1OO DAYS OF WAR!

Today marks the 100^th day of NATO bombing of Tripoli with little to show that the millions if not billions of dollars spent by the Western Alliance has brought any gains. 

The war in Libya raises some questions. The UN authorised NATO to “take all measures to protect civilians in Libya.” And the means that the Western Alliance found to do that was to bombard Tripoli – killing in turn civilians (NATO has acknowledged its bombs killed civilians) and destroying Libya’s infrastructure.

Protecting civilians is no longer the objective. It is to oust the Libyan leader Qaddafi. And the bombings are targeting him and his family. But he continues to stay in Tripoli, defying Western efforts to oust him or kill him.

The bombing has not succeeded in either objective – in 100 days!

So, what is the aim of the bombardment? In 100 days, with hundreds of sorties each day, the Western military warehouses must have been emptied of a lot of bombs and other military hardware. I guess these have to be replaced. The arm merchants must be wringing their hands in glee! I don’t see any other reason for the bombing.  You think, the Western Alliance, with all its might could not get their man if they wanted. Or, destroyed his army? They might get him one day. But before that they will make sure a whole lot of bombs will be dropped, and Libyan infrastructure will be destroyed – to be rebuilt by Western companies, as it happened in Iraq.

By the way, the UN came into existence on the slogan “ War No More!” With the number of wars it has been authorising, albeit such authorisations wrung out by western arm-twisting, that slogan lies in shambles! It’s mockery of the founding objectives of the UN.

Back to Libya.  With the bombings not making much of a dint, today the Western Alliance got another weapon in its war against Qaddafi. The ICC has declared him a War Criminal and an international arrest warrant has been issued today. How come the Western nations who are terrorising other nations, killing innocents, arming rebels and provoking dissent and uprisings as the USA is acknowledged to have done and continues to do in the Middle East, not declared war criminals and arrest warrants issued against their leaders?

There is reason to seek new ways to get Qaddafi.

One hundred days into the campaign of air strikes, Britain and its NATO allies no longer believe bombing alone will end the conflict in Libya, reports the Guardian newspaper from London.

"No one is envisaging a military victory," said one senior official who echoed earlier warnings by Admiral Sir Mark Stanhope, head of the navy, that the bombing cannot continue much beyond the summer.

I guess the statement is confession that enough space has been created in military warehouses for the time being, to replenish the arsenal!