The 3-month old French-English-Italian led bombing of Gaddafi in a civil (actually inter-clan) war in Libya, legitimized by 10 of 15 UN Security Council members in Resolution 1973, enacted by 8 of 28 NATO members, cowardly bombing Libya from high up–is not working according to plan.\u00a0 Moreover, killing civilians to save civilian lives, and demolishing the parliament building to promote democracy, do not communicate well the pretended purpose.\u00a0 And yet it is difficult to believe that the military resistance by the Gaddafi forces will not come to an end before the new September deadline expires, given the standard US clause “with all necessary means”–the first articles of 1973, about ceasefire and negotiations with Libya’s government, notwithstanding.<\/p>\n
And Gaddafi himself?\u00a0 NATO is killing off the family one by one and may get him in the end, for “regime change”.\u00a0 But, like bin Laden, they may prefer liquidation to adjudication in The Hague, and Gaddafi may also prefer a hero’s death, and martyrdom.<\/p>\n
And then, what happens?\u00a0 If past experience is our guide, then the real war starts, and may last a long, long time.\u00a0 Like after the victory in Afghanistan October 2001, enshrined in the Petersburg agreement, offering no space whatsoever for the Taliban who were considered routed.\u00a0 Like after the Bush “Mission Accomplished” May 2003, announcing exactly that.\u00a0 They will peel off their uniforms, burn them, dress up like civilians.\u00a0 And NATO will see ground troops as the logical next step; with all kinds of bombs (not only IEDs for the road ditches, but the real thing, anti-tank bombs–like now in Afghanistan–and suicide commandos, waiting for them.\u00a0 NATO will install some regime, organize Afghanistan-type elections. When giving up after a decade on African soil, the real, real war starts, against those cooperating with the “colonialist crusaders”.<\/p>\n
Stupid of NATO?\u00a0 An insider boys’ club, victims of their own propaganda, including their fascination with evil leaders like Hussein, bin Laden, Gaddafi?\u00a0 Partly, yes.\u00a0 But mainly the outcome of a cost-benefit analysis willing to run the risks just mentioned because there is so much more at stake, of both costs and benefits.<\/p>\n
Halvor Ebbing (Klassekampen<\/em> 14 May 2011, a daily so good on foreign affairs that it justifies learning Norwegian), focused the attention on a factor located in the deep global structure, not on the surface feed for politicians and journalists:\u00a0 state-owned vs. private central banks (like the US Federal Reserve).\u00a0 Ebbing reports that Wesley Clark, the head of the anti-Serbian 78-day bombing in 1999 that lead to Milosevic’s capitulation, ultimate trial in The Hague, and decease, told the US non-mainstream TV news program Democracy Now in 2007 that ten days after 9\/11 he had been informed by another US general that the USA planned “to take out” seven states “the coming five years”: Iraq and Iran,\u00a0 Lebanon and Libya, Syria, Sudan and Somalia.\u00a0 They have certainly been “working” on those seven, but the question is what they have in common.\u00a0 Ellen Brown answers in Asian Times Online<\/em> for 14 April: They do not have central banks that can be regulated by the central bank of the central banks, the Bank for International Settlements. BIS, in Basel, Switzerland.\u00a0 BIS promotes the private global bank system through its settlements in favor of free movement of capital, unimpeded by state-political steering by state-owned central banks–like those in the seven countries.<\/p>\n