British version of military intervention
Press Tv
Sat Mar 5, 2011 10:47AM
Amid fears of Britain's new expansionist ambitions, London is apparently planning to directly intervene in Libya by giving military advice to its opposition leaders.
The disclosure comes as earlier, Defense Secretary Liam Fox wrote in an article for the Sunday Telegraph that the agitations similar to those in Libya and other countries in the Middle East and North Africa have long-term implications for British military policy.
Fox said London needs to keep a close eye on the different aspects of the developments so that it can appropriately respond to similar incidents in the future.
"The events over recent days may produce a strategic shock and change in how we view the world," he said. "The speed of events in North Africa has shown how quickly circumstances can change and how quickly the UK can be drawn in.”
Sending a diplomatic delegation capable of giving military advice to the opposition in east Libya makes it possible for the British government to gain direct access to valuable intelligence on the African country's dictator, Muammar Qaddafi, and the country's military capabilities.
Such a move in the context of Fox's remarks on London's plans to “field a force of 30,000, including maritime and air assets for a one-off intervention,” raises new questions about the real purpose of intervention in Libya.
Media reports said one of the reasons British Prime Minister David Cameron has decided to back the Libyan resistance is that the opposition is not fully tribal or Islamic and follows democratic demands that can ease the anti-western attitude in the region.
However, analysts said Fox's earlier comments and the Foreign Secretary William Hague's telephone contacts with a key military figure in the North African country questions the authenticity of the claim that Britain is to go to Libya, without arming the opposition, to help the country's democratic front.
Hague has been calling former Libyan interior minister General Abdul Fattah Younis Obaidi, believed to be leading the opposition's military operations, after he took over the military defences in Benghazi, the North African state's second largest city.
White Hall sources said the British 'task force' is to help the rebel national council in Benghazi through keeping them better informed of the diplomatic developments on the Libyan situation as the council tries to shore up the isolated rebel towns near the capital, Tripoli.
Yet Cameron's aggressive stance on the issue makes it difficult to believe the diplomatic nature of the task force's job.
Cameron has suggested a no-fly zone over Libya, while calling for regime change there without ruling out a military option.
His remarks against the backdrop of the “strategic shock” comments by Liam Fox, who likened the situation in Libya to the post-9/11 attacks, expose the expansionist overtones of sending the task force.
“The events of 9/11 produced a strategic shock, which immediately changed how we view the world. The events in North Africa over recent days may also produce a strategic shock and change in how we view the world,” he said.
Back in 200,1 when the attacks on the US targets took place, Britain also talked of taking democracy to the Middle East and helped the US in its invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.
It is now common knowledge that the bloody campaigns only left the Middle Eastern countries gripped in more violence leaving hundreds of thousands of innocent people killed.
AMR/TG/HE
