Where is the western intervention heading ?

So last nightand today we have heard and seen reports of French and British military aircraft bombing Libyian targets that Gadaffi wilkl use to further opress his people. But what is really going on there and what is the west's real objective.

The most important thing to do in Britain now is to oppose the Western military intervention, and expose its real aims and its hypocrisy.
The West is intervening to strangle the Arab revolution, not to save it. This i feel is down to the west not wanting to have its base for major oil source tapped by the Chinese or Russians if they stay out and Gadaffi falls to the revolution they will not be situated to take advantage of the oil and any subsequent
new leader put in place in Libya.
But this seemingly paradoxical state of affairs should come as no surprise. On the contrary, when it comes to the issue of governance across the Arab and Muslim world, in the eyes of the West it isn’t important whether or not an Arab state is ruled by democracy or dictatorship. All that matters is whether or not it is ruled by the right kind of democracy or dictatorship. Democratically elected governments in places like Palestine, Iran and as is increasingly the case, Lebanon, are deemed pariahs, while dictatorships in places like Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and up until very recently, Tunisia and Egypt, are allies and friends.

The problem for the West vis-à-vis Gaddafi isn’t a philosophical or moral one over the fact he happens to be a dictator – indeed, how could it be given the West’s eagerness to embrace his regime when he declared Libya open for business in 2004? – instead it is over the fact he’s proved an unreliable dictator. Like Saddam before him, another former ally and a dictator at one time willing to do business with the West, Gaddafi has proved prone to bouts of independent policy and, as recent events prove, brutality. This has rendered him unstable in the eyes of western political and business elites for whom stability across the Arab world is not just preferable but crucial to their interests, both strategic and economic.

What worries me the most is the whole hypocrisy of this whole invasion and war i guess you could now call it. THe fact that the west has backed Gadaffi for years and years while he has been their puppet in the area serving us with oil and playing ball we've been ok for him to stay put.

Latest news i'm hearing is that the Arab league made up of Arab countries who initially backed a colaition plan to go into Libya and enforce a "no fly zone" have now condemed the violence and have said the west appear to be going too fara nd way beyond what the no fly zone entailed for them.
I think opposition to our western intervention in Libya will continue to grow and grow.

Unlike either Ben Ali in Tunisia or Mubarak in Egypt, Gaddafi had been astute enough to dispense enough of Libya’s wealth to enough of his people to cement a social base of support for his regime. It has been this base of support which has enabled him to retain the loyalty of the bulk of his armed forces by which he was well on the way to crushing the revolt prior to the UN resolution authorising a no fly zone.

The question facing the West now, after Gaddafi announced a ceasefire almost immediately after the UN resolution was passed, is how to proceed without alienating further an Arab street which has awoken after decades of being politically infantilised? Moreover, the West’s ability to do so hinges on the extent to which the revolutionary wave which swept through the Arab world - one make no mistake which saw uprisings take place not only against autocracy and dictatorship but against the West’s stranglehold over the region – has deepened the consciousness of the millions involved.

Gaddafi may be many things but madman he is not. The fact he’s been able to rule Libya for over 40 years without any serious threat to his regime until now proves this is so. His continued survival may well depend on how effectively he takes the opportunity just handed him by the UN to parade his anti colonial and anti imperialist credentials not just in Libya but throughout both Africa and the Arab world. Further, the more successful he is in this regard the more the Libyan opposition will find itself tarnished and discredited by association. For in the last analysis, nothing positive can come of the West’s continued intervention in the region. The clutch of dictators who have and continue to scar the region’s social, political and economic landscape are a symptom of this intervention, regardless of whether it has come via the agency of soft or hard power, and it is a system of control that must be broken if the Arab world is to progress and develop. This is also why any military intervention must be opposed by progressive forces in the West itself.

Malcolm X put it simply when he said, “In order to understand what’s going on in Mississippi you have to understand what’s going on in the Congo.” To this can be added that in order to understand what’s going on in the Congo you have to understand what’s going on in Mississippi. In other words there is a circular relationship between social and economic injustice at home and a policy of imperialism and colonialism overseas.

For David Cameron, whose government is under increasing pressure over a domestic economic policy that amounts to a vast experiment in human despair, military intervention in Libya if successful could provide him with the kind of bounce in popularity which Thatcher enjoyed in the aftermath of the Falklands War. Failure on the other hand could see another Iraq unfold with similarly tragic consequences. In either scenario David Cameron gains or loses political credibility, while potentially tens of thousands of Libyans of every stripe, both pro and anti regime, will certainly lose their lives.

But such considerations have always been small beer when it comes to putting recalcitrant regimes in their rightful place. The old certainties whereby the West was able to prop up assorted dictatorships throughout the Arab world safe in the knowledge they would control their people while they set about the noble task of picking their collective pockets, were for an all too brief but historic period cast aside during the wave of Arab revolts just passed. Now, with both the West’s tacit approval of the repression taking place in Bahrain and Yemen, along with the prospect of military intervention in Libya, could it be that we are looking at those certainties being returned?


All in all i dont see this being a quick process and i do eventually see American and British troops being deployed to Libya as the attacks get stronger and stronger and Gadaffi's forces play hard to geta nd end up hiding in the towns and cities in amoungst innocent civilians using them as human shields . I am really hoping this doesnt turn into a mass blood bath but sadly i cant see it going any other way. As they say it is easy to start a war but a lot harder to finnish one as we've seen in Iraq and Afganistan .