Operation Oil Theft: Month 4, Week 3, Day 4.

Today (21/6/11) Britain's Daily Telegraph newspaper published briefing notes prepared by the second in command of the Royal Air Force (RAF) for Members of Parliament (MP's). These notes agreed with the head of the Royal Navy that Britain will not be able to continue operations against Libya beyond September without cutting other operations which in the case of the RAF means defending the Falkland Islands, training, defending the airspace of the British Isles or the war in Afghanistan. Mainly though these notes are the military trying to get themselves exempted from the spending cuts.

Yesterday (20/6/11) the Libyan government announced that NATO had killed 15 in an overnight attack on a civilian home near Zawiya. On this occasion NATO (read Britain) not only quickly claimed responsibility for the attack but made a lot of noise about it with even the BBC being allowed to broadcast a special report from the scene. Britain's position was that there was nothing wrong with the attack because it was targeting Khweildy al-Hamidy who is a Libyan military commander and a member of Muammer Qaddafi's inner circle. Although the fact that al-Hamidy is a military commander makes him a legitimate target whether or not it is therefore also right to try and kill him with an air strike while he is at home with his wive(s) and children is highly contentious especially as Khweildy al-Hamidy was un-injured in the attack.

So I think Britain's main aim in carrying out this attack was to try and force all the gory details about the Osama bin Laden killing and the effect it's had on US/Pakistan relations out of America - Britain's NATO ally. It was also rather a petulant attempt to ask why it's OK for America to kill Osama bin Laden but it's not OK for Britain to kill Muammer Qaddafi. To answer that I shall refer them back to what I said at the time;

Back in 1996 Osama bin Laden, as the head of Al Qaeda declared war on the United States of America and started to carry out terrorist attacks of increasing severity and lethality until September 11th 2001 when Al Qaeda carried out simultaneous attacks against the World Trade Centre, the Pentagon and a failed attack on the White House which killed around 5000 people. America responded by fighting back militarily and over the next ten years both Al Qaeda and America carried out numerous attacks against each other in a war that is still on going. So at the time of his death Osama bin Laden posed a clear and present danger to the security of the United States and it's citizens. Therefore America was fully entitled to kill him under the right to self defence.

By contrast until the Libyan rebels picked up weapons and started to fly a foreign flag Muammer Qaddafi posed no threat to the international community and arguably still doesn't. Although he did support international terrorism including the Irish Republican Army (IRA), Black September who carried out the attack on the 1972 Munich Olympics and the Lockerbie bombing this all stopped in the mid-1990's. Also while Muammer Qaddafi holds the ceremonial title of "Colonel" he was a purely civilian leader who since 2003 has actually played an important role in fighting terrorism and solving some of the more unpleasant problems of Africa and the middle east.

So not only does Britain not have the right to kill Qaddafi it didn't even have the right to attack Libya in the first place.

Anyway it's Tuesday night and I'm about to go to the pub. So if you're in the northern hemisphere and think it's going to be a long day your probably going to be right.