why are the US and UK getting involved in the first place?
We have the resources to do it. Don't forget, France, Denmark, Belgium, Spain, Italy, Qatar, and Canada are involved too. If a country with less capabilities was to lead the way, would it be as effective? No.
Basically, the US and UK were just paving the way with the ordnance that other countries in the UN didn't have money for, and when they step down in a week NATO will take over.
Why no assassination? It's not kosher, for starters. Assassinations are not executed lightly (despite what you may have learned from video games
) and require miles of red tap to be cut. Plus, if it goes poorly the country that sent him/her loses tons of political power. Basically, it's all about politics, as fethin' usual. Colonel Gaddafi wasn't targeted by the strikes because it's not allowed under UN resolution. One of his complexes was hit, but it was to sever his command and control capabilities, to leave his army in confusion.
Tomahawk cruise missiles were launched at radar facilities and surface-to-air missile launchers (made in Russia, naturally
) so that the UN could impose a no-fly zone over the area, or in other words make it safe for "dem good guys hurr" to fly patrols. It's within their remit to attack loyalist Libyan forces that either set up defenses or attack civilians, but not otherwise.
As for civilian casualties, whatever the Libyan regime says is a farce to scare their own population. People were reporting that ambulances would just drive nowhere in particular, and nobody has heard of any casualties from the people that matter: the people they know. Through the grapevine they haven't heard a peep, and since they claim the "small town environment" like we do, in that everyone knows everyone, I'm more inclined to agree with them than their lie-ridden government.
Why all this? When protests erupt in the UK, for example, it's met with police cordons but otherwise allowed to occur. Some people smile and nod, others get annoyed, but for the most part it's accepted. When the same thing happens in Libya, such as very recently, it's met with governmental brutality. Protesters are shot and killed and arrested and abducted by secret police to unknown locations where people are held for little to no actual reason. To fire on your own citizens because they don't like you is rather excessive, no? Half of the country absolutely loves Gaddafi and all he represents; the other half feels the opposite and are willing to die so that their countrymen can be free from his oppressive regime.
Because of globalism, every country can see what's going on there. To be a united race of man (hard to accomplish, but the idea is nice), we must all be held responsible for our wicked actions. Who will hold Gaddafi to account if all his dissenters are killed or silenced? These are thoughts from people living in the city:
It almost seems like everyone knows someone who has been beaten, detained for a day or two or "disappeared".
My relative tells me of one of her friends. Her husband has been missing for two weeks now, he is 62 years old and was picked up from their home by men in plain clothes.
My friend was detained earlier this week by armed men, for no apparent reason.
He was blindfolded and taken from a location that will remain undisclosed for his own safety.
He says he was detained by members of the fiercely pro-Gaddafi Khamis brigade.
"I was shoved into the back of a Land Cruiser and every time we approached what was probably a checkpoint they would shout at the security officers manning them to "move away".
He was held for 24 hours and then released.
He was taken to two detention centres; the first one a prison in Ein Zara on the outskirts of Tripoli - where he spent the night - and the second in Salaheddine the next day where he was interrogated.
"I was beaten on the back, kicked around when they threw me on the floor and slapped countless times during interrogation," he recounts.
"There was at least 100 other men - young and old - in both facilities I was taken to, not just Libyans but Egyptians too.
"I could hear people shouting and screaming. One of the men around me told me he was from Zuwara and asked that I try to get the message out to his family there that he is alive - if I were to be released."
There were also two brothers being held there, he recalls, and one of them was blind.
"They said that their father was killed during the protests in the Souk al-Jumaa district and they were picked up from their home and brought to the prison in Ein Zara two weeks ago," he says.
Does anyone truly have a reason to hold him to account? Of course not, let's all be insular countries with no concern but for our borders (unfortunately that part of the world has no such luxury). But for humanity to be the best it can be, everyone has a reason to do so.
