France and Britain show their true colours – and so, unfortunately, do the rest
Arab states would aid Libya military op: French Foreign Minister
(AFP) – this morning
PARIS — Several Arab nations are prepared to take part in a military operation in Libya to stop the advance of leader Moamer Kadhafi’s forces, French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe wrote on his blog on Wednesday.
“Only the threat of force can stop Kadhafi. It is by bombarding, with the few dozen planes and helicopters he really has, his opponents’ positions that the Libyan dictator has turned the balance.
“We can/could neutralise his airborne means by targeted strikes.
“That’s what France and Britain have been proposing for two weeks. On two conditions: getting a mandate from the United Nations Security Council, the only source in international law for using force; acting not only with the support but also with the concrete participation of Arab nations.
“This second condition is in the process of being satisfied: several Arab countries have assured us that they would take part.”
Juppe was writing after hosting his counterparts from the Group of Eight major powers on Monday and Tuesday.
The foreign ministers failed to agree on military intervention in Libya, notably a Franco-British plan to implement a no-fly zone to prevent Kadhafi’s forced advancing on the rebel stronghold of Benghazi.
Instead the G8 agreed to send the issue of dealing with Kadhafi back to the UN Security Council in New York, where further action, including economic sanctions, could be authorised.
“France, with Britain and Lebanon, have just put forward a draft resolution in New York that would give us the expected mandate,” Juppe wrote.
“The French president (Nicolas Sarkozy) and the British prime minister (David Cameron) have just called solemnly for the (UN Security) Council members to look at it and adopt it.”
“It often happens in our recent history that the weakness of democracies gives dictators free rein. It’s not to late to break with this rule.”
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Daphne,
din ta Cameron u Sarkozy gimmick stil Alfred Sant biex jirrectaw li ma jaqblux mal-mexxejja dinjija. Ghax fil-verita hadd mhu se jintervjeni militarment. Kullimkien qed tidher cara: “World leaders agree there will be no military intervention”
Lil Obama & Co, Gonzi u kulhadd …intom GUDA. Intom tradituri. Intom ha thallu lil Gaddafi jaghmel kalvarju ta “final solution” f’Bengazi. Intom bieghejthu lill-innocenti Libjani ghall-tletin bicca tal-fidda (tletin kumpanija taz-zejt). Ifhmuha l-analogija. Certu tradimenti ma jinbidlu QATT
Issa stenna telefonata minghand Gonzi ghax se jitolbok tinghaqad ma xi tuzzana ohra u titilqu ghal Libya biex tiggieldu sider ma sider mar-ribelli.
Ara, kun ragel u offri s-servizzi tieghek.
Skond ma ktibt ir-rizorsi ta Gonzi huma daqs ta Obama. Ghalfejn deffist lill Gonzi fin-nofs?
Gonzi irid ikun pruzuntuz u jipposa ghal gallarija speci bhal Gowzef biex ilablab fil-vojt u bhal bqija tal lijders ta l-Ewropa li labalbu hafna imma ma waslu mkien.
Don’t be disappointed. The bleeding hearts formed part of The Cameron Show, starring Dave, Sarko and Barry.
NATO’s military intervention in Kosovo was not approved by the UNSC but still it proceeded. An international commission eventually concluded that the intervention was “illegal but legitimate.” Chi comanda fa la legge, as they say.
They know they could have pulled another Kosovo. Instead, having received no nudge from their puppetmasters, they chose to act as though they’re trying very hard. By the time they get the UNSC rubberstamp, the no-fly zone would be worth less than Gaddafi’s two jet fighters stationed in Malta.
It seems there are other, more exuberant plans for the Arab/Muslim world and Gaddafi’s role is not yet over.
Who knows, perhaps it’s got something to do with the late-70s Kissinger double-cross that’s about to expire. You never really know what’s on their minds.
You obviously have no idea what you’re talking about, kev. But perhaps that’s not your fault because locked up as you are in your Brussels-gravy-train-EU office, you’re not being trusted to get info from the ground.
The truth is that the rebels will probaby not need a no fly-zone, you outdated kraut. Secondly things have, since Kosovo and partly due to it, changed. It’s an entirely different ball-game now. You don’t have to be some great anyalyst to realise this, but we weren’t then all as lucky as you were to get a scholarship to Pravda University in Tovarich Breshnev’s Russia to fail our pilot’s course and get a degree in mental short-sightedness.
The rebels, bully for them, are managing to do it on their own. Had they not, and the international community had intervened, we would have heard you decrying the very interventions whose absence you now lament. It would be the greedy and evil West then, interfering, meddling in other countries’ affairs, wanting to grab their oil or some other rubbish that your Commie friends taught you so well.
Don’t forget little Denmark.
http://www.cphpost.dk/news/international/51195-denmark-ready-with-f-16s-to-defend-libyan-civilians.html
We could send our four Alouettes, armed with some pyrotechnics courtesy of the Maltese fireworks industry. Our future prime minister could have a word with his father to provide discounted raw materials.
Ahh but I almost forgot that darned neutrality clause.
Funny that you should mention the Alouettes. They can’t be flown because the Libyan government never handed over the docs.
http://politiken.dk/newsinenglish/ECE1224871/denmark-preparhttp://politiken.dk/newsinenglish/ECE1224871/denmark-prepares-f-16s-for-libya/es-f-16s-for-libya/
It is a pity that Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher are no longer around. The dictators and tyrants around the world could not feel so assured than under the current Obama administration.
Obama is the weakest president in American history, even worse than Jimmy Carter (which is definitely a very low bar). He did not back the protests in Iran and now he gave his thumbs up to the Libyan revolutionary movement.
The rationale for this behaviour is his submissiveness to the tyrants in China. Shamefully, he is also putting pressure on the Dalai Llama not to meet the US President – something unheard of (previous presidents had an open door policy with the spiritual leader) in order not to irritate the Chinese.
Going forward, we are doomed. The US is currently working on raising the Chinese profile (i.e. power) in the international institutions. Meanwhile, Obama can enjoy another round of golf, while the world around us is crumbling down.
Prosit Sur Shaw … ma stajtx ghedtha ahjar.
Really? Reagan and Thatcher? Pinochet anyone? He used to pee in his pants on receiving Thatcher’s repeated invitations to tea! Those of you crying out for a new war on Arab soil have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. Maybe you spend too much time playing computer war games.
Clinton bombed more places than Reagan, and Blair more than Thatcher. Can we stop this fawning over an illusory myth please?
I hope the fallout for Cameron and Sarkozy will be great. They did it for their self aggrandisement. If it was state policy then the message should have had the face of the respective foreign ministers until plans were finalised.
This step down is a repeat of the humiliating retreat France and Britain in the the Suez Crisis. We need an EU foreign minister with teeth. The EU is still prancing around at the USA’s leash…
What a let down!
Can we hold back on the Reagan hagiography please? The only place he had the “balls” to invade was Grenada, a tiny little island you couldn’t even find on a map. All the rest: Beirut, Iran, Libya or – god help us – the “defeat” of the Soviet Union were either hasty retreats, collusion with the enemy, or wars won by someone else.
Oh and he did not support Thatcher over the Falklands. So much for the match made in heaven.
Raegan was instrumental in starting an arms race with the Soviets – which eventually prompted the collapse of the Soviet Union, amongst other factors.Such a huge empire like the Soviet Union could not have crumbled overnight (hasty retreat?)
Reagan did nothing. He just sat back and waited for the Soviet empire to collapse from within. It had been on the decline ever since Stalin’s death. He was extremely active, on the other hand, in removing the checks and balances which had assured a bond of trust between CEOs, their employees, and shareholders.
Shaw is another expert in international affairs. Perhaps you don’t realise that the West is acting the way it is precisely because of the decisions taken by leaders past (Reagan et al) which made the East of today what it is.
And given that you’d make such a GREAT US President yourself, I suggest you leave and get yourself elected ASAP so that the rest of the world would be, certainly, in much better and capable hands.
Nero looks on as Rome is burning !
Ah, but listen to what Chateaubriand has to say:
“Lorsque, dans le silence de l’abjection, on n’entend plus retentir que la chaîne de l’esclave et la voix du délateur ; lorsque tout tremble devant le tyran, et qu’il est aussi dangereux d’encourir sa faveur que de mériter sa disgrâce, l’historien paraît, chargé de la vengeance des peuples. C’est en vain que Néron prospère, Tacite est déjà né dans l’Empire…”
[Daphne – You’re going to have to translate that.]
“When, in the silence of despair, we hear nothing but the sound of the chains of slavery and the voice of accuser; when everything trembles before the tyrant, and when it becomes as dangerous to submit to his favours as it is to deserve his rebuke, the historian appears, to avenge the people. Nero prospers in vain, because Tacitus has been born in the Empire..”
The translation doesn’t do it justice, but you get the gist. Once Tacitus the historian or Daphne the journalist has denounced the dictator, his days are numbered. In Gaddafi’s case it’s even better: he’s been denounced by the world’s governments.
You see what happens when a liberal (lefty) gets elected to office they produce a mess and than we applaud Mr Obama because he’s good-looking.
Obama’s problem is most probably Saudi Arabia: if he condones a foreign military intervention in Libya, then he’ll have to condone another foreign country intervening in Saudi Arabia when the insurrection comes. Bahrain is a mess and insurrection is fomenting in SA.
I didn’t know we had so many far-right wingnuts here in Malta…
History repeating itself. Remember Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Tibet, China, Democracy is impotent against dictatorship and this many dictators know it. (North Korea)
When the west intervenes it is criticised. When the west doesn’t intervene, it is criticised. Where are all the Arab states that want Gaddafi out?
Democracy is rendered impotent by the people who voice their anti-establishment rants within it. Strong leaders (from democracies) have in the past fought and defeated dictators much more dangerous than Gaddafi, but it seems that the current crop of western democratic leaders, barring exceptions, are good at fiddling thumbs.
I now imagine that Gaddafi will, within a few days, deliver a victory speech in Green Square, in which he will read out a list of friendly countries with which Libya will, from now on, have a special trading status. Countries which have not betrayed their loyalty to Gaddafi and his regime.
Top of that list will be Malta.
The only country to have de facto imposed a no-fly ban on Libya is Malta. It did so when it grounded two Libyan Mirage jets a few days ago.
Effectively, this means two fewer jets in the skies of Libya that could bombard eastern Libya. With its action, Malta has done more that UK or USA to curb the dictator.
Keeping those two jets was a much bigger blow to Gaddafi’s air force than immediately apparent.
He had only four of those and they were the only up to date fighter jets that he had. He is now left with only one, the other one having been shot down probably while trying to escape like the other two.
He does of course have a rather large number of less capable aircraft which are still very effective at shooting into unarmed or lightly armed crowds of people but nothing that would be of any significant threat to aircraft used in a potential no fly zone or other foreign military intervention.
http://www.cyprus-mail.com/cyprus/historic-visit-israel/20110315
You may wish to start a topic on the subject in the link above. Cyprus is also a neutral, EU country, as you know, but its politicians are pro-active and have agreed to share the huge gas reserves just explored in the region. Furthermore, and this doesn’t feature in the article, Cyprus will be providing the Israeli Defence Force with temporary basing facilities for training purposes.
You may want to dig a bit further on this subject and I will do the same, hoping to make the people here more aware of how weak our foreign affairs policy is, especially with Tonio Borg around.
All of the EU’s neutral countries except Cyprus have troops in Afghanistan: Sweden, Austria, Finland and our beloved Ireland. NATO member Iceland, which doesn’t even have an army, also has a contingent there. Luxemburg’s army is smaller than the AFM. They also sent a contingent.
Switzerland (“Svizzera fil-Mediterran!”) Had some 30-odd soldiers there from 2003 to 2008.
That’s just to put things in perspective.