Why threaten Malta? Malta is one of the provinces of Libya – according to the Libyan Opposition. If Gaddafi prevails, Gaddafi Sr will continue to rule Greater Libya, while Saif Gaddafi will be appointed Duke of Malta. Antoine, you know that at least half of the population of Malta is loyal to the Gaddafi regime – he paid our children’s allowances!

The tone has gone from “dar dar, zenga zenga” to “ghajn ghal ghajn u sinna ghal sinna.” As you say, Antoine, we’ve heard this before from Labour.

“It will be very easy to replace Italy with China or Russia,”

One wonders why. Don’t wonder too long. He mentioned those two because they are the only two countries which oppose the no-fly zone over Libya.

Can one imagine if this were to materialize? Having China or Russia next door?

Now, who’s for neutrality as in neutralized?

I can understand Saif’s wrath at Italy since it decided (and rightly so) to suspend the multi-billion euro agreement with Libya, but it now it is clear as day that the Gaddafi clan is not only to be isolated but preferably eliminated one way or another.

Malta stands to lose much more than Libya’s friendship but it must also act with some restrain so as not to be included with Italy in any retaliatory actions by the Gaddafis – if, heaven forbid they prevail.

On surface the words of our government seem to lack the sting, but there is a Maltese saying which is somewhat hard to translate and still makes sense: ‘Il-borma min isawwara jkun jaf x’fiha’. We will do more harm to ourselves if we shoot our mouth before we engage our brains especially when lacking the necessary information about what is happening behind the scenes.

He is his father’s son.

Il-Ginger, your analysis is exactly like mine, save for the flowery language.

The answer to your last question: because Arab society is tribal. If other Arabs help the rebel tribes, they will cause an ever bigger blood bath, creating the optimal conditions for new inter-tribal alliances which might dismantle the entire political setup of these countries and lead to indomitable chaos.

This is NOT the West. Not even the Wild West.

Welcome, instead, to the ARAB WORLD!

Beggars can’t be choosers.

Simple as that, why should the West waste its resources if it has no guarantee that its going to backfire in their faces?

These are scenarios:
a) Western Leaders do nothing i.e. carry on bitching, smiling and talking.
a i) Gaddaffi gets back into power and pays back the West (in the form of cancelling business contracts).
a ii) The Rebels get into power, accuse the West of doing nothing and refuse to do business with the West.

b) The West invades Libya on behalf of the Libyan rebels
b i) Majority Libyan rebels get suspicious and turn to Gaddafi
b ii) Western Soldiers fuck up everything, like they did in Iraq and Afghanistan and Libyans turn against the West.

c) No-fly-zone
c i) Libyans see their planes being downed by Western aircraft as well as anti-aircraft units being hit from the Air, turn to Gaddafi
c ii) Western air units hit rebel units on the ground by mistake and a shit storm erupts.
c iii) No fly-zone isn’t enforced properly and Gaddafi carries on doing what he originally did.

d) The West invades Libya to steal their oil
This is the only guaranteed option where the West wins at least, short term.

Every other option requires the Libyan rebels to be on board with the West, but this is not the case. Instead of greeting the SAS units as liberators, they arrested them for “not liking the way they entered the country” and this shows that they not want our help.

The Arab world does have military units available, so why don’t they commit any of their soldiers to liberating Libya?

Read the link. They are against military intervention, if they really wanted help they wouldn’t have arrested them (beggars can’t be choosers) and I think HP Baxxter (or someone else on this blog) explained what a no-fly zone is and from what I can tell, its military intervention.

[Daphne – That’s not an option. He is the news.]