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Canada girds for substantial military role in North Africa
(Globe and Mail) – Although Libya’s opposition has until now insisted the world should not intervene with armed force, The New York Times reported that the nascent revolutionary council is debating whether to ask the West to intervene with air strikes under a United Nations banner.
One Canadian evacuation flight Sunday did evacuate one Canadian and 46 others from an oilfield near Ghat in southwest Libya.
Britain sent commandos in a weekend military mission to pluck 150 oil workers from the desert without permission from the Libyan government – but Mr. Mackay declined to say anything about the role of Canadian special forces.
The Canadian military has authorized “force protection” for the evacuation missions flown by military C-17 and Hercules planes, including Canadian Forces crews that are “part of the force protection package.” Guardian interactive map of Libya.
While some Western countries, notably Britain, has pushed for a no-fly zone, others such as France and Italy have stressed that humanitarian aid should be the priority, before military operations. Russia and China, which both hold vetoes on the United Nations Security Council, oppose the idea of military intervention, including a no-fly zone. About 29,000 Chinese nationals have left Libya, but only 2,500 have so far returned to China, with the rest in neighbouring countries.
Libya: Tony Blair agreed to train Gaddafi’s special forces in ‘deal in the desert’
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"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence.".
.. to the shores of Tripoli.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Can anyone explain why NATO still exists. It was intially set up to threaten the USSR and the Warsaw Pact came about in response. Neither of the latter exist anymore so apart from being some big arms sales club and being used to kill people without going through the UN what use does it have?
Of course the military NATOites would love to have a go at Libya. Knocking down ancient planes with state of the art weaponry and bombing anyone from huge heights in total safety and saying they were the enemy is great fun for them and they have the bonus of getting lots of money to then replace the the weapons they used up. Oh and it pacates a media whipped up frenzy of lets help the poor oppressed Libyans (who dont want that help, which doesnt get reported in the west) and the citizens back home can cheer their high flyingjockeys on as they bomb something and shoot down an aging MiG. Oh and of course they can then selectively support the tribe or recently defected leader or expat big mouth born in Union Missouri for example and make sure when it goes that NATO is suddenly well positioned to influence the outcome in an oil rich state.
NATO, US, EU are not interested in democracy or freedom but just in their own interests. In any Arab state democracy will be against the interests of the US government at least
NATO should have shut down in 1989. Keeping it going was a big mistake.
Indeed and it has killed more civilains than Gaddafi since then. A lot more
Inertia is the main reason. Also, it wasn’t clear that the ex-Soviet Union wouldn’t become a threat again. And the foreign policy establishment has never quite gotten in through their heads that not everything in the world is our problem. That makes our European bases quite useful, in their minds.
The story about farm guards arresting British agents sent to do deals with the opposition is funny if worrying in terms of trying to undermine a people’s movement and subvert it to outsiders wishes.