NATO Intervention in Libya?
February 25th, 2011I couldn’t make it up if I tried. Ah, yes. The humanitarian crisis in Libya.
What about the long running nightmare in Sudan, just to the southeast of Libya? Is NATO going to sort that one out too?
What we have with Libya is a humanitarian crisis, mixed together with an oil production problem.
This is from a U.S. Department of Energy page on Libya:
According to the Oil and Gas Journal (OGJ), Libya holds around 46.4 billion barrels of oil reserves, the largest in Africa, and close to 55 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of natural gas reserves. In 2010, total oil production (crude plus liquids) was close to 1.8 million barrels per day (bbl/d).
Via: CNN:
If the U.S. military were to intervene in an increasingly chaotic Libya, it would most likely be part of a NATO action in which Libyan bloodshed has reached a humanitarian crisis, analysts said Thursday.
As reports emerged Thursday about deadly clashes between leader Moammar Gadhafi’s forces and anti-government protesters in the town of Zawiya near Tunisia, analysts highlighted how Gadhafi has already pledged to fight a rebellion to martyrdom.
Military intervention “is something which I hope doesn’t happen, but it looks as though at some point that it should happen,” said Simon Henderson, senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
“What’s an acceptable number of civilian deaths? I don’t know. Choose your figure,” Henderson said. “At the very least, instead of having a casualty list certainly in the hundreds, possibly in the thousands, we don’t want a casualty list numbering in the tens of thousands, or 100,000 or so.”
After 10 days of protest, Gadhafi has lost control of the eastern portion of a country he has ruled for 42 years, and analysts portrayed him as a dictator desperately clinging to power. Members of his government have defected, and in a sign of growing international pressure, Switzerland ordered Thursday that Gadhafi’s assets be frozen.
“You’ve got to assume the worst about Moammar Gadhafi,” Nicholas Burns, a professor at Harvard Kennedy School and former under secretary of state between 2005 and 2008, told CNN. “With his back to the wall, he’s going to go out in a blaze of vicious attacks.”
These protests around the world – sigh. I don’t know what to think about it all. One part of me thinks its a U.S. created distraction from the U.S. economy. Another part of me thinks its been created by the CIA. But on that count, I can’t give a reason as to why. But hey, when Hilary calls all the diplomats home? Even prior to the events in Libya? Hmm sounds to me like some kind of get your but home before the shiite hits the fan.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0111/48471.html
On the other hand, this could just be another HUGE WASTE of TAXPAYER dollars for another Clinton clan opera bouffe. Imagine that. Has anyone said a word about this meeting?