Could NATO LIBYA MISSION UNRAVEL from errant missiles and a dubious "ASSASSINATION" campaign?"

[Distant Observer]

The contradictory statements, the divergent private and public policies, and the sheer duplicity of NATO spokespersons continues as they arrogantly demand that the "enemy" provide proof of any claim of civilian casualties.

They claim occasional equipment malfunction for some destruction in civilian areas, but when even Western reporters raise questions as to how "malfunction" can result in the obliteration of residential targets by multiple missiles they will say it must have been "in some way" a legitimate target.

But after over 10,000 strikes, mainly in areas away from the supposed conflict, it very much appears that the NATO campaign, while thinly disguised, is really what George Will describes as " the most protracted and least surreptitious assassination attempt in history" carried out by a fundamentally fictitious military organization.

The real tragedy is that while human rights organizations counted the deaths in Libya, prior to the Western "action," at a few hundred, the death toll resulting from the all-out civil war that is not spear-headed by Western forces will end up in the tens of thousands before the Western powers and their "freedom fighters" are satisfied or the "humanitarian mission" unravels.

But I forget -- its all the evil tyrants fault. Our hands are clean.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-13846128

Libya campaign: Could Nato mission unravel?

Two days and two incidents involving civilian casualties. Could this be the moment when support for Nato's Libyan air campaign begins to unravel?

The episode early on Sunday morning when a bomb or missile from a Nato aircraft struck a residential neighbourhood in northern Tripoli appears clear-cut.

A Nato spokesman has expressed the alliance's regret at the loss of civilian lives, suggesting a "weapons system failure" may have caused the incident.
....
This brings us to Monday's incident - the levelling of a building some 80km (50 miles) from Tripoli, near the town of Sorman in the far north-west of the country.
......
After some hours of delay, a Nato spokesman in Naples told the BBC that after a detailed review of recent operations, the location hit - the one reporters were taken to - was in their view a legitimate military target.
.....
But is this fragile consensus going to be undermined if incidents of civilian casualties increase?

[xchrom]

1. Recommend

[gratuitous]

2. A "weapons system failure"

What, did NATO run out of patented "kill only terrorist" smart bombs and have to launch one of its cruder brethren that isn't quite so selective in what it kills? I'm sure, though, that the survivors of this attack can appreciate the "failure"; after all, haven't we all made a little boo-boo at one time or another? But it's not that we're trying to kill Qaddafi specifically and personally; that would be all kinds of wrong!

[EFerrari]

3. K&R

[David__77]

4. But those are 10,000 human rights missions, not bombs, right?

Those bombs are putting food in people's stomachs, teaching children to read, and advancing the rights of gays and lesbians, right?

[Distant Observer]

10. Humanitarian sorties, food packets and water bottles, of course

[Poll_Blind]

5. It was never raveled to begin with. n/t

PB

[Distant Observer]

12. Actually .. Raveling elaborate -- French frontman, Obama from behind, Saudi Money, Qatar arms

[L. Coyote]

6. Spending a billion dollars to create another Osama Bin Laden

If you are the defense industry, "priceless"

[Distant Observer]

8. I was thinking just that -- Create more Bin Ladens and then cry war against Bin Ladens . .and again

[dipsydoodle]

7. K & R

.

[Distant Observer]

9. Sad when the pompous George Will joins Kucinich to say: " WTF going on here?"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/libya-and-the-potemkin-alliance/2011/06/17/AGdQ2UZH_story.html


By George F. Will, Published: June 17

America’s intervention in Libya’s civil war, the most protracted and least surreptitious assassination attempt in history, was supposed to last “days, not weeks,” but is in its fourth month and has revealed NATO to be an increasingly fictitious military organization. Although this war has no discernible connection with U.S. national security, it serves the national interest, in three ways. It is awakening some legislators to their responsibilities.

It is refuting the pretense that the United Nations sets meaningful parameters to wars it authorizes — or endorses, which is quite different. And it is igniting a reassessment of NATO, a Potemkin alliance whose primary use these days is perverse: It provides a patina of multilateralism to U.S. military interventions on which Europe is essentially a free rider.

[Distant Observer]

11. Breaking NYT: Obama understating involvement in Libya stikes

The deception goes on . . .

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/21/world/africa/21powers.html


WASHINGTON — Since the United States handed control of the air war in Libya to NATO in early April, American warplanes have struck at Libyan air defenses about 60 times, and remotely operated drones have fired missiles at Libyan forces about 30 times, according to military officials.

The most recent strike from a piloted United States aircraft was on Saturday ...

[inna]

13. thanks for this thread! Neocons on Libya:

http://www.foreignpolicyi.org/content/foreign-policy-experts-urge-house-republicans-support-us-operations-libya

[Distant Observer]

14. Sadly the NEOCONS view Libya "humanitarians" as just "useful idiots"

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/apr/21/libya-muammar-gaddafi

[sabrina 1]

15. Humanitarian bombs.

You're not as dead when you are killed by one of them. And it doesn't hurt as much :eyes: