Why Gaddafi running out of fuel or money or being killed would not guarantee an end to the war in Libya

There have been reports that Gaddafi’s forces may be close to running out of fuel altogether, mostly assuming that this will force his side to surrender. This assumption is based on the North African campaigns in World War Two, in which Rommel was eventually forced to surrender due to lack of fuel for his tanks (1).

However, while that’s possible, there is no guarantee of Gaddafi’s forces surrendering if this happens. They might, but it’s as or more likely that without a negotiated peace they would switch to using guerrilla, insurgent, terrorist or resistance tactics (choose whichever term you prefer), as happened in Iraq after the defeat of it’s military. The fact there are no large numbers of foreign troops occupying Libya (only a few special forces trainers and spotters for airstrikes)  might make this less likely or a smaller insurgency than in Iraq, but it’s still a possibility that has to be taken into account.

Gaddafi’s forces seem to only control one functioning refinery – at Zawiyah – and the oil pipeline to it has been cut by the rebels (2). This should certainly mean that sooner or later his forces will run out of fuel for their tanks, truck mounted Grad rocket launchers, mobile artillery and pick up trucks. How soon (or not soon) is still anyone’s guess, as no-one knows how much oil Gaddafi has stored in reserve in barrels in Tripoli that could be sent to the refinery. (This also raises the question of why NATO hasn’t bombed the refinery and why it tried to persuade the rebels not to cut the pipeline – issues I’ll cover in a separate post).

The claims by Libyan defectors that Gaddafi was running out of fuel and money were made before the 13^th of June though (and seem to mostly have been made by one defector – the former head of Libya’s central bank). He claimed that this would happen within days or a couple of weeks (3). So either it’s going to happen very soon, or else these claims are just based on guesses, wishful thinking, or are propaganda designed to encourage any of Gaddafi’s people hearing it to defect.

Fuel prices have certainly gone up massively in the parts of Libya controlled by Gaddafi’s forces (starting even in May), but it’s possible this is partly due to Gaddafi prioritising supplies to his armed forces (4) – (5).

Similarly reports that Gaddafi is running out of money are no guarantee of his regime falling, nor would an airstrike killing him (a strategy which has failed for over 100 days now and has never worked anywhere else). The assumption that Gaddafi running out of money will lead to the surrender of his forces assumes their primary motivation is money. That may well not be the case.

Assuming killing Muammar Gaddafi alone will end the civil war may be an assumption that turns out to be true, but could equally be as false as the assumption in Iraq that all the insurgents were Sunni and Ba’athist ‘dead enders’ who supported Saddam and that they would surrender when he was gone. In fact most of the insurgents weren’t hardline Ba’athists at all and many of them were Shia.

Bombing carried out by the US air force and the British RAF from 1991 to 2002, combined with sanctions, repeatedly failed to either kill Saddam or generate a military coup against him, so hopes of Gaddafi’s own forces, generals or ministers overthrowing him may be wishful thinking too.

US and NATO military planners are generally meant to plan for the “worst case scenario”, but instead most of their plans (and those of the governments giving them orders) are hugely optimistic and ignore the possible pitfalls and false assumptions involved. As a result most of them either fail, or only succeed at great cost in lives.

Saif Al Gaddafi has repeated that his father will accept elections overseen by international observers in return for a ceasefire (6) – (7). He may or may not be telling the truth, but given all the potential ways this war could drag on with heavy civilian casualties without a peace settlement, taking up the offer might be a sensible course for the rebels and NATO.

Even if it doesn’t work they at least get more Libyans and more people and governments around the world on their side by showing they were willing to try for a peaceful solution. Currently their refusal to accept any offer of negotiations that doesn’t include Gaddafi and his sons giving up power entirely before negotiations even begin is making a long civil war more likely. They have plenty of justifiable reasons to be angry at the Gaddafis’ dictatorship and to want rid of them, but the reality is that at least giving negotiations a try would be the best option.

(1) = The Economist 16 Jun 2011 ‘The colonel is running on empty’,http://www.economist.com/node/18837167?story_id=18837167

(2) = Channel 4 News 29 Jun 2011 ‘Tripoli Pipeline Attack ‘endgame’ for Gaddafi’, http://www.channel4.com/news/tripoli-pipeline-attack-signals-endgame-for-gaddafi

(3) = Bloomberg Business Week 5 Jul 2011 ‘Qaddafi Running Out of Money, Fuel, Ex-Central Bank Head Says’, http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-06-13/qaddafi-running-out-of-money-fuel-ex-central-bank-head-says.html

(4) = See (1) above

(5) = Guardian.co.uk 05 May 2011 ‘Libya faces fuel crisis as oil supplies dwindle’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/05/libya-fuel-crisis-oil-supplies

(6) = Guardian 4 Jul 2011 ‘Gaddafi's son says western powers attacking Libya are 'legitimate targets'’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jul/04/gaddafi-son-western-powers-legitimate-targets

(7) = Independent 16 Jun 2011 ‘Gaddafi would agree to supervised election, says son’, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/gaddafi-would-agree-to-supervised-election-says-son-2298234.html

The hypocrisy of governments that let protesters be murdered in Bahrain while talking of the responsibility to protect and freedom to protest in Libya

There is a stench of utter hypocrisy and double standards emanating from the British, French, Canadian and US governments on the murder of unarmed protesters by dictatorships in the Arab revolutions in the Middle East and North Africa. We know that in Bahrain the dictatorship’s forces have been murdering unarmed protesters and medical staff trying to treat them, just as Gaddafi’s forces have in Libya. Yet British Foreign Minister William Hague claims that Libya and Bahrain are “qualitatively different” because the King of Bahrain has offered dialogue with the protesters. Hague said that ““Yes Bahrain is a different case from Libya, it’s clearly a different case…In Bahrain the Government has offered a national dialogue to the opposition forces, they have offered a referendum on a constitution, you don’t see Colonel Gaddafi offering a referendum on a future constitution.” (1)

You miss out, William, that, as with Gaddafi’s government (which has also repeatedly offered “dialogue” or negotiations with the rebels) this was while the King of Bahrain was (and is) still having unarmed protesters and medical staff killed and using riot police to beat up hospital staff and to prevent wounded protesters getting treated (2) – (3). So Bahrain is not one tiny bit different from Libya, other than the failure of hypocrites like you, Clinton and Obama to do anything to stop murder by a dictatorship there or in Yemen or Oman or Egypt (and soon likely in Saudi).

The US Fifth Fleet is stationed in Bahrain within sight of the Pearl Roundabout where most of the killings have taken place. Obama or Clinton could easily have asked UN Security Council authorisation to put some marines in to protect the protesters from the police and military (4). Have they? Have they fuck. That and similar mass murder by government forces in Yemen and Oman has gone without anything but empty words from Clinton and Hague about “deep concern” and how “both sides should show restraint” (as if unarmed protesters and the armed people murdering them are equally responsible for their deaths) (5) – (6).

Clinton claimed that “We’re particularly concerned about increasing reports of provocative acts and sectarian violence by all groups.”  (7). What “sectarian violence by all groups”? Sunni and Shia protesters demonstrated against a dictatorship together – and Bahraini police and soldiers killed them. That simple. So could you and William see your ways to please stop lying through your teeth please Hillary? Or have you become two more conscience-less robots, for whom truth is whatever suits the most powerful at the time?

So all the talk about the Libyan intervention showing that the “responsibility to protect” principles (developed by an expert panel for the UN in 2001) have finally been taken seriously and enforced is bollocks (8). The US and it’s allies are intervening where regime change would suit them (Libya, with the world’s tenth largest oil reserves and a government that haggles too much on it’s share of oil profits) while not even threatening to intervene where it’s allies are murdering protesters and medical staff. It’s business as usual.

I completely support the ‘responsibility to protect’ principles under which a government’s sovereignty is not absolute but depends on it protecting the lives and welfare of it’s people by providing basic services, disaster relief and not massacring them (9). If it fails in any of these ways or does target it’s own people, other governments are justified in intervening to help them. What we have so far is just the usual opportunism though – applying the principle where it suits big business and governments’ interests and not bothering where it doesn’t.

When an actual Rwanda or Bosnia takes place - or the slow motion ethnic cleansing by air and artillery strike in Gaza and the West Bank, there is no interest in intervention from the “international community” states led by the US. There’s no interest from them in humanitarian intervention in the Democratic Republic of Congo either as long as the massacres, torture and gang rape of civilians, as well as their use as slave labour for mining by militias trading with multinational firms in the Democratic Republic of continue to make big profits for US and European based multinational companies doing deals with those militias – as they have for decades now (10) – (11).

 (To be fair in Bosnia the US did eventually intervene from the air, after spending several years blocking UN action to ensure the UN looked useless and the US-led NATO had a role. Their Croat allies ethnically cleansed thousands of Serbs from the Krajiina region in the final offensive that ended the war, backed by NATO air forces. The US ambassador to Croatia at least came out of it with some credit – he drove with a convoy of Serb civilians to try to stop Croat attacks on them (12) – (13)).

When the Israelis killed a thousand Palestinians – over 700 of them civilians often in deliberate targeting of civilians and ambulances – in a few weeks in December 2008 to January 2009, as revenge for the death of one Israeli civilian killed in rocket attacks before the offensive, by a Palestinian terrorist group, the US and British governments responded, as they had during Israeli bombing of the whole of Lebanon in 2006, in which ambulances and civilians were again targeted, by refusing to back a UN Security Council resolution calling for an end to the assaults. In the Lebanon war they were even sending the Israeli military plane loads of extra bombs to drop on those ambulances and civilians, in case they ran out (14) – (17).

Craig Murray and Democracy Now report Clinton also showed her hypocrisy by smirking as her security detail dragged ‘Veterans for Peace’ member McGovern out of a press conference for making a silent protest by standing up with his back to her while wearing a ‘Veterans for Peace’ t-shirt (you can see this part on CNN) (18). Clinton’s heavies then beat McGovern up. Clinton was making a speech railing against Gaddafi’s oppression of the Libyan people – including his refusal to give them the right to free speech and the right to protest peacefully. She may not have had McGovern shot by snipers, but her actions don’t exactly show her as a great defender of free speech either.

 (1) = Foreign and Commonwealth Office 20 Mar 2011 ‘UN intervention in Libya: Foreign Secretary on BBC Radio 5’, http://www.fco.gov.uk/en/news/latest-news/?id=569183782&view=News

(2) = Bloomberg 21 Feb 2011 ‘Libya Violence Deepens as Protestors Claim Control of Second-Largest City’,http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-02-20/libyan-revolt-widens-as-attacks-on-protesters-draw-condemnation.html

(3) Haaretz (Israel) 07 Mar 2011 ‘Gadhafi regime offers olive branch to rebels while fighting to regain control over east Libya’, http://www.haaretz.com/news/international/gadhafi-regime-offers-olive-branch-to-rebels-while-fighting-to-regain-control-over-east-libya-1.347653?localLinksEnabled=false

(4) = Al Jazeera 20 Feb 2011 ‘Bahrain protesters remain in square’, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/02/20112206279487320.html

(5) = Amnesty International 18 Mar 2011 ‘Yemeni authorities must act over sniper killings of protesters’,http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/yemeni-authorities-must-act-over-sniper-killings-protesters-2011-03-18

(6) = William Hague MP, Hansard 17^th Feb 2011http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201011/cmhansrd/cm110217/debtext/110217-0001.htm#11021765001329 , ‘We urge all sides to avoid violence and for the police to exercise restraint. The Bahraini Government should move quickly to carry out their commitment to a transparent investigation into earlier deaths, and extend that to include today's events and any alleged human rights abuses.

I also said to the Foreign Minister that this is a time to build bridges between the different religious communities in Bahrain. I said that we would strongly oppose any interference in the affairs of Bahrain by other nations or any action to inflame sectarian tensions between Bahrain's Sunni and Shi'a communities. We recognise that Bahrain has made important political reforms alongside its growing economic success. We strongly welcome such steps within the context of the long friendship between Bahrain and the UK under successive Governments. I was assured in Bahrain last week and again this morning that the Bahraini Government intend to build on these reforms’

(7) = US Department of State – Remarks by Sec. of State Clinton – Remarks with Egyptian Foreign Minister Al-Araby 15 March 2011 ‘Remarks With Egyptian Foreign Minister Nabil Al-Araby’, http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2011/03/158404.htm

(8) = LA Times 28 Feb 2011 ‘Clinton denounces Kadafi, calls on leader of Libya to step down’,http://articles.latimes.com/2011/feb/28/news/la-pn-clinton-un-20110301

(9) = International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty Dec 2001 ‘The Responsibility to Protect’,http://www.iciss.ca/pdf/Commission-Report.pdf

(10) = Human Rights Watch 01 Jun 2005 ‘D.R. Congo: Gold Fuels Massive Human Rights Atrocities’, http://www.hrw.org/node/70588

(11) = Guardian 22 Oct 2002 ‘Multinationals in scramble for Congo's wealth’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/oct/22/congo.rorycarroll

(12) = NYT 13 Oct 2002 ‘America's For-Profit Secret Army’,http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C06E7DF123AF930A25753C1A9649C8B63&pagewanted=3

(13) Human Rights Watch 1996 Annual Report – Croatia,http://www.hrw.org/legacy/reports/1996/WR96/Helsinki-06.htm#P373_82578

(14) = See sources numbered (21) to (45) on the link below on Israeli forces targeting civilians in Lebanon, Gaza and the West Bank,  http://www.duncanmcfarlane.org/sevenliesthatkill/index.html#4

(15) = Human Rights Watch 13 Aug 2009 ‘White Flag Deaths  - Killings of Palestinian Civilians during Operation Cast Lead’, http://www.hrw.org/node/85014

(16) = Amnesty International 02 Jul 2009 ‘Israel/Gaza: Operation "Cast Lead": 22 days of death and destruction’,http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/MDE15/015/2009/en

(17) = BBC News 27 Jul 2006 ‘Beckett protest at weapons flight’,http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/5218036.stm

(18) = CNN 15 Feb 2011 ‘During a speech about internet freedom, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is interrupted by a heckler’,http://edition.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/world/2011/02/15/clinton.freedom.protester.cnn.html

Operation Kill Children to Boost Poll Ratings Achieves Partial Success

Pity it Tripled deaths from rocket attacks; but there are glimmers of hope

We can all relax now that Operation Kill Children to Boost Poll Ratings has achieved partial success. Barak and Livni now have their chances to be the next Israeli Prime minister who bombs and starves Gazans rather than Benjamin Netanyahu. That’s a triumph for humanity (1,2).

Cynics point out that the offensive actually increased rocket attacks. The Israeli Foreign Ministry website shows one Israeli civilian was killed by rocket attacks in the six months before the offensive, while three were killed in the three weeks during it (3).The cynics miss the point though. Reducing rocket attacks was never the aim.

More Palestinians have been radicalized by a thousand deaths and Israeli spokesmen have been able to claim that it’s the ‘undemocratic’ Hamas, not their own government, which has refused to negotiate. That may be the opposite of the truth and Hamas may be elected, but who cares. Israel “won”;the Labour-Kadima governing coalition matched Likud in the polls; the untermenschen Israeli Arab parties are banned from the next election (edit - a law later over-turned in Israeli courts) and the settlement of the West Bank continues. Palestinians are again relegated to their assigned roles of being ethnically cleansed and used as an enemy to rally Israeli voters against (4 – 11).

The Israeli government can also continue to propagandise about being the "only democracy in the Middle East", even while (yet again) trying to overthrow the democratically elected government of one of the other two (the Palestinian Authority) by force and repeatedly trying the same in the other (Lebanon).

There are some glimmers of hope though - Barack Obama has announced his administration will talk to Hamas, which would make it hard for the Israeli government to justify not acccepting offers of talks, especially if Obama threatens a cut in financial aid and arms shipments behind the scenes, as even George Bush Senior did when he was President (12).

Many people have also begun their own boycotts of Israeli produce and some company directors, including, I'm proud to say, one of my own relatives, have said their firms won't trade with Israel as long as the slaughter of civilians continues. So even if governments fail to put sufficient pressure on the Israeli government their citizens might yet do it.

(1) = Haaretz 31 Dec 2009 ‘Poll: Most Israelis support continuing Gaza military op’,
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1051852.html

(2) = BBC News 08 Jan 2009 ‘Israelis back Gaza action - for now’,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7816794.stm (see last two sections under sub-headings ‘Ratings War’ and ‘High Stakes’)

(3)= Israel Foreign Ministry ‘Victims of Palestinian Violence and Terrorism since September 2000’, http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Terrorism-+Obstacle+to+Peace/Palestinian+terror+since+2000/Victims+of+Palestinian+Violence+and+Terrorism+sinc.htm

(4) = Telegraph 09 Feb 2006 ‘Hamas offers deal if Israel pulls out’,
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/1510074/Hamas-offers-deal-if-Israel-pulls-out.html

(5) = Guardian 4 Mar 2006 , ‘Hamas says peace possible at Moscow talks’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1723217,00.html

(6) = Guardian 22 Jun 2006 ‘Climbdown as Hamas agrees to Israeli state’ http://www.guardian.co.uk/frontpage/story/0,,1803184,00.html

(7) = Ynet news (Israel) 22 Dec 2007 ‘Report: Hamas weighing unconditional truce with Israel’, http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3485394,00.html

(8) = IHT 23 Dec 2007 ‘Israel rejects Hamas request for cease-fire talks’,
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/12/23/africa/hamas.php

(9) Guardian.co.uk 21 April 2008 ‘We can accept Israel as neighbour, says Hamas’,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/apr/21/israel

(10) = Khaled Hroub (2006) ‘Hamas : A beginner’s guide’ , Pluto Press, London, 2006

(11) = Haaretz (Israel) 13 Jan 2009 ‘Israel bans Arab parties from running in upcoming elections’, http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1054867.html

(12) = 09 Jan 2009 'Obama camp 'prepared to talk to Hamas'',
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/08/barack-obama-gaza-hamas