Cailean Bochanan

13th October, 2011

A headline in Britian’s Daily Telegraph cites no less than Liam Fox, Minister of Defence and, obviously,  a man of impeccable integrity, to the effect that the fall of Sirte is “very close”. A quick perusal of the article in question leads one to question one’s understanding of the English language, specifically the meaning of “very close”. My understanding of this would be “imminent” or “about to happen” yet the report claims that

“Positions which had seemed cleared 24 hours earlier came under accurate rifle and rocket-propelled grenade fire during the day, forcing back forces loyal to the new interim government.”

In other words, they were in retreat.

“Ishmail Taweel, a fighter from Benghazi, said the revolutionary fighters were reluctant to commit their few captured tanks to the area for fear they would be picked off from the overlooking buildings.

“We just need to bombard the area some more before we go in,” he said.”

How much bombardment do they need before they go in? At some point you just have to go in but they are unable to do so. What is being described here is not military success but military failure. It is also a war crime since these obviously random bombings are killing civilians inside the town, but this is of no concern to the British authorities.

Foreign Secretary Hague is comfortable with this, implying that the bombing of civilians is necessary for their defence.

“Last week, Nato agreed that the positive trend in Libya is irreversible but that not all Libya’s population is yet safe from attack,” he said.

We have been hearing this argument a lot of late, but I don’t think that even this schoolboy coalition would let it pass in one of their sixth form debates.

“Much of the city’s housing and office blocks are already filled with holes from shells and bullets and oily smoke hung thick over several neighbourhoods.”

So the whole town has been all but demolished. OK, they got off with this in WW2 but we surely not in one of their “humanitarian wars”.

Meanwhile the French have shown a penchant for a reverse double think. Le Monde has the headline

“Les forces du Conseil national de transition (CNT) reculent a Syrte”

So the CNT is in retreat. But a quick perusal of the article indicates that Sirte is about to fall, in ” two or three days”. They do agree with the Telegraph that Sirte is “in ruins”,  although this handywork is unnatributed.

The question is how to rearrange these articles into a coherent statement since otherwise we are left thinking that the first victim of war is simple logic. The solution is easy: swop the headlines giving the Le Monde headline to the Telegraph article and the Telegraph headline to the Le Monde article. We then have two radically opposed versions of events: one a story of CNT success, the other of their failure. But which one is true?

In my view the key lies with the testimony of Liam Fox and the likelihood that he is telling the truth.

For my part, I’m happy to hail the success of the Libyan army and the brave people of Sirte and to hope that before long support comes for them within Libya and from outside, where, so far, we have remained shamefully silent in the face of crimes committed in our name.

Cailean Bochanan

29th September, 2011

David Cameron thinks he can bomb Britain back to global leadership. This is the mentality of the mobster who sees in a hitman  taking out opponents  the solution to everything. But the Libyan resistance has not been “taken out” after over six months of terror bombing by NATO. Nor have they been taken in by Nazi Rasmussen’s claims the all resistance is futile and will be crushed. Far from being futile, Libyan resistance is in the ascendant. Why else have the media suddenly gone so quiet? Cameron’s Al Qaeda allies, hailing from Abdul Hakim Belhaj’s  Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, a proscribed organisation, have proved no match for the Libyan army and a people fighting for their freedom and have taken a serious beating at Sirte, Bani Walid and Sabhah. The TNC has put back the naming of a government until Libya is under their control- they have put it back for ever! Embarrasingly, they have already been given a seat at the UN and occupy  Libyan embassies in London and elsewhere. But who are these shadowy officials who dare not speak their own names? I’ve heard of puppet governments, shadow governments and governments in exile, but this one is simply non-existent. Perhaps it’s a kind of non-governmental organization, a charity to help create refugees. Meanwhile, there are reports that NATO pilots are refusing to bomb targets which are clearly not military such as the housing estates and schools they have demolished in Sirte. I like to believe it’s true because I think there is still some fundamental decency and that people don’t sign up to commit war crimes. In fact, we all have to make a stand against this new series of destructive wars-  not being fought,  this time, against Al Qaeda the enemy,but alongside Al Qaeda, the friend.