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Gunning for Gadaffi

By Earl Bousquet: 0 Comment(s)Print E-mail China.org.cn, July 9, 2011

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[By Jiao Haiyang/China.org.cn]

While China, Russia and the African Union (AU) continue to call for the guns to be silenced in Libya, for the bombs to stop raining on Tripoli and for a peaceful political solution to the Libyan crisis, the USA and NATO continue to loudly beat the drums of war.

Libya's African neighbours, with Beijing, Moscow and others, are urging the world's strongest military powers to "give peace a chance"; but there's no sign they'll ever sing that still-very-popular song.

Concerned about the human costs of war, the emerging nations are almost begging the USA and NATO to stay within the bounds of their controversial UN Security Council Resolution aimed at "protecting Libyan citizens from attack".

But the forces gunning for Gadaffi, intolerant of even the thought of and end to the fighting with Gadaffi still in power, are hell bent on interpreting that resolution (on which Russia and China abstained) as a passport to "regime change".

From the very beginning of the so-called "Arab Spring", it was patently clear that the US and NATO forces were out to snuff Gadaffi out. They insisted too, that once they started the war on Tripoli there would be no stopping until their ultimate aim was achieved.

Unable to channel events on Tripoli's streets as easy as they might have in other North African and Arab capitals, the allied (US and NATO) governments quickly set the stage for an all-out war by their combined forces against Libya.

US war ships rained missiles inland while French and British war planes kept the Libyan air force grounded; and, soon enough, French and US troops began covert operations on Libyan soil while NATO overtly invited more states to join the fight.

Under the cloak of legally "supporting democracy and freedom" and citing the "legal restrictions on public information about covert operations by US force abroad", Pentagon and US State Department officials respond to press revelations of US covert forces assisting Libyan opposition armed forces by saying it was now "all legally deniable".

And where proof is otherwise provided publicly, the response from Washington, Paris and Brussels has been that the secretly inserted covert forces "are not actually engaged in actual combat."

Today, after NATO bombs killed Gadaffi's son and two grand-children, destroyed many neighbourhoods and taken many more innocent lives, and with their end-game nowhere in sight, the US and NATO, with France and Britain in the lead, are getting impatient.

The US and NATO forces are directly and not-so-secretly arming the anti-Gadaffi troops, while those singing the war chant are demanding stepped-up, combined NATO attacks, with an all-out air, sea and ground attack on Tripoli.

Benghazi, the opposition stronghold, is already being treated as a new and alternative Libyan state, marking the beginning of what is already being touted as the eventual "Balkanization" of North Africa and the Middle East.

But while the US and NATO are busily fanning the flames of war over Libya, China, Russia and South Africa are continuing to seek a peaceful political solution at every opportunity.

China has now opened vital peace talks with the opposition's National Transition Council (NTC), saying its direct dialogue with anti-Gadaffi officials (in Beijing and Benghazi) is based on it's identification of the NTC as "an important dialogue partner".

A top China political official flew to Beghazi and called on both sides in Libya "to give priority to interests of the country and the people, and peace and stability, and to launch substantial talks on ceasing hostilities and future political arrangement, as well as make a positive response to the mediation proposal of the international community."

The press reports that the NTC officials "praised China's efforts in advancing a peaceful solution to the crisis, and agreed that political negotiation is the final outlet for the Libyan problem."

The emerging nations behind a peaceful solution insist that dialogue is the best approach and the guns should be silenced; and while Tripoli remains ring-fenced, there are already welcome signs that talks are both possible and happening.

The emerging dialogue about a peaceful solution is not the sort of language those gunning for Gadaffi will want to hear or speak. They'd prefer to talk about how best and fastest to get the job done and over with, once and for all.

The circling hawks and menacing war lords in London, Washington and Paris are even inflating and nourishing feelings of "shame" that the mightiest military powers in the West have been unable to topple and replace Gadaffi as quickly as protestors have done in neighbouring countries on North Africa's Arab Street.

But with each passing day and every case of civilian targets being bombed by NATO strikes in and out of Tripoli and with every complaint by armed opposition fighters that victory for them will be impossible without more direct and sustained NATO military strikes, more people the world over are joining in singing the internationally popular anti-war anthem that's as famous in London as it is in Washington and New York, "All we are saying, is give peace a chance!"

The author is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more information please visit:

http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/node_7107878.htm

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