Skip to main content

Nightmare scenario looms in Libya

This does not make for happy reading....and again highlights that just using power and might swinging into foreign countries - especially with out a Plan B or forethought of how things might pan out - is downright dangerous. Deutsche Welle explains a how a nightmare scenario is looming in Libya.

"There is a new smell of fear circulating under the sweet scent of victory; a fear that the National Transitional Council (NTC) is incapable of uniting and controlling the diverse elements within the rebellion and that the tribal rivals which are beginning to bicker over the spoils of war may soon start fighting each other over them.

With the possibility of Libya becoming a nation governed by a NATO-backed, weak and undemocratic central administration led by a compliant president and besieged by Islamist militants, some commentators have likened the unfolding situation as one akin to Afghanistan.

Others have rejected this, saying that Libya lacks a meddling neighbor like Pakistan, secretly supporting or condoning Islamist militias within the unstable state. Libya's closest neighbors, Tunisia and Egypt, are themselves preoccupied with their own post-uprising recovery.

Some have used the same argument to reject claims that Libya could become the next Iraq as it is not unsettled by external forces like Iran or Saudi Arabia. Unlike Iraq in the wake of Saddam Hussein's fall, Libya also has a government-in-waiting which has made preparations for a takeover - however flawed and undermined these may be.

Libya does, however, have similarities to both conflicts and is already showing elements of both which NATO will be acutely and painfully aware of.

Just as in Iraq, Libya faces the prospect of elements that supported the ousted Gadhafi regime attempting to fight their newfound marginalization and preserve their power bases. If the rebels crack down on former regime figures, then any backing for the Gadhafi regime which has been driven underground could re-ignite and galvanize support for any insurgency."

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Robert Fisk's predictions for the Middle East in 2013

There is no gain-saying that Robert Fisk, fiercely independent and feisty to boot, is the veteran journalist and author covering the Middle East. Who doesn't he know or hasn't he met over the years in reporting from Beirut - where he lives?  In his latest op-ed piece for The Independent he lays out his predictions for the Middle East for 2013. Read the piece in full, here - well worthwhile - but an extract... "Never make predictions in the Middle East. My crystal ball broke long ago. But predicting the region has an honourable pedigree. “An Arab movement, newly-risen, is looming in the distance,” a French traveller to the Gulf and Baghdad wrote in 1883, “and a race hitherto downtrodden will presently claim its due place in the destinies of Islam.” A year earlier, a British diplomat in Jeddah confided that “it is within my knowledge... that the idea of freedom does at present agitate some minds even in Mecca...” So let’s say this for 2013: the “Arab Awakening” (the t...

Palestinian children in irons. UK to investigate

Not for the first time does MPS wonder what sort of country it is when Israel so flagrently allows what can only be described as barbaric and inhuman behaviour to be undertaken by, amongst others, its IDF. No one has seemingly challenged Israel's actions. However, perhaps it's gone a bridge too far - as The Independent reports. The Foreign Office revealed last night that it would be challenging the Israelis over their treatment of Palestinian children after a report by a delegation of senior British lawyers revealed unconscionable practices, such as hooding and the use of leg irons. In the first investigation of its kind, a team of nine senior legal figures examined how Palestinians as young as 12 were treated when arrested. Their shocking report Children in Military Custody details claims that youngsters are dragged from their beds in the middle of the night, have their wrists bound behind their backs, and are blindfolded and made to kneel or lie face down in military vehi...

Wow!.....some "visitor" to Ferryland in Newfoundland