way for nation-states to deal with one another the primary tool for which was military force or the threat of it. Even when Communism arose in the East, the West dealt with it basically as a military problem, NATO being key. In the end, however, Communism was never defeated militarily. It died from its internal faults and failings and its inability to compete with the economic strength of the West.
Today the West, like the man who has a hammer but lacks the screwdriver he needs, misuses military force -- pitting it not really against nation-states, they being just collateral damage that gets in the way, but against political Islamic terror. NATO is deployed only because it is the hammer that the West has.
The result, I say, has been a great victory for Osama bin Laden. He has tricked the West into sending hundreds of thousands of its citizens, civilians as well as military, to be endlessly slaughtered on his home ground instead of having to cope with the difficulties of attacking them in their home countries where they are more effectively, and MUCH less expensively, defended.
Political leaders, like most of the public, refuse to develop a proper understanding of the politics of international Islamic terror, probably because it would be too unsettling to various parochial biases and prejudices as well as against the Realpolitik style of thinking they have been schooled in. It is likely, therefore, that blood and treasure will continue to we wasted on ineffective to counterproductive military exercises until Islamic terror dies from its own poisonous malice.
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