Misurata – it's getting worse
How odd it is that the final impetus for the UN vote on the no-fly zone was the threatened siege of Benghazi. Now Misurata really is under siege and NATO doesn’t seem to know how best to tackle the situation.
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URGENT STATEMENT FROM THE NATIONAL TRANSITIONAL COUNCIL
The National Transitional Council would like to bring to the attention of the international community the Gaddafi regime’s latest statement concerning the situation in Misurata. As announced on Sunday 10 April, the regime has declared that it will use force to prevent any party from delivering medical and humanitarian assistance to the city of Misurata.
The NTC would like to bring to the attention of the international community that the Gaddafi regime is accelerating attacks on Misurata, using sophisticated weapons including GRAD missiles, with the aim of breaching the city and massacring its civilians including women, children and the elderly. The mass killings have begun this morning.
The Council sends this appeal to the international community to assume its responsibilities, and move urgently to stop the anticipated massacre of men, women and children. The NTC is calling on the international community to use all necessary measures to ensure the implementation of UNSCR 1973 to protect civilians, by declaring Misurata an internationally protected zone, and insist on delivering medical and humanitarian aid to the people of Misurata who are subject to continuous indiscriminate shelling.
We appeal to the international community to continue their support of the Libyan people in their efforts to end the siege on our capital Tripoli and the western mountain areas. We urgently ask that they continue to support our struggle against the tyrannical Gaddafi regime and its oppression of our aspirations for freedom, democracy and dignity.
National Transitional Council, Libya
April 14, 2011
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BBC report from Misurata
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-13092908
When watching video clips like the above,I feel really confused,we see beautiful high rise block of flats,nice streets with well kept trees, well equipped hospitals. It makes me think, Is it so bad as they tell us?
Tripoli and Benghasi look like any Eouropean city. I wonder whether there is a hidden agenda,and by whom? I really don’t know who and what to believe anymore.
[Daphne – Give it a rest, Silvio, honestly.]
A bird living safely in a golden cage still wishes to fly free.
Take a tour of Libya’s prisons and find out for yourself – if you’re allowed to do so, that is.
Dear Jien Naf
The situation is REALLY dramatic. However you did make an interesting observation. Nowadays objective truth does not exist. Truth is constructed or deconstructed by the media.
A big weakness of the contemporary era is that many times the only evidence comes from what we see from TV & what journalists report. Thank God we have blogs (Daphne’s etc) , Facebook & the rest.
Actually, Silvio, it is quite shabby. It’s not as ‘nice’ as it looks. If you don’t know who or what to believe, then trust those who have been there.
@ gaddafi
Those are media too.
NATO is made up of a bunch of politicians playing soldier, while the real soldiers wait backstage for these idiots to decide what to do over lunch.
Dear Troy
Please refrain from making puerile uninformed statements. France declined to be part of NATO/OTAN for years because of NATO’s perceived Anglo-centric C&C, in addition to previous French administrations own puffed up view of its importance in world affairs.
Now it needs NATO (US assets in particular) and is pissed that it does not have A 10’s and Spectre gunships to do its own version of the USA’s last twenty years acting as the world policeman.
Nato is made up of a dedicated professional military constrained to follow the orders of politicians. They are not one and the same.
Nato commanders are also constrained to make do with the hardware supplied with by its civilian masters. Tonnes of money have been spent on the Euro fighter when the machinery in demand now is the slow but heavy-hitting A 10 1970s technology ground attack plane.
Incidentally, the Americans have decided to keep it till 2028. The military would go in with boots on the ground next week if ordered to, but the order must first come from the politicians – like it or hate it this is how democracy works .
The A 10 is shyte. It defeats the strategic aim, which is to have Gaddafi killed by his own people, with rifles and knives.
But someone is supplying the rebels. This morning I was driving around in Misurata on my beat-up technical and noticed piles of SA-7 missiles being uncrated by the rebels. I looked closer and the date of manufacture was April 2010. I’d say Egypt has a finger in the pie.
Baxxter, you’re becoming flippant. Shooting from the hip is dramatic only if you hit your intended target . The SA-7 missile you took a fancy to is a ground to air area defence shoulder-mounted weapon. The Egyptians as per your analysis are sure as hell about to piss off the coalition high command.
Military strategy is the planning, conduct and movement whilst employing deception of military forces to reach a military objective. The father of modern military strategy Carl Von Clauswitz puts the matter rather more eloquently,’ the art of distributing and applying military means to fulfill the ends of policy ‘.
Currently the rebels do not have the necessary cohesion or military strength to effectively force a knifing of Gaddafi.
So if you have to use military terminology use it correctly otherwise it is just a load of rubbish.
Heavy weaponry, including cluster bombs, used against civilians in Misurata
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/16/world/africa/16libya.html?_r=1&hp
By C. J. CHIVERS
Published: April 15, 2011
MISURATA, Libya — Military forces loyal to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, who have surrounded this city and vowed to crush its anti-Qaddafi rebellion, have been firing into residential neighborhoods with heavy weapons, including cluster bombs that have been banned by much of the world and ground-to-ground rockets, according to the accounts of witnesses and survivors and physical evidence on the ground.
They can’t seem to get a break, poor guys. May god give them strength to end this war.