Operation Oil Theft: Month 7, Week 1, Day 1.

In Libya the situations around Sirte and Bani Walid remain unchanged with Libyan government forces keeping the rebels pinned down outside of the cities. In Sabha rebel forces have succeeded in holding onto the district around the airport and appear to have been able to extend their control to the district around the city centre.

The big development though is that yesterday (21/9/11) NATO extended their mission for another 90 days taking it up to December 25th - Christmas day. Although it took a very long time to get all NATO members to agree to this extension has seemed likely ever since the United States indicated that they will continue the operation with or without a NATO mandate. While the United States has avoided taking part in combat missions in Libya it provides around 80% of the tanker flights that make the patrol and strike flights possible. They also provide the bulk of the battlefield intelligence which identifies the targets for the strike missions. So if the US is prepared to continue these operations without a NATO mandate it would make little practical difference if NATO withdrew it's mandate.

I'm actually surprised that the US hasn't made more of it's central role in continuing the operations against Libya because it would fit in perfectly with the game their playing at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) to trick the body into supporting the Palestinian statehood plan.

Over the last couple of days the US has made a lot of noise about their efforts to discourage the Palestinians from continuing with their plan. However it looks like the US is doing just enough to make it seem like they're making an effort but not enough to actually achieve anything. Then in his speech to the UNGA yesterday (21/9/11) US President Barack Obama specifically warned against the Palestinian plan. He then went on to justify the US' wars against Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya along with their killing of Osama bin Laden - all things that have damaged the US' reputation especially amongst Muslim nations. He also went on to effectively call for the violent overthrow of Israel's enemies in Syria in the name of the Arab Spring while calling for compromise on the part of demonstrators in Arab nations like Bahrain where the US has close relations with the dictators the people are trying to overthrow. At times Obama also seemed to be using his speech to appeal to voters in his country which is highly disrespectful to the assembled world leaders he was supposed to be addressing. So Obama seemed to be playing the role of the ugly American in order to provoke the UNGA into supporting the Palestinian plan in order to punish him.

This was alongside the speech of French President Nicholas Sarkozy. Under a previous President France was a very vocal opponent to the US' invasion of Iraq and won a lot of friends in Muslim countries in doing so. In his speech Sarkozy spoke quite strongly in support of the Palestinian plan even repeating the Israeli claim that failing to give Palestine statehood would provoke a violent Palestinian uprising. So the allies on Libya - Sarkozy and Obama - seem to be teaming up again to use a combination of perceived American unpopularity combined with perceived French popularity to generate support for the Palestinian plan.






Oh and I'm off to visit my grandmother in hospital. This is just me visiting a relative in hospital rather then something dramatic but I felt the need to mention it.