NATO and David Cameron face some tricky questions about the legality of its air strike on a Gaddafi family compound this weekend, which the Libyan government said had killed the leader's 29-year old son and three grandchildren, all aged under 12.
David Cameron spat out the same tired old line about the UN resolutions permitted attacks against the regime's command and control sites to prevent a loss of civilian life.
Rather than push Cameron on the contradiction of killing these children in his defence of protecting civilians, the interviewer was ushered swiftly onto a list of Gaddafi misdemeanors and the attack was forgotten.
Only it wasn't because Russia, already complaining that NATO was acting outside of the UN Resolution, called the attack a 'disproportionate use of force leading to detrimental consequences and the death of innocent civilians.'
I also thought that the military action was supposed to be a humanitarian mission, a no-fly zone purely to stop Gaddafi from using his air-power on civilians. Seems that now we are fighting alongside the rebels against the Libyan regime, even attempting to overthrow Gaddafi.
It does not matter what the building was, there was no justification to bomb anything in Tripoli. If the rules have changed and we are now taking on the Libyan Government, NATO should go back to the UN table and get either an amendment to Resolution 1973 or a whole new resolution altogether.
Seems we have crept into a war while nobody was looking and as usual, NATO just didn't care who was in the building they set their sights on. They bombed it in their desperation to assassinate Gaddafi because after 6 weeks of bombing, they have got nowhere.
NATO and Cameron should be asked if the victims of their bombs don't matter and because the kids happen to be in Gaddafi's family, don't they deserve to be protected?
Regardless of if their death comes from a pro-Gaddafi tank or a NATO jet, they are still dead and just like in Iraq and Afghanistan, nobody is there to protect the innocent civilians from our bombs.
2 comments:
Yeah, after a decade of looking using the most sophisticated technology that money can buy, America has finally mowed down Ben Laden, once one of its allies.
This seems to echo the killing of Gaddafi's son and three of Gaddafi's grandchildren, none of whom were enemies of anyone.
It seems that no one is safe anywhere in the world these days if you are critical of the U.S. or its NATO cronies.
"It seems that no one is safe anywhere in the world these days if you are critical of the U.S. or its NATO cronies."
...and if you 'criticise' the US by killing over 3,000 of their citizens in a terrorist attack, then you should certainly not consider yourself safe.
I'm happy they finally got the bastard... albeit rather rueful that it should come after so many years, so many other deaths, so many poor decisions, so many lies, so many of our fundamental rights been eroded and so much deception. It's played into his hands, in many ways. Still, 'rot in hell' and all that... and let's hope for a more reasoned & rational response to terrorism and fundamentalism in the future.
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