Britain's Evacuating.

The British government has finally begun the process of evacuating its passport holders from Libya. This was meant to start yesterday (23/2) but the charter flight's take off from Gatwick airport was delayed "due to a technical fault." This entirely made up excuse was the Brits way of acknowledging to the international community that the situation in Libya is technically Britain's fault. It is important to remember that this was just an acknowledgement rather then an admission of guilt or an assurance that the faulty behaviour had ceased. It also served as a warning to the Libyan rebels that things are not going according to the Brits plan.

It is because of this plan that Britain has not moved sooner to rescue it's passport holders. The idea was that Britain would send a small force into the north-eastern tribal region of Libya in order to instigate an armed uprising. Britain would then use the plight of the British passport holders trapped in the fighting as leverage to get the international community to allow them to reinforce the small uprising with mercenaries and Royal Marine Commandos under the guise of a rescue mission. This is very similar to what Britain did at the start of the first Gulf war when British Airways (BA) chose to land a passenger jet in Kuwait several hours after Iraqi forces had invaded. The passengers were promptly taken prisoner by the Iraqis and used by the British as anti-Saddam propaganda in the run up to the war.

The Brits are currently liaising amongst themselves and the rebels to decide if they dare go ahead with a big assault without these reinforcements because Colonel Qaddafi had the good sense to use the early days of the conflict to wipe much of the rebels airfields, supply dumps and heavy armour.