Mark Steyn on Obama, Hurricane Sandy and Benghazi

Mark Steyn at his best:

In political terms, Hurricane Sandy and the Benghazi consulate debacle exemplify at home and abroad the fundamental unseriousness of the United States in the Obama era. In the days after Sandy hit, Barack Obama was generally agreed to have performed well. He had himself photographed in the White House Situation Room, nodding thoughtfully to bureaucrats ("John Brennan, Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism; Tony Blinken, National Security Advisor to the Vice President; David Agnew, Director for Intergovernmental Affairs") and Tweeted it to his 3.2 million followers. He appeared in New Jersey wearing a bomber jacket rather than a suit to demonstrate that when the going gets tough the tough get out a monogrammed Air Force One bomber jacket. He announced that he'd instructed his officials to answer all calls within 15 minutes because in America "we leave nobody behind." By doing all this, the president "shows" he "cares" – which is true in the sense that in Benghazi he was willing to leave the entire consulate staff behind, and nobody had their calls answered within seven hours, because presumably he didn't care. So John Brennan, the Counterterrorism guy, and Tony Blinken, the National Security honcho, briefed the president on the stiff breeze, but on Sept. 11, 2012, when a little counterterrorism was called for, nobody bothered calling the Counterterrorism Security Group, the senior U.S. counterterrorism bureaucracy.
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Back in Benghazi, the president who looks so cool in a bomber jacket declined to answer his beleaguered diplomats' calls for help – even though he had aircraft and Special Forces in the region. Too bad. He's all jacket and no bombers. This, too, is an example of America's uniquely profligate impotence. When something goes screwy at a ramshackle consulate halfway round the globe, very few governments have the technological capacity to watch it unfold in real time. Even fewer have deployable military assets only a couple of hours away. What is the point of unmanned drones, of military bases around the planet, of elite Special Forces trained to the peak of perfection if the president and the vast bloated federal bureaucracy cannot rouse themselves to action? What is the point of outspending Russia, Britain, France, China, Germany and every middle-rank military power combined if, when it matters, America cannot urge into the air one plane with a couple of dozen commandoes? In Iraq, al-Qaida is running training camps in the western desert. In Afghanistan, the Taliban are all but certain to return most of the country to its pre-9/11 glories. But in Washington the head of the world's biggest "counterterrorism" bureaucracy briefs the president on flood damage and downed trees.

I don't know whether Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan can fix things, but I do know that Barack Obama and Joe Biden won't even try – and that therefore a vote for Obama is a vote for the certainty of national collapse. Look at Lower Manhattan in the dark, and try to imagine what America might look like after the rest of the planet decides it no longer needs the dollar as global reserve currency. For four years, we have had a president who can spend everything but build nothing. Nothing but debt, dependency, and decay. As I said at the beginning, in different ways the response to Hurricane Sandy and Benghazi exemplify the fundamental unseriousness of the superpower at twilight. Whether or not to get serious is the choice facing the electorate Tuesday.

Read the entire article here

One can only hope that Americans make the right choice when they vote on Tuesday!

The new Libya "wildly ambitious" in Durban

Flashback 2007:

The Libyan government has announced the creation of what it claims is "the world’s first sustainable region". It’s backed by architects Foster and Partners, enthusiastically endorsed by Sir Nicholas Stern – and directed by the Colonel’s son, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi.

The Green Mountain Conservation and Development Authority (GMCDA) will cover the northeastern region of Jabal al Akhdar (literally, ‘Green Mountain’). This encompasses several of the country’s major cities, including Benghazi, and stretches from the coast inland to a plateau featuring junipers, cypresses and wild olives. According to Norman Foster, it’s "one of the most beautiful and little known landscapes on earth"…

Sir Nicholas Stern… has given his blessing: "If we are to avoid the catastrophic effects of climate change… we need urgently to build new economic and social models of development on a substantial scale. The GMCDA will show how environmental and cultural objectives can help to build a thriving and sustainable local economy in a crucial part of the world." Among other organisations involved are UNESCO, WWF and the Prince of Wales School of Traditional Arts.

Luckily, madman Gaddafi and his sons have been replaced by other people. But whether this new Libyan "project" is much more realistic than the 2007 undertaking, remains to be seen:

Libya is wildly ambitious and clearly already trying to revolutionise thinking on climate change and science. It plans a monster geoengineering project that would not just cool the Earth by 6C and cut carbon dioxide emissions to zero by 2021, it says, but would reverse global warming, provide power for 2 billion people, lower sea levels and restore the climate of 1750. Wow. How, you ask? Easily, says Muftah Elarbash, who describes himself as a Libyan environmental engineer who is on the delegation. He wants to build, at a cost of around $45 trillion, several dozen giant, 15km wide "venting towers" to create constant winds in the desert to drive massive windfarms which would then electrify the world. "Once that is done the maximum ambient temperature of 26.2C will be reached in 2020 - 6C below the catastrophic threshold temperature of 32". He reckons that by 2080 the climate will be back to that seen in 1750.

Read the entire article here

PS

I would not be surprised if  the Prince of Wales and Sir Nicholas Stern would lend their support also to this new Libyan fantasy project.

European Union "president" van Rompuy misinforms the UN about the EU´s role in Libya

The unelected "president" brags about the EU as "fatherland of democracy"!


The unelected European Union "president" Herman van Rompuy used his opportunity to speak at the UN General Assembly to brag and misinform about the EU´s role in the liberation of Libya:

"When, earlier this year, there was the risk of a bloodbath in Benghazi, European leaders, together with others, acted with swiftness and determination," he added. "You can rest assured that Europe will remain engaged together with you to create a world of peace and security, to promote universal values of human rights and democracy and to combat famine and poverty."

The EU Observer´s Andrew Rettman rightly points out what really happened:

The speech glosses over the fact EU countries cozied up to Arab dictators for decades for the sake of oil and security - Van Rompuy's staff before the summer quietly removed a framed picture of Gaddafi from his EU headquarters in Brussels. It also glosses over that Germany did not back Nato air strikes in Libya and that the EU's only military contribution, the so-called Eufor aid mission, was rejected by the UN.

Read the entire article here

PS

van Rompuy, who addressed the General Assembly for the first time as the EU´s top official, also tried to give the impression that he is one of the world leaders (which he is not):

"This institutional innovation gives our union more continuity and consistency vis-a-vis other world leaders."

President Sarkozy deserves some credit for his Libyan policy

Taylor Dinerman lauds president Nicolas Sarkozy for his Libya policy. The victory over Gaddafi belongs to the Libyans themselves, but Sarkozy also can take some credit for the success:

Much of the credit should also go to the world leader who, early on, decided to bet on the rebels: France's President Nicolas Sarkozy. After some prodding from the celebrity intellectual, Bernard Henri Levy, Sarkozy began to lobby the rest of the West, especially US President Barack Obama and a few Arab governments,against Gaddafi.
While there were some political reasons for Sarkozy's actions, including the need to make everyone, in Libya and elsewhere forget about the ill-considered 2008 arms sales to Libya, the French government's motives were less cynical than one might have come to expect, based on past performance from past regimes. This is to Sarkozy's credit, and may presage an enduring shift in France's overall foreign policy towards a less automatic anti-US and anti-NATO posture.
It was Sarkozy's decision in June to airdrop a massive supply of weapons, including especially the Milan wire-guided anti-tank missiles, for the Arab and Berber rebels in the Jebel Nefousa mountains south of the Libyan capital, Tripoli, that future military historians will probably see as the decisive move that broke the back of Gaddafi's military forces. France's traditionally intimate knowledge of Berber tribal politics may have been one of the reasons behind this move; also, the fact that French intelligence believed, correctly as it turned out, that, if well armed, the Berbers would prove formidable fighting men.

But Sarkozy´s Libyan success may not be enough to get him re-elected:

His poll numbers are far worse than those of any other Western leader. In one recent survey roughly 50% of Frenchmen said they would not vote for him under any circumstances. His job approval rating hovers consistently around 25%.

Read the entire article here

One must hope that Dinerman is right about the shift in French foreign policy "towards a less automatic anti-US and anti-NATO posture". That would be most welcome from a transatlantic/NATO point of view. There have not been too many positive developments in that area during the last few years.

Libya: No reason for too much NATO celebration in Europe

James Joyner, managing editor of the Atlantic Council notes that there there is not very much to celebrate for the European members of NATO after the recent events in Libya:

The fighting in Libya demonstrated just how hollow most European militaries are. Despite President Obama's continued assurance that the U.S. role would last "days, not weeks" and that the European allies would take the lead, the fact of the matter was that they simply lacked the resources to do so. Yes, Europeans eventually flew the bulk of the "strike sorties" in Unified Protector. But the Americans provided virtually all of the intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance; suppression of enemy air defenses; and aerial refueling missions.
Reeling from ten years of fighting in Afghanistan, most NATO forces are spent. Libya hastened the decay, using up resources to such an extent that several allies were literally out of ammunition and fuel and had to beg others for resupply. And, with austerity a way of life for the foreseeable future, few are prioritizing necessary replenishment, much less retooling for future fights.

Read the entire article here

PS
Joyner is, of course, right. And, regrettably, there are no signs that the key European NATO member countries intend to strengthen their defense capabilities in the near future. So, in spite of the modest success in Libya, the future of NATO does not look very good.

Seif el-Gaddafi - once lauded by the NYT for his views on global warming

Saif al-Islam, who received his PhD from  the London School of Economics, also gave the LSE  a grant of £1.5 million

It is worth remembering that Seif al-Islam el-Qaddafi, 38, son of Muammar el-Gaddafi was until recently the darling of the liberal establishment in Europe and the U.S. In 2007 for example, the New York Times, an ardent promoter of the human induced global warming myth, run this adulatory portrait of of Seif:

A Son Radiates His Own Light in His Father’s Libya


The thin man with a shaved head smiled slightly as he made his way to a podium erected amid Greek ruins, a serious presence in a boisterous crowd that gathered last week to celebrate plans for an eco-development region near this town in the deserts of eastern Libya.
In a skullcap and white tunic with a gold-trimmed vest, the man talked slowly, deliberately, even a bit nervously, presenting data in English about desertification, oil and carbon emissions. He corrected even the smallest grammatical errors in the printed speech he was reading.
“Climate change is a global problem, but global solutions start with local solutions,” he said in faintly accented English.
Societies, he said, should be built in a way that allowed them to reduce greenhouse gases. “The day will come when oil will run out, and if we wait for that it will be too late,” he said.
The man — part scholar, part monk, part model, part policy wonk — was Saif al-Islam el-Qaddafi, the powerful 33-year-old son of Libya’s extroverted and impulsive president, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi. He is, in short, the un-Qaddafi.

Read the entire article here

Of course, the reporting has lately changed:

When the Libyan uprisings began in February 2011, the younger Mr. Qaddafi backed his father's violent crackdown from the start, promising "rivers of blood.''
In June 2011, the International Criminal Court in The Hague called him Libya's "de facto prime minister'' as it issued arrest warrants for him, his father and the country's chief of intelligence

PS

Seif is still on the run, but if he is captured alive, he will not become the "green" leader of Libya that New York Times expected him to become. He will have to address some more serious questions than dubious climate change when facing the International Criminal Court in the Hague. Al Gore and the IPCC warmists have lost a leading supporter in Africa.

The "grandeur" and "serenity" of the Rixos hotel in Tripoli

It appears that the remnants of madman Gaddafi´s forces use the Rixos hotel as one of their last "strongholds":
A group of journalists are under siege at a five-star hotel in Tripoli where they are being held hostage by soldiers loyal to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.
Mortar attacks and gunfire have been reported in the grounds of the £500-a-night Rixos hotel, where 35 foreigners are being held.
The hostages are unable to leave the hotel compound and armed guards are patrolling the corridors with AK47s.

Read the entire article here

Meanwhile, this is how The Tripoli Post describes the hotel:

Grandeur and Serenity in the Heart of Tripoli

Grand and Serene, these are the two words one would most definitely describe the newly opened Rixos Al Nasr Hotel in Tripoli, Libya. This luxurious hotel which opened its doors mid-March, promises to bring to its guests a taste of Turkish hospitality and its culture of service perfection.

Located in Al Nasr Park in Tripoli, the hotel was built to give an illusion of finding a well preserved forest in the midst of a busy city. It is surrounded by native over eighty years old Ocaliptus trees in Tripoli. This particular area was chosen due to one of the Rixos chain's traits, in which the company acknowledges their success, which is their hotel's strategic locations and fitting a suitable theme to establish its mark in the area.

Dubbed as "The Living Hotel", Rixos Tripoli comprises an area of 20.000m2, the hotel itself is architecturally unique, designed and built without any damage to the environment.

The entire article here

PS
The Turkish owners of the Rixos also seem to have included secret tunnels to the Gaddafi compound in the "arhcitecturally unique" design.

The end of the Gaddafi regime

Today the world has witnessed the end of the Gaddafi era in Libya. Nobody knows how things will develop in Libya, Egypt or the other countries swept by the popular uprisings during the Arab spring. But at least there is hope now for the peoples who for such a long time have been oppressed by unscrupulous dictators.  

On a day like this, it is good to remember that these popular uprisings almost certainly would not have taken place without the much maligned policies of president George W. Bush and the Iraq war.

In a speech at the American Enterprise Institute in Frebruary 2003, president Bush had the following to say about freedom in the Arab world:

The world has a clear interest in the spread of democratic values, because stable and free nations do not breed the ideologies of murder. They encourage the peaceful pursuit of a better life. And there are hopeful signs of a desire for freedom in the Middle East. Arab intellectuals have called on Arab governments to address the "freedom gap" so their peoples can fully share in the progress of our times. Leaders in the region speak of a new Arab charter that champions internal reform, greater politics participation, economic openness, and free trade. And from Morocco to Bahrain and beyond, nations are taking genuine steps toward politics reform. A new regime in Iraq would serve as a dramatic and inspiring example of freedom for other nations in the region.
 
It is presumptuous and insulting to suggest that a whole region of the world -- or the one-fifth of humanity that is Muslim -- is somehow untouched by the most basic aspirations of life. Human cultures can be vastly different. Yet the human heart desires the same good things, everywhere on Earth. In our desire to be safe from brutal and bullying oppression, human beings are the same. In our desire to care for our children and give them a better life, we are the same. For these fundamental reasons, freedom and democracy will always and everywhere have greater appeal than the slogans of hatred and the tactics of terror.

But, as columnist Ralp Peters recently pointed out, left-leaning American and European liberals, and Arab leaders will not admit the importance of the Bush "freedom doctrine" any time soon (that will be done later by historians):

Over the past week, we’ve seen Egypt’s deposed dictator face charges in a court of law; the tanks of Syria’s dictator killing—but not deterring—unarmed freedom protesters; and ill-armed-but-determined Libyan rebels gnawing their way into the strongholds of the man responsible for more American deaths than any other terrorist but Osama bin Laden. While plenty of problems will plague the Middle East for decades to come, the pace of largely positive change has been swifter than anyone (not least, the Arabs themselves) imagined possible.

For all the dangers and difficulties ahead, there’s real hope in the Middle East for the first time in over a half-century. And the man who made it possible is George W. Bush.

Oh, Bush will continue to be vilified by our own spiteful left, by Euro-snobs, and by Arabs unable to admit that the American destruction of Saddam Hussein’s regime awakened them to the realization that dictators don’t have to be forever. But the endless calumny doesn’t matter much in the face of Bush’s historic achievement. Future historians will get it: The occupation of Iraq may have been clumsy, but there’s nonetheless a direct line from the image of a grubby, confused Saddam Hussein emerging from his hole in the ground to the sight of Egypt’s former president, Hosni Mubarak, in a court-room cage.

Bush and the neo-conservatives who drove the invasion of Iraq got many of the details wrong—not least, their assumption that they were smarter than any mere generals—but their great insight was that the Middle East had to change, but couldn’t change on its own. Something had to break the cycle of failure and oppression, or the region would continue to produce Islamist fanatics and crises without end.

Read the entire article here

John Bolton on the Libya mess

John Bolton (who served as ambassador to the United Nations in the administration of President George W. Bush) has written an excellent article about why there does not seem to be any end to the mess in Libya:

Obama set the tone for this exercise in Libya at the outset. He limited the military mission to protecting civilians; by his own admission, he waited to act until the very last minute when rebel strongholds were under imminent attack; he declared publicly there would be no U.S. “boots on the ground”; and he insisted on advance approval by the UN Security Council and the Arab League.

Then, after U.S. forces dominated the first days of the “kinetic military activity,” his administration abruptly ceased most U.S. strike missions, even as it continued to supply the logistical, operational and intelligence backbone for air operations by NATO. By pretending to abdicate to our alliance partners, we behaved as if NATO hadn’t from its inception been U.S.-led and dominated, leaving our allies shaking their heads.
On March 18, Obama expressly said he wanted Qaddafi removed from power, but that we wouldn’t use force to do so: “We are not going to use force to go beyond a well-defined goal -- specifically, the protection of civilians in Libya.” This is the “responsibility to protect” doctrine, which countenances force for humanitarian purposes, at least as defined by those dropping the ordnance.

Subsequently, NATO strikes have killed one of Qaddafi’s children and three of his grandchildren, and the regime claims numerous other civilians have also died. NATO has admitted to mistakenly attacking rebel convoys on more than one occasion.
Even humanitarian interventions can cause tragedies.

This inherent confusion among our stated goals, the numerous restrictions imposed on NATO forces, and Obama’s unwillingness to do what is necessary -- namely, removing Qaddafi -- means that the Libyan operation has no end in sight.
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The lesson for the U.S. is that it shouldn’t always ask permission from foreigners when pursuing its interests, but can ask forgiveness later if necessary. That, of course, is the conclusion Obama is least likely to derive. The absence of clear U.S. leadership on Libya has produced the current impasse, both diplomatically and militarily. Although NATO should ultimately prevail, it is wrenching that our president has caused so many of the problems we now confront.

Read the entire Bloomberg article here

Who is Mr. Putin to lecture anybody in the west about civilized behaviour?

This report is by the Russian propaganda channel Russia Today


The corrupted ruler of  Russia, Vladimir Putin has again been - this time in Copenhagen - lecturing the western countries about moral behaviour:

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Western military efforts to overthrow Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi are destroying the nation’s infrastructure and violate a United Nations mandate to protect civilians.
“Who decided they had the right to execute a man (Gaddafi), regardless of who he is?”

US Defense secretary Robert Gates, who has described Russia as “an oligarchy run by the security services”.  of course rejected Putin´s dubious claim:

"We are not targeting him [Gaddafi] specifically." However command and control centres were legitimate targets, the US defence secretary clarified

Instead of just looking surprised, the host, Denmark´s Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen could replied with e.g. these words:

"Who are you, Mr. Putin, with blood on your hands, to lecture anybody anywhere about civilized behaviour. Your are directly or indirectly responsible for the murder of Anna Politkovskaya and hundreds - probably thousands - of other innocent Russian people. More than 300 journalists have beeen murdered in Russia since 1993. Your legacy is a massacre, the mothers of Beslan have testified. You most likely gave the OK to the murder of Alexander Litvinenko in 2006. Only a few months ago Sergei Magnitsky, a 37-year anti-corruption lawyer was tortured and killed by your regime. The show trial and imprisonment of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, orchestrated by you, is an outrage. Yet you have the effrontery to come to my country and lecture us about morals. You probably think that the Russian energy resources - which you and your friends have been  busy stealing from the Russian people -  are so important for us in the west that we will not react to your insults. But let me assure you that you are dead wrong! No gas and oil contracts in the world can make us forget the criminal acts of your corrupted mafia state. And thanks to the shale oil revolution, there will soon be even less need for your dirty energy deals. No, Mr. Putin, why don´t you return back to Moscow and start thinking about your personal future - which will not differ very much from the fate of other bloodthirsty dictators."   

Well, it is of course no surprise that Mr. Løkke did not reply to Putin in this way. No, Putin is - regrettably - still welcomed as an honoured guest in the west. In Copenhagen he was e.g. received by Queen Margrethe and in Sweden by king Carl XVI Gustaf. Energy deals are more important than human rights concerns in most western countries - also in Denmark and Sweden.

EU now has a new "general" - Baroness Ashton

"General" Ashton arriving
(imagy by EU photo service)

Unelected EU "foreign minister", British Baroness Catherine Ashton is now trying to rival "general" Herman Van Rompuy as a military leader:

The EU has drawn up a "concept of operations" for the deployment of military forces in Libya, but needs UN approval for what would be the riskiest and most controversial mission undertaken by Brussels.

The armed forces, numbering no more than 1,000, would be deployed to secure the delivery of aid supplies, would not be engaged in a combat role but would be authorised to fight if they or their humanitarian wards were threatened. "It would be to secure sea and land corridors inside the country," said an EU official.
The decision to prepare the mission, dubbed Eufor Libya, was taken by the 27 governments at the beginning of April. In recent days, diplomats from the member states have signed a 61-page document on the concept of operations, which rehearses various scenarios for the mission in and around Libya, such as securing port areas, aid delivery corridors, loading and unloading ships, providing naval escorts, and discussing the military assets that would be required.
The planning has taken place inside the office of Catherine Ashton, the EU's foreign and security policy chief. Officials are working on an "A-plan", the operational instructions that would specify the size of the force, its equipment and makeup, and the rules of engagement.
Diplomats and officials said this would not be finalised unless a request for an EU military mission came from the UN body the Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha).
Valerie Amos, the head of Ocha, has privately told EU leaders she is reluctant to make the request and wants to explore all civilian options for the aid operation before seeking military help.

Read the entire article here

PS
This talk about an EU ground force in Libya should not be taken seriously. If such an EU force ever will be sent to Libya, it will happen only at a very late stage, when there no more is any real danger from the Gaddafi forces. Right now, "general" Ashton´s troops are virtual troops, with the aim of giving the appearance that the EU is doing something.

Obama´s strange Libya policy

This is difficult to understand:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Despite rebel setbacks and an increasingly public rift with NATO allies, the U.S. will stick to its plan to remain in the back seat of the Libya air campaign, the Obama administration insisted Tuesday after three weeks of air missions that have failed to turn the tide against Moammar Gadhafi.

France's defense minister declared that without full American participation, the West probably would not be able to stop attacks by Gadhafi loyalists on besieged rebel cities.

U.S. officials said they were comfortable with their role and had no plans to step up involvement, even as British and French officials said Washington's military might was needed to ensure the mission's success. The Americans said NATO could carry out the operation without a resumption of the heavy U.S. efforts that kicked it off last month.

"The president and this administration believes that NATO, and the coalition of which we remain a partner, is capable of fulfilling that mission of enforcing the no-fly zone, enforcing the arms embargo and providing civilian protection," White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters.

Read the entire article here

PS

If this remains the policy of the Obama administration, then one might ask, why did they decide to join the operation at all?

Libya: The problem with humanitarian war

                                             Too little, too late?

As things stand now in Libya, a stalemate with madman Gaddafi remaining in power appears more and more likely:

The chief of U.S. military operations in Africa says the situation in Libya is moving toward a stalemate that would leave Moammar Gadhafi in power for an unknown period of time.  General Carter Ham, commander of U.S. Africa Command, spoke Thursday to the Senate’s Armed Services Committee.

General Ham faced tough questioning from some members of the committee, particularly Republicans, who disagree with President Barack Obama’s decision not to use the military to directly oust Gadhafi.

The committee’s senior Republican, Senator John McCain, who lost the 2008 election to President Obama, was particularly tough.  He said the United States lost an opportunity to remove the Libyan leader when it sought an international coalition and took three weeks to put it together. 

Senator McCain is right; the delay caused by the creation of the international coalition made the removal of Gaddafi extremely difficult. The coalition was put together in accordance with the principles of an "immaculate" humanitarian intervention, as described by Stratfor´s George Friedman:

I call humanitarian wars immaculate intervention, because most advocates want to see the outcome limited to preventing war crimes, not extended to include regime change or the imposition of alien values. They want a war of immaculate intentions surgically limited to a singular end without other consequences. And this is where the doctrine of humanitarian war unravels.
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My unease with humanitarian intervention is not that I don’t think the intent is good and the end moral. It is that the intent frequently gets lost and the moral end is not achieved. Ideology, like passion, fades. But interest has a certain enduring quality. A doctrine of humanitarian warfare that demands an immaculate intervention will fail because the desire to do good is an insufficient basis for war. It does not provide a rigorous military strategy to what is, after all, a war. Neither does it bind a nation’s public to the burdens of the intervention. In the end, the ultimate dishonesties of humanitarian war are the claims that “this won’t hurt much” and “it will be over fast.” In my view, their outcome is usually either a withdrawal without having done much good or a long occupation in which the occupied people are singularly ungrateful.

North Africa is no place for casual war plans and good intentions. It is an old, tough place. If you must go in, go in heavy, go in hard and get out fast. Humanitarian warfare says that you go in light, you go in soft and you stay there long. I have no quarrel with humanitarianism. It is the way the doctrine wages war that concerns me. Getting rid of Gadhafi is something we can all feel good about and which Europe and America can afford. It is the aftermath — the place beyond the immaculate intervention — that concerns me.

Read the entire interesting article by George Friedman here.

PS
Regrettably Obama did not have the guts to "go in heavy, go in hard", which will make it extremely difficult to "get out fast".

The Telegraph´s Nile Gardiner: "General Van Rompuy 'saves' Benghazi from Gaddafi "

NATO Secretary General Fogh Rasmussen and EU "General" van Rompuy

The Telegraph´s columnist Nile Gardiner has an good piece on the EU´s futile efforts to convince the public that the it has played a pivotal role in the Allied operations againsta Libya:

The European Union will try to claim credit for almost anything these days, even going so far as recently declaring the Oscar success of The King’s Speech to be an EU victory. But its latest foray in the world of make-believe surely takes the biscuit. The apparatchiks in Brussels are currently in overdrive trying to demonstrate that the European Union has played a pivotal role in the Allied campaign in Libya. This, despite the fact that Brussels did all it could to appease Gaddafi’s monstrous regime for decades. Witness EU Council president Herman Van Rompuy’s speech of staggering audacity to the European Parliament in Brussels earlier today where he declared:

Two weeks previously, in an extraordinary European Council on 11 March, we had adopted a clear line on Libya. Without that clear European position, the subsequent actions would not have been possible. We decided that, to safeguard the safety of the civilian population, Member States could: “examine all necessary options, provided that there is a demonstrable need, a clear legal basis and support from the region”.
… A massive bloodbath has been avoided, thousands of lives have been saved. This is the most important result and deserves the highest attention, more so than the decision-making process. The wood is more important than the trees!
Of course, we all know that the decision to take military action was not easy. There are, quite naturally, questions and hesitations. That is perfectly normal in issues of war and peace. But any difficulties that we have experienced over that aspect of the Libyan crisis should not mask for one moment the full track record of the European Union. From the beginning of the crisis, the European Union was at the forefront.

Needless to say, there was no mention in President Van Rompuy’s victory address of the role played by David Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy in mobilising the international coalition that intervened to halt Colonel Gaddafi’s advance on Benghazi, or the fact that it was US, British and French airpower that saved large numbers of lives. The European Union has been a massive irrelevance throughout the whole Libya crisis, with its key representatives Van Rompuy and Baroness Ashton overwhelmingly sidelined.

Read the whole article here.

Cold war still alive in Russia: Swedish contribution to Libya no-fly zone "dangerous"

These guys seem to frighten the Russians - regrettably the Swedish pilots are not allowed to use their weapons in Libya

Yesterday´s Pravda article cited below about the Swedish decision to participate in the UN sanctioned Libya operation could have been written in the middle of the cold war. It has all the vintage communist party paper ingredients about the the US and NATO "carrying out an active policy of encirlement of Russia,  creating a ring of military bases around us". Having read the views of  Leonid Ivashov, president of the Academy of Geopolitical Issues, the question arises: When the communist system broke down, did Mr. Ivashov go into hiding somewhere in a basement room where all the old party propaganda leaflets and films were stored? If that is indeed the case, the editors of Pravda are to be congratulated for finding him. But they would have been well adviced to brief him about the change of date and year.

The Swedish army is 25,000 people strong, but the local General Staff has developed a plan that allows it to quickly double. The Scandinavian military machine has 165 combat and 102 support aircrafts, over 50 surface ships and five submarines. It is noteworthy that the decision to build combat power in Sweden was made after the war in South Ossetia.

Sweden's participation in the bombing of Libya is a possible trial step towards membership in NATO, or at least establishing a special relationship with the alliance. How does it change the situation at the Russian borders? What kind of troubles Sweden's membership in NATO can cause Russia? Military experts Leonid Ivashov and Anatoly Tsyganok shared their thoughts with Pravda.Ru.

Leonid Ivashov, president of the Academy of Geopolitical Issues:

"I would not say that Sweden has too strong of an army, capable of solving extra-combat tasks. It thinks more about maintaining its higher status in comparison to Norway and Finland. During last decades Russia has had good cooperative relations with the Swedes. The Swedish General von Sydow was very happy that his country did not participate in the NATO aggression against Yugoslavia. This fact should be noted separately.

"However, the U.S. is carrying out an active policy of encirclement of Russia, creating a ring of military bases around us. There are bases in the Black Sea region, at our northern borders. The Americans started working with Sweden to attract it into NATO. It seems that the political decision has been made and the Swedes will be joining the North Atlantic bloc. Participation in the bombing of Libya and the creation of "Arctic mini-NATO" are steps in this direction.

"Sweden alone is unlikely to threaten Russia. However, as a part of NATO, it is much more dangerous. The Alliance is a well-honed, sophisticated American system designed to encircle Russia. In that sense, the end of the era of Swedish neutrality is not good for Russia."

Anatoly Tsyganok, head of the Center for Military Forecasting, Institute of Political and Military Analysis:

"To date, there is no consensus about the possible entry into NATO in Swedish society. Proponents point to the danger posed by Russia, the adversaries point to the costs of the membership in the alliance. However, the fact that the Swedes have been recently coordinating closely with NATO forces, and that the planes have been sent to Libya, says that the "Atlantic" vector of Swedish politics today is stronger.

"If Sweden joins the Atlantic alliance, it will create many problems for Russia both at the Baltic Sea and the Arctic. In the north, near Russian borders, a joint Swedish-Norwegian strike group will appear, theoretically able to act against our Baltic and Northern fleets. Today, NATO is increasing its presence in the Arctic. In this regard, the addition of Sweden to the alliance is a very bad signal for Russia."

Read he entire piece here.

This is one of the films Mr. Ivashov must have been watching during his years in the basement:

PS

It is very sad that this kind of thinking still is so prevalent in Russia today. But one cannot say that it is a surprise. As long as an old (second or third rate) KGB spy is in charge, not very much will change, inspite of all the talk (especially by the puppet president). 

Operation "Odyssey Dawn" - in reality the US will always be in charge

                                        USS Mount Whitney

As we have pointed out earlier, the public debate about who will be in charge of operation Odyssey Dawn is a sideshow - in reality the US is the only power with the capacity to lead a major operation like this:

The command debate, however, may be more for political show than about real changes on the ground if NATO eventually does take the mantle, according to Lawrence Korb, from the Center for American Progress think-tank.
"It will help to change the perception of the operation," particularly in the Arab world, Korb told AFP. "The US is a critical part of the operation but we want to do it behind the scene."
French jets dropped the first bombs in the conflict before Tomahawk cruise missiles followed from US and British submarines.
Now the 12-country coalition includes Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Italy, Norway, Qatar, Spain, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates.
More than half the 350 aircraft involved belong to the United States, but Gortney said that over the preceding 24 hours partner nations had flown "roughly half" of the 130 coalition sorties.
Twenty-six of the 38 ships in the Gulf of Sirte enforcing the UN arms embargo -- also under NATO command -- are from other countries, and Turkey has now offered five ships and a submarine.
But with several submarines, destroyers, the USS Mount Whitney command-and-control vessel, specialized surveillance aircraft as well as its fleet of fighter jets, the United States -- also the main contributor to NATO -- will remain at the heart of operations.
"The phrase that we use is that the United States will contribute its unique military capabilities to whatever this second phase of operation would be," General Carter Ham, the commander of US forces, told ABC News.
"There's probably some intelligence support that we would continue to provide, some communications, tankers for aircraft.... But we wouldn't see probably a large number of fighter aircraft for example."
Ham said he was confident command could be handed over "relatively quickly" but admitted there were some "very, very complex" procedures, especially with air operations, that might lengthen that transition period.

Read the entire article here.

Germany is destroying NATO

The German government is acting in a more and more confusing and strange manner with regard to the Libyan operation "Odyssey Dawn":


A German military spokesman said it was recalling two frigates and AWACS surveillance plane crews from the Mediterranean, after fears they would be drawn into the conflict if NATO takes over control from the U.S.
---
Today the German defence ministry announced Berlin had pulled out of any military operations in the Mediterranean.
A ministry spokesman said two frigates and two other ships with a crew of 550 would be reverted to German command.
Some 60 to 70 German troops participating in NATO-operated AWACS surveillance operations in the Mediterranean would also be withdrawn, according to the ministry.
Berlin

Read the entire article here.

Angela Merkel´s and foreign minister Guido Westerwelle´s handling of the Libya crisis is a total failure, which could lead to serious consequences. One has to ask the question: With members like Germany, what is the use of the NATO alliance? The Germans have previously also avoided  responsibility - e.g. in Afganistan - to participate in tough actions, but this time their non-action is nothing less than scandalous.
One wonders, does Merkel take her cue from Putin´s friend Gerhard Schröder - or worse - directly from Mr.Putin?

Former German foreign minister Joschka Fisher was very critical already after the UN Security Council vote:

"Germany has lost its credibility in the United Nations and in the Middle East," wrote former German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer in a contribution to the Tuesday edition of the Süddeutsche Zeitung. "German hopes for a permanent seat on the Security Council have been permanently dashed and one is now fearful of Europe's future."

Klaus Naumann, formerly the general inspector of the Bundeswehr -- the highest ranking position in the German military, was even harsher in his assessment:

"Germany's hopes for a permanent Security Council seat can be buried. Even the idea of an EU seat is damaged," he wrote in a piece for the business daily Handelsblatt. "Germany has turned the idea of a unified European Union foreign policy into a farce

Read the entire article here.

PS

Joschka Fischer has amplified his criticism in another article:

never has Germany been more isolated. The country has lost its credibility with the United Nations and in the Middle East; its claim to a permanent seat on the Security Council has just been trashed for good; and one really must fear the worst for Europe.
UN Security Council Resolution 1973, which authorized the current mission to protect Libyans, had the explicit or tacit agreement of the Security Council’s five veto-wielding powers. It also had the backing of a majority of the Council, the support of the Arab League and the Organization of the Islamic Conference, and the open military participation of two Arab states. So what more did the German government need to endorse the intervention?
What use is vocal multilateralism, what use are German leaders’ lofty speeches about international law being exercised by the Security Council, if Germany refuses to endorse a resolution for the protection of Libya’s citizens from a brutal regime employing all means at its disposal in its fight for survival? Nothing. Empty talk. And that will not be forgotten in the region, in the UN, or among Germany’s friends.
All I can say is that I feel ashamed for this failure of the German government and – unfortunately – also for the leaders of the red and green opposition parties who at first applauded this scandalous mistake!

Libya: The reality of the multilateral alliance

New York Times columnist David Brooks confirms, what professor Stephen Carter said earlier:

Finally, multilateral efforts are built around a fiction. The people who organize coalitions pretend that all the parties are sharing the burdens. In reality, only the U.S. can do many of the tasks. If the other nations falter, the U.S. will have to leap in and assume the entire burden. America’s partners go in knowing they do not bear ultimate responsibility for success or failure. Americans do.
All of this is not to say the world should do nothing while Qaddafi unleashes his demonic fury. Nor is this a defense of unilateralism. But we should not pretend we have found a superior way to fight a war. Multilateralism works best as a garment clothing American leadership. Besides, the legitimacy of a war is not established by how it is organized but by what it achieves.

Read the entire column here. 

PS
Let´s hope NATO will be allowed to take a formal leading role in Libya, at the same time recognizing that the operations in reality will continue to be led by the US.

Operation "Odyssey Dawn"

Stephen L. Carter, Professor of Law at Yale, tells the true story of Operation Odyssey Dawn:

All of the squabbling among the allies over Libya ignores the simple fact that this is America's war. Stephen Carter says no one else has the firepower it takes for humanitarian interventions.

American officials insist that they are eager to hand off the Libyan war to the allies to run. They want to avoid, says The New York Times, lengthy involvement in "a third armed conflict in a Muslim country." Easy to understand; not so easy to accomplish. Despite what news reports say, the Libyan war is very much an American show. We are supplying not only the logistics, but the bulk of the weaponry, the crucial technology, and the more important personnel. We could carry the entire weight of battle very easily without our titular allies; but none of them, singularly or in combination, could do it without us.

Although the media keep reporting the Libyan war as though the U.S. is some sort of junior partner, the truth is the other way around. It is an American war, with a bit of support from other players. Here the data are instructive. Remember the opening salvo of the war, those 124 cruise missiles launched against the Libyan air-defense systems? According to the headlines, they were fired by American and British warships. Indeed they were. The Americans fired 122. The British fired two. Many of the U.S. Tomahawks fired so far—probably most, possibly all—were evidently the Block IV model, the latest generation, smart and maneuverable in midair, and a weapon possessed by no other member of the coalition. (Cruise missiles cost over $1 million apiece, and the newer models as much as $2 million. Are we likely to run out? According to National Journal, the Defense Department buys 200 Tomahawks each year—more than any other country has in its entire arsenal.)

The cruise-missile attacks were aimed largely at degrading Libya's antiaircraft defenses, which were considerable. As several observers have pointed out, no member of the coalition aside from the U.S. possesses the expertise and munitions to accomplish that goal. The U.S. has supplied nearly half the aircraft involved in Operation Odyssey Dawn, including the B-2 Stealth bombers that flew all the way from Missouri to join the war, and has flown the great majority of the actual combat missions. Although the Defense Department insists that this week the allies will begin to take the lead, flying most of the sorties, it is not clear whether they have the money. The U.S. spends more than 40 cents of every defense dollar spent on the face of the earth. The Libyan war is likely to cost well in excess of $1 billion a week. Nobody else can afford it. Thus, the longer the war drags on, the more likely it is to become an all-American show.

Some more facts about the operation:

•  Italy, for example, does not want its pilots to fire, except at aircraft that are actually airborne. But Italian pilots have flown no combat missions yet, and the Libyan air force, in practical terms, no longer exists.

• France, for example, possesses only one aircraft carrier, the Charles de Gaulle, currently stationed off the Libyan coast. Britain has none

•  Remember the Harrier jump jet, the vertical takeoff and landing craft the British designed and Hollywood made famous? They are a mainstay of the U.S. Marine Corps, but Britain no longer operates any

Professor Carters conclusion:

 If other NATO countries hope ever again to be equal partners, they will have to increase their defense spending significantly. True, they could wait instead for us to reduce ours. But then the world would be left with no one able to prevent a slaughter—even in those rare instances when the world decides to try.

Read the entire article here.

PS
There is not much to add to what the professor is telling us. It is, of course, possible that NATO will formally take over the leadership, but that does not change the basic truth, that the US will remain the country de facto running the operation, like it or not.

Flashback: Two honoured participants at the G8 meeting in Italy in June 2009

Flashback:

You probably recognize two familiar North-African faces among the participants of the G8 meeting in Italy in June 2009:

And the lunch during the "food security" talks was, of course, oustanding:

(At about 1,03 min. you can see The Guide of the Great Revolution complaining to his friend, the host, that he got very little sleep the night before because the bungabunga/zenga zenga party went on until the morning hours)

To confirm the presence of the two honoured participants, here is a picture and captions offered by the EU audiovisual service:

José Manuel Barroso, President of the EC, and Fredrik Reinfeldt, Swedish Prime Minister and President in office of the Council of the EU, participated in the G8 Summit that took place under the Italian Presidency in L'Aquila, a town devastated by the 6 April earthquake. The G8 leaders discussed global economy, including international trade, climate change and energy, Africa and development, as well as food safety.

Dmitri Medvedev, President of Russia, Barack Obama, President of the United States, Ban Ki-moon, Secretary General of the United Nations, José Manuel Barroso, Muammar al-Gaddafi, Guide of the Great Revolution of the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya and Chairman of the African Union, José Eduardo Dos Santos, President of Angola, and Hosni Moubarak, President of Egypt (from left to right)

PS

In the picture President José Manuel Barroso is most likely discussing climate change with the Guide of the Great Revolution of the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya