Libya: The Futility of Bombing

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The futility, not to say obscenity, of NATO's newly extended Libyan campaign of bombing and helicopter assault is clearly established in this Globe and Mail article by retired Canadian Major-General, Lewis MacKenzie:

We are now in the 84th day of the bombing campaign that the United Nations Security Council authorized to enforce a no-fly zone over Libya in a bid to protect civilians from Moammar Gadhafi’s forces. In a bizarre development, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization has said it will extend the campaign for 90 days, surely a first in the history of war when one side “extends the contract” for a set period.

NATO’s obsession with its strategy of hope was tried once before in 1999, with the bombing of Serbia and the breakaway province of Kosovo. A myth that the 78-day bombing campaign persuaded Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic to withdraw his forces from Kosovo continues to grow despite overwhelming facts to the contrary. ...

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Meanwhile:

Tony Blair Raves: Bomb Everyone Who Won't Submit

... In a new introduction to the paperback version of his memoirs published today, Mr Blair says: “We need to have an active policy, be players and not spectators sitting in the sands, applauding or condemning as we watch. Like it or not, we have to participate.” 

He argues that a Libya-style operation should take place only when regimes have “excluded a path to evolutionary change”. But he does raise the prospect of intervention in some circumstances in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iran and Jordan. ...

In the extracts released last night, Mr Blair makes no comment on his 2004 “deal in the desert” with Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, which helped turn the Libyan leader from an international pariah who exported terrorism to an ally of the West.... 

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