Excerpt: "Protesters angered by the burning of a Koran by a fringe American
pastor in Florida mobbed offices of the United Nations in northern
Afghanistan on Friday, killing ten foreign staff members and beheading two
of the victims, according to an Afghan police spokesman. Five Afghans were
also killed."
READ MORE :
http://www.readersupportednews.org/off-site-news-section/132-132/5489-hate-p
astor-burns-quaran-un-staff-killed-in-afghanistan
***
Defections, US Withdrawal Point to Political Solution in Libya
by Juan Cole
Blog: 04/01/2011
The United States is ending its active involvement in the UN-authorized air
raids to stop dictator Muammar Qaddafi from massacring dissidents. NATO says
it is against arming the rebels or fomenting a civil war. The slow, cautious
war of attrition from the air against Qaddafi's forces that undertake
attacks on civilians in rebel-held cities will continue. Qaddafi's closest
associates are fleeing from Tripoli in terror of being held accountable for
his crimes against humanity when his regime ultimately falls.
Some of these developments on Thursday drew howls of outrage from hawks such
as Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham, which is how you know that they
are promising developments. It is better that the intervention in Libya not
be branded a US one, but rather be seen as the effort of the 28 nations of
NATO plus the Arab League. It is true that the US is a big part of NATO, but
it doesn't have to be a big part of the air war. (One of the reasons
President Obama authorized covert operations in Libya is that US personnel
are trained in painting lasers on targets for precision aerial bombing,
which will allow NATO and UN allies to be more effective.)
The news that the disorganized civilians who picked up a gun and drove to
Brega and Ra's Lanuf last week are being pushed back by the Libyan military
is not actually interesting, surprising, or indicative of the way the
intervention in Libya is going. The push-back was only possible because
weather made it difficult for NATO to do any bombing raids in the past few
days, exposing the untrained rebels to superior firepower and the maneuvers
of trained troops. The weather will improve, and the bombing raids will
resume, and Qaddafi will have fewer and fewer heavy weapons over time.
Those who wanted to see 1500 rebels sweep in from the east without air cover
are being unrealistic, and also unwise. It is better if there isn't an
eastern conquest of the west.
The defection of Libya's foreign minister, Moussa Kussa came after he and
other regime elements around Muammar Qaddafi were threatened by US assistant
secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, Jeffrey Feltman, with being
"held accountable." This defection demonstrates that the UN-sanctioned
intervention in Libya is already yielding fruit in splitting the elite
around Qaddafi in Tripoli and inspiring in some of them the fear of being
tried for war crimes. The first few to act on this fear will defect. Later
on, they may well be numerous and powerful and desperate enough to put the
Qaddafis under chloroform and just drive them to the airport and wish them a
bon voyage to Caracas.
Aljazeera English reports that 4 or 5 other senior Libyan officials appear
to have fled to Tunisia or Egypt and do not intend to come back, including
the current head of Intelligence, the Oil Minister, the deputy foreign
minister, and the head of the people's congress. (The Intelligence Minister
subsequently appeared on state t.v. to deny this claim, but the others are
unanswered so far).
This truly great AP article by Hadeel al-Shalchi and Lee Keath explains that
the significance of Kussa's defection lies in its being a sign of the winds
shifting against Qaddafi with his inner circle, which will affect the
loyalty of his outer circle of tribal leaders. Many key members of the
powerful Warfalla and Megarha tribes have already declared against Qaddafi,
and Firjan and others are wavering. Tribes as loose systems of kinship
politics, are volatile and fluid, and their allegiances can change rapidly.
(Americans might remember that many members of the Dulaim tribe in Iraq
fought tooth and nail against US troops in
2004-2005 but by 2006-2007 many were joining pro- American militias, the
`Sons of Iraq.') The tribes could turn on Qaddafi in a second, aside from
his own and a few loyalists.
In announcing the end of US bombing raids in Libya, Gates "noted that the
air attacks are a central feature of the overall military strategy; over
time they could degrade Gadhafi's firepower to a point that he would be
unable to put down a renewed uprising by opposition forces."
That is, Gates hopes that over time, Col. Muammar Qaddafi will simply have
fewer and fewer tanks, artillery pieces, and armored vehicles. He has
already lost the ability to bomb Benghazi and other cities from the air.
Gates's premise seems to be that most Libyans don't want to be under
Qaddafi's rule, and that the only way he subdued Zuara, Zawiya, Tajoura,
Ra's Lanuf, and other cities that had thrown him off was by main force.
When his main force is subjected to sufficient attrition, his advantage will
suddenly disappear and the opposition to him of the liberation movement will
suddenly cascade. I don't personally think that this cascade requires
military means. It happened once largely peacefully, as in Egypt in Tunisia,
and can happen again if Qaddafi's heavy weapons can be neutralized.
People who want the attrition of Qaddafi's forces to be visited in only a
week or two are just being unrealistic. It would happen over weeks and maybe
months.
In the meantime, the UN allies (NATO and the Arab
League) have as their most urgent mission the protection of Benghazi from
any major attack, which can be done aerially.
What bad thing would happen if NATO and the Arab League just proceed
deliberately and with patience?
Impatience makes for bad policy. Those who urge Western military troops the
ground are making a huge error- that development would never be acceptable
to most of the Libyan people nor to the Arab League, nor to the majority on
the UN Security Council.
Others of the tribe of the impatient want to put sophisticated weapons in
rebel hands. Those who think the US or NATO should arm the rebels, however,
are simply paving the way for a civil war and for a long- term cycle of
violence. Having a rebel army conquer reluctant cities like Sirt, which
still support Qaddafi in the main, is undesirable. Let pro-Qaddafi cities
alone. The main task should be to protect the anti- Qaddafi populace from
his attacks.
NATO agrees. NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said Thursday that
his organization differs with those who have suggested that UNSC Resolution
1973 allows the arming of the rebels. In other words, NATO's leadership
concurs with the column published here yesterday by John Torpey.
US Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates clearly has a model in his mind
somewhat like Serbia in 1999-2000. In spring 1999 Serbian leader Slobodan
Milosevic sent troops into Kosovo, which began committing a massacre.
NATO intervened to roll that back. During that war, Milosevic was indicted
at the International Criminal Court for war crimes.
Milosevic's attempt to tinker with the presidential election of October 1999
provoked massive street protests against him. His military informed him that
they would not support him. By spring of 2001 he was arrested by his own
people and that summer he was surrendered to the United Nations.
NATO's aerial bombing missions were what stopped the advance into Kosovo of
Serbian troops. But it was the world community's relegation of Milosevic to
pariah status that helped the Serbian elite turn against him.
The International Criminal Court has been charged by the UN with looking
into whether Qaddafi can be charged with crimes against humanity (and if not
he, who
could?) The ICC seems likely to return an indictment before too long. Such
indictments have powerful real- world effects, as seen with Milosevic.
Although this development might make it more difficult to find a place of
exile for the Qaddafis, it would almost certainly hasten the fracturing of
the Tripoli elite and an end to the conflict.
The Libyan conflict could never have been resolved militarily. It will wind
to its end over time because of political shifts. Kussa's defection is not
the first from Qaddafi's inner circle, and it won't be the last.
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