Mid-East despots running scared

All over the Middle East and North Africa despots are coming under pressure to change from its citizens

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

They are running that scared, however, of losing their power and influence that they are not prepared to negotiate but rather kill and maim their own people, which they describe then as rats and varmint of all kind.

Or, as in the case of Bahrain, as misguided little children who need a spanking from their Daddy, the King. Gadhafi of Libya also talks in those terms and claims that it was something that someone had put into the “children's Nescafe” that has made them turn against the “Revolution”, and that drugs, and AlQaida are behind it too. It is time that those people gave up drinking what they drink; it does not seem to do them any good. They are also suffering from delusions of the highest order, it would seem.

Instead of being prepared to compromise and to share power with the people they chose rather to slaughter their people, men, women and children, as happened after Friday prayers in the capital of Yemen on Friday, March 18, 2011, when snipers, highly trained military and police snipers, deliberately shot peaceful protesters. Among the dead is a ten year old boy.

The real awful part of the Yemen incident is that the guns and the training for those snipers were, more than likely, supplied by the United States and their military advisors in Yemen. Amazing how the West always manages to be on the wrong side in any “conflict” in that region.

Britain, as much as and especially the USA, always seem to be supporting the dictators or the oppressors in general, such as Israel and Saudi Arabia, for example.

When the then Prime Minister of Britain, Tony Blair, brought Gadhafi “back into the fold”, as it was called, it had absolutely nothing to do with Libya having changed or Gadhafi having become a changed man but everything to do with oil deals for the likes of BP.

Oil is the very reason we went into Iraq and also why we are in Afghanistan and that despite the fact that Afghanistan does not have oil. The black sticky stuff is also the reason why we allow the Saudis to get away with murder, literally, and the same is true with regards to many other Mid-Eastern despots.

Israel is a different kettle of fish which has to do with the indebtedness of both the UK and the USA to banks owned by a particular group of people, predominately, who are a pro-Israel lobby. Standing against the Zionist entity in Palestine could thus be detrimental to the financial health of the country.

As far as Libya, Yemen, Bahrain, etc., are concerned the international community, the so-called United Nations, and there could hardly be a worse oxymoron than that, stands by and waits till it is almost too late before they even as much as get a resolution going as to doing something.

And then? Very little, as it takes them days before they get aircraft and troops into position. You do this beforehand whether or not the resolution is forthcoming. At least you are ready to roll at a second's notice when you've done it. Planning they certainly are not good at.

Mind you, having seen the fiasco of the British “diplomatic mission” of 50 special forces personnel protecting two supposedly British diplomats to rebel-held Libya – diplomats, my *** – that so miserably failed I am actually not surprised. The inability to organizing a piss up in a brewery comes to mind here.

No wonder that the planes were still, according to the PM, in Britain at the time he made the statement to the House on Friday morning despite the UN having passed the resolution on Thursday night about 2240hrs local time. Those planes should have been in Cyprus or Italy – as we no longer have any real aircraft carriers – already and should have been in action at first light on the morning of Friday. Instead they hadn't – according to the PM – gone as yet.

Then again you also have to find pilots first seeing that we have just made God only knows how many of them redundant in the Defense Spending Review. Only good we are not being attacked.

It is also a totally misguided belief that the situation in Libya can be dealt with by just controlling the airspace and maybe attacking troop movements on the ground to protect the rebels and civilians. It will require boots on the ground to hit the Gadhafi loyalists and his mercenaries there.

Controlling just the airspace did not work over former Yugoslavia and will not work over Libya.

Knowing what those despots are like what is going to stop them from (i) using civilian convoys to transport their arms (how do the pilots know that those trucks are carrying troops and not civilians fleeing fighting) and (ii) from actually using human shields? Only troops on the ground can do something in those situations. It does not matter where those troops come from; whether they are from the Arab League states, or whatever. But it will require boots on the ground and well-trained ones at that.

© 2011