Here, NATO, And Here, And Here!
So there it is, NATO has been strong-armed and sweet-talked into the major role it would have preferred to pass by. It will now control all of the coalition activity taking place in Libya. This is certainly war. However brief it may be. And, according to Admiral Edouard Guillaud, France's chief of defence, the military operations in Libya should last a matter of "weeks", (they hope), not "months".So that's Libya taken care of, right?
How about the protests in Syria, gathering momentum even as we dawdle? Plenty of violence there, too. Syria is most certainly in the qualifications as a robustly repressive regime. And a trouble-making one too, to boot. The Syrians would far prefer their government march on Israel to retake the Golan Heights than that they march on Syrian protesters, but that's the problem with these governments, they are so unreasonable.
U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates is even now chastising Syria, informing its army that it would do well to emulate Egypt's, where neutrality by the military was the order of the day and the weeks that followed, and remains so to this day. He thinks. And Syrian opposition leaders in Paris exile are calling on Europe to exert pressure to "halt the killing of innocents". Obviously, if the West could commit to protecting Libyans, why not Syrians?
And why stop there? There's Yemen where President Ali Abdullah Saleh is hard pressed by his angry detractors. He refuses to hand over power to other than "safe hands". That should appeal to the Western powers who will most certainly equate 'safe hands' with those not tainted with terrorism; international jihad. "We don't want power, but we need to hand power over to safe hands, not to sick, resentful or corrupt hands", said Saleh. Who would argue with that?
And then there's Jordan too, where deaths and injuries are beginning to mount among the 'pro-reform' protesters. Many of whom might be classified as enemies of that state, and by extension enemies of anything that smacks of the West's influence. Despite which the Palestinians in Jordan call upon the West unflinchingly to support their cause and to cast blame on Israel.
Jordan, under the current Monarch's father, fought a dark and bloody war with the Palestinians, but much of the country is still comprised of Palestinian-Jordanian citizens. The Queen too is a Palestinian. And it is the Hashemite Bedouin, the real Jordanians who are in tribal conflict with the Palestinians; the "East Bank" against the "West Bank".
Go there too, NATO coalition, to give aid and support - but to which faction?
Don't bother troubling yourselves over Tunisia and Algeria, they're looking after matters on their own. They'll call if they need you. Ditto Saudi Arabia; there is such a thing as honour and dignity, after all, and they have their own military more than capable of looking to their own; the Saudis can march into Bahrain again and help out there.
Labels: Africa, Conflict, Middle East, NATO
posted by Pieface @ Sunday, March 27, 2011
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