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| Africa North |
| The blame game is on in Libya |
| 2011-04-14 |
| If anyone had remaining doubts about the fog of war that descended on Libya in the last weeks, the confused bickering that has completely taken over more recently should clear those. More cynical - or astute - observers claim that the whole thing was a masquerade from the start, a cover for a full-scale Arab counter-revolution or even a diversion of world attention from more pressing global problems such as the disaster in Japan, the financial crisis and the rattled international system. Others blame the situation on glaring incompetence. While some of the former claims make sense as well, evidence of the latter is overwhelming, and incompetence does not exclude conspiracy. Some of the latest news from Libya is that France and Britain are accusing the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) of not doing enough. "NATO must play its role fully. It wanted to take the lead in operations, we accepted that," French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said on Tuesday. |
| Posted by:tipper |
| #6 Yes it is. UK and France (nominally) are still children of The Enlightenment. When they fall, we fall a little too. This sad episode illustrates why we need pick our battles carefully, clearly define our goals, use overwhelming power and make it impossible those we defeat pick up where they left off. And we to think how to turn a profit on it too. No more trillion dollar interventions to save those who would slit our throats in our sleep. |
| Posted by: Zebulon Thranter9685 2011-04-14 18:22 |
| #5 Is it wrong for me to enjoy seeing France and UK get their asses kicked by a tin pot dictator in a cat litter box country? Doubtless. But as someone said the other day NATO is a scam where the euros pick our pockets while criticizing our pants. |
| Posted by: regular joe 2011-04-14 16:24 |
| #4 Yeah, ironically the French seem properly "gung-ho". In Ivory Coast especially, but Libya too. How does that curse go? Something about "Interesting times". |
| Posted by: Scooter McGruder 2011-04-14 13:39 |
| #3 It's the Germans, Dutch etc. who are the bottleneck in NATO right now. |
| Posted by: lotp 2011-04-14 09:41 |
| #2 You just had to know that once the French took a major roll things would go just swell. Plus they had the Brits and Barry backing them up, what could possibly go wrong? |
| Posted by: Jefferson 2011-04-14 09:12 |
| #1 Two points: 1) There is nothing that precludes ALL of those reasons from being true, 2) For NATO, read the USA. |
| Posted by: AlanC 2011-04-14 08:35 |