[Daphne – Malta suffered? Come on. Malta’s suffering was not exceptional. Unfortunately, that George Cross so many people want to give back just served to give us the impression that Malta’s experience was exceptional.]

Baxxter, why? You have to credit the Yanks for Homer Simpson.

The planes which are refuelling over us are not even landing in Sigonella , they are going back to where they came from: England.

I don’t know if you ever lived near a military airport , but I did, and I know and can imagine the logistics involved, and the dangers involved to attack from Malta.
Can you imagine Park 9 where the Lufthansa Technic hangar is , littered with a stockpile of ammo and bombs? What about the safety of the workers there?
How would the bombs to arm the fighters be transported ? Do you know what IATA rules stipulate? Don’t tell me that its OK for IATA to have six fully armed F18’s taking off from Malta international airport , while it doesn’t leave passengers carry a small bottle of water with them on the plane!
I can tell you that I have seen many near misses and a handful of airplane crashes in the Luqa area when Malta was a British military base ,especially during the Nato military exercises. Aeroplanes crash and accidents happen.
Military aircraft produce a lot of noise during take off , our runways are in line with built up areas. Birzebbugia /Haz-Zebbug , Attard and Mosta are affected with the big runway , while Imqabba and Qrendi/Luqa Paola and Zabbar are affected with the old runway ; not to mention Gudja and Kirkop.
Where would you store the bombs to carry out the raids over Gaddafi’s Libya? Do you recall the Mosta fireworks explosion?Or the Um-El -Faroud explosion at the dockyard? Would you still consider it safe to have a similar explosion at Luqa airport?

If Malta cannot and would not be used as an military airbase for technical reasons, why is that simple and straightforward explanation never given?

It would be so simple, really – “we’d like to help, but don’t have the means”. So different from the pseudo-determined “we are neutral”, “the safety of Maltese people comes first” (they’ve forgotten about the ones in Benghazi and Tripoli), “we will offer only humanitarian assistance”, and on and on and on ad nauseam.

We are permitting the UN forces to fly over Malta. The nearest military base is Sigonella in Sicily. Malta’s airport is not needed. After all, weren’t you stating that Sicily is nearer to Libya than Malta is?

[Daphne – ‘We are permitting the UN forces to fly over Malta’. Please tell me you are joking.

‘Weren’t you stating that Sicily is nearer to Libya than Malta is?’ No, I wasn’t. I said that Sicily is only 60 miles further away from Libya than Malta is, which renders utterly ridiculous Tonio Borg’s point that Malta is the sovereign state closest to Libya. If he is going to quibble over 60 miles, then I hope to God he never has to work in the centre of London and commute to and from his home in Oxford every day.]

As I already wrote yesterday, I saw military planes flying over our skies at a height of about 40,000 feet, and from what I can make up they were refueling. During the flight there was a short trail of white vapour on the two sides of the big plane.

I can see Malta helping the coalition as an SAR base station with helicopters and all, we would be still playing a ‘humanitarian’ role. We would pick up anyone involved in the conflict from the sea.

[Daphne – You illustrate my point, not yours, John, when you say that military planes are having to refuel in midair over Malta because they are not allowed to do so on Malta. Your example merely serves to highlight our shame. There they go, risking their lives, and we won’t even allow them to tank up here.]

Kev,

You haven’t answered the straightforward question: How, in simple terms, is being a “good cop” is helping to rid the world of Gaddafi, especially now that he’s claiming the Mediterranean is a war zone and everyone had better watch out?

Daphne, if you have someone who purports himself as a serious journalist reporting that Malta is a British military base, then the reporter together with the paper loses all credibility.

When I see you writing basing your facts on misguided reports than I see that you want to push your agenda.

[Daphne – No, John, you want to push yours. I do not base my writing on misguided reports. I merely point out that the entire coalition appears to have taken it for granted that Malta will be a willing party, as evidenced by the all-over references to Malta being used as a British base. This does not mean that Malta IS a British base, but it does mean that we were expected to offer our facilities just as everyone else did and the reaction when we did not do so was surprise, given that our airport was jampacked with military planes only three weeks ago.]

Our only airport cannot be used for military purposes, it cannot be exposed to danger. The countries which are involving their ‘assets’ are not putting all of them to enforce Libya’s NFZ.
Sigonella is a military airport not a civil airport, the US , UK, France, Denmark, Italy and the rest are not using ALL their military assets for this just cause.

Just a couple of points to clarify matters a bit:

a. First of all, the issue of whether or not the United KIngdom has bases in Malta or not is the result of some misplaced comments by UK Cabinet members made in the Commons in the run-up to the actions taken against Libya and which were picked up by the international media.

[Daphne – Yes, you’re right. It was the defence minister’s remarks which were picked up first by the BBC. He spoke about the British base in Malta, and here’s the thing: he did so right after visiting Malta.]

It seems that some people are not aware of what happened in 1979 and how subsequent requests were always turned down by sucessive Maltese administrations as there were many attempts to relaunch a permanent arrangement between the UK and Malta on ‘defence matters’.

b. Above all other considerations, Malta’s only military grade airstrips are in Luqa and these are, today, in use for civilian air traffic. This makes Malta as a very unlikely option – given the other choices available to the international coalition – due to many logistic and security considerations. Stressing on this point is a no-brainer, really, and the same can be said of Malta’s main ports in Valletta.

I hope this clarifies these two issues.

….yes and maybe use some water-boarding techiques too, while at it.

P.S. I’ll explain the Odyssey Dawn name later in my blog. It is not Hollywood at all, but Greek mythology, and a reference to Homer. Beautiful. I’m moved. Unless I’m crediting the Yanks with too much culture.