History Repeating

It almost seems that Iraq is happening all over again. Muammar Muhammad al-Gaddafi has refused to step down from power, while the Libyan people have fought for their freedom and rallied against him for almost a month, with no progress. Due to his stubbornness to do what’s best for his people and the country, the local protest has turned into another (at this stage unofficial) war.

The UN called for a no-fly zone, which is a harmless phrase, but ultimately means airstrikes on known air defence sites, which is currently happening. It would then be necessary to Keep those aircraft on station for an extended period of time for a number of unknown strikes. It is uncertain where the radars and missiles are located. Defence experts saying all the technology means airstrikes will not target civilians. However when search radars, particularly targeting radars, are turned on, the response must be immediate. This means there will be no time to determine whether the sites are located in residential areas or close to public facilities such as schools or hospitals Therefore the response needs to be executed before the radar is radiating (and therefore vulnerable) and before it to can engage. Although civilians are not the target, there will be causalities as the risk is too high. These experts are also saying that Gaddafi is not a target, but with all this so called intelligence, his house has still been hit.

On the other side of the fence, Steven Harper, Canada’s Prime Minister, made a good point by saying

 “We’re dealing with an individual and with a regime that will not be satisfied with the mere re-imposition of authority. The nature of this leader, and the nature of his regime, is they will massacre every single individual they even remotely suspect of disloyalty. This is an intolerable situation.”

Gaddafi needs to be stopped and the people of Libya given their freedom, but there are no real goals or objectives to the plans that have already gone ahead. This will be a long and tiresome process. Let’s hope that governments have learnt from all the past wars such as Iraq in order for history to stop repeating itself.