RUSHING IN WHERE THE ANGELS FEAR TO TREAD!

That’s what the United States and its allies love doing. There was unseemly haste and a hard one unanimity in the UN Resolution to impose a no-fly zone over Libya.

The intervention was swift. The western allies have been pounding Tripoli and destroying not only Qaddafi’s air power but also the capital’s infra-structure. But to what purpose?

It now appears that the allies have no clear idea what they hope to achieve by the intervention, and most tellingly, they have no exit strategy. That’s what the New York Times reported today.

“The questions swirling around the operation’s command mirrored the larger strategic divisions over how exactly the coalition will bring it to an end — or even what the end might look like, and whether it might even conceivably include a Libya with Colonel Qaddafi remaining in some capacity.’ Said the Times. 

“‘We should never begin an operation without knowing how we stand down,” said Joseph W. Ralston, a retired general who served as NATO commander and vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “We did a no-fly zone over Iraq for 12 years and it did nothing to get rid of Saddam. So why do we think it will get rid of Qaddafi?’

But they did get rid of Saddam, after a land invasion. And what good did it do -getting rid of Saddam, anyway? Iraq sank into a quagmire of violence and bloodshed.

I guess post-Qaddafi, Libya will also be scarred by civil war and thousands of lives will be lost, not to mention the destruction that will be unleashed.

The ostensible (what do you think is the hidden agenda?) objective of the allied offensive – to save civilians from Quaddafi’s brutality– will have become a mockery.

It is Mai Lai – that is the village in Vietnam that the US destroyed “in order to save it” – being repeated all over. Destroying in order to save!

The futility of war! The lessons are never learnt.