"Wadda we do next?"

The late Spike Milligan, surely the greatest Anglo-Irish-Indian - read his Wiki entry - funny man of all time had an unusual way of ending the sketches in his comedy show.  The entire cast would freeze, turn towards the audience and advance slowly chanting "Wadda we do next?"  I wonder if they are doing that in No. 10, or the Elysee Palace, or even the White House today?  I hope so, or at least, I hope someone is trying to work out the next step in this north African danse macabre.

It must be one of the oldest military principles in the history of Man that in order to bend your opponent to your will it is necessary to put your infantry's boots on his ground.  This great truth appears to have passed by 'Field Marshal' Cameron but I fear he will learn it the hard way.  Yes, it is more than possible that Gaddafi's (how do you spell his bloody name?!) sophisticated military structure can be taken out by air strikes and missiles but that will simply reduce him to roughly the same unsophisticated level as his opponents.  So we can expect to see sundry Toyota pick-up trucks loaded with machine-gun toting tribesmen dashing up and down the Tripoli-Benghazi road, shooting away merrily, mostly up in the air if the newsreels are anything to go by, and by such means - er, achieving what, exactly?  This internecine warfare could go on for months or, more likely, years and the civilian toll (so precious to the hearts of Cameron, Sarkozy and Obama - so they keep telling us!) will grind its way steadily upwards.

Because Cameron wouldn't dare pass wind without a Security Council resolution, he seems to think that Gaddafi is similarly meek in the face of so-called 'world opinion'.  No-one, it seems to me, has looked at it from Gaddafi's point of view.  Why should he give an inch?  There is now no hiding place for him and his family and thus, like dear old Adolph of yesteryear, he might as well go down fighting in his bunker.  But the likelihood is that the mixed and no doubt squabbling tribesmen who are his enemies will get nowhere near it - unless and until western armies are landed.  Alas, our 'glorious leaders' have absolutely and definitely ruled that out - well, they have until the Libyan civil war which they have facilitated becomes so messy and smelly with the bodies piling up ever higher that they will be forced to do something to bring it to an end.

At that point, let us say later this year or early next, unpleasant realities will intrude.  Cameron will realise that he has issued so many redundency notices that he hasn't anywhere near enough soldiers; also, he will learn that the MoD decided some time ago that tank regiments were sooo 20th century that they have run them down - and all that is quite apart from the fact that we have little or no means of transporting them.  Little Sarkozy is facing an election next year and is currently running in third place!  How keen will he be to send French soldiers into battle?  Finally, of course, we come to the pathetic sight of 'the main man', the 'leader of the free world', the Ivy League intellectual who was going to change the world - Barack Obama - The One!  I am trying hard to think back and remember a more utterly useless POTUS than him.  He has achieved what I thought was impossible, he has out-Cartered Jimmy Carter, himself!  It is quite obvious that Obama hates the whole concept of using the American military in any cause whatsoever.  That, in itself, is not necessarily a bad thing, it all depends on the circs, but watching him being dragged against all his instincts into this international equivalent of a pub fight is painful to watch.  Apart from anything else, all theAmerican polls are telling him that something like 65% of the American electorate are against any involvement.  You would think that that alone would put some steel into his backbone but, no, where little Sarkozy leads, shamefully Obama follows - but only so far!  I have tried hard to think of a single American national interest that is involved in this Libyan imbroglio, and not a single one comes to mind.

This stand off', pull your punches, one hand behind your back, sort of warfare is stupid beyond belief.  If it really is in our national interest to be rid of Gaddafi then my rough estimate is that the Brigade of Guards, or a US Marine regiment could achieve it in an afternoon with very few casualties on either side.  They could then withdraw and allow the Libyans to carve the place up in their usual tribal Arabic way - and good luck to 'em!

Finally, a word in praise of the 'Kaiserin'.  She alone, it seems to me, has looked at this whole mess and decided that German national interests are not involved and therefore, neither will German soldiers.

ADDITIONAL:  The always excellent Donald Boudreaux of Cafe Hayek publishes an excerpt from H. L. Mencken's book Minority Report which I think is pertinent:

“It seems to be difficult if not impossible for human beings to avoid thinking of government as mystical entity with a nature and a history all its own.  It constitutes for them a creature somehow interposed between themselves and the great flow of cosmic events, and they look to it to think for them and to protect them.  In democratic countries it is theoretically their agent, but there seems to be a strong tendency to convert the presumably free citizen into its agent, or at all events, its client.  This exalted view of its scope, character, powers and autonomy is fundamentally false.  A government at bottom is nothing more than a group of men, and as a practical matter most of them are inferior men….  Yet these nonentities, by the intellectual laziness of men in general, have come to a degree of puissance in the world that is unchallenged by that of any other group.  Their fiats, however preposterous, are generally obeyed as a matter of duty, they are assumed to have a  kind of wisdom that is superior to ordinary wisdom, and the lives of multitudes are willingly sacrificed in their interest.”

 

Comments

[JK]

Yes. Yes, I know you've given me "the dickens" over my fairly recent - and [admittedly immoderate] pasting if links. But it's pretty well known, Call me Dave is an avid fan of D&N.

http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20110223-jihadist-opportunities-libya

[David Duff]

Thank you, JK, that's your ration for the month!

[Umbongo]

I've commented elsewhere that the solution to Gaddafi is the same as that which should have been used with Saddam. Rather than expending an enormous amount of money and killing a large number of civilians, why not just bump him off using either special services, Mossad or the offer of a substantial cash reward to his cronies for this service? No-one imagines that Libya or, previously and currently, Iraq are ever going to become Western-style (or any style) democracies. Accordingly, a dose of realpolitik might be administered by those who run the "free" world. Even nutters, or potential nutters, can learn that there may be limits to their lunacy: Gaddafi has never learned this - maybe his successor could.

[David Duff]

I am not unsympathetic to your idea, Bongers, but on reflection I don't think I want to be led by politicians who plot murder. Today it might be Gaddafi and his ilk, but tomorrow ...? Also, of course, western politicians would face an immediate risk if word got out because the queue of Trot-lot glory-seekers waiting to carry out a 'citizen's arrest' would be longer than the one fo the Harrods sale!

[Umbongo]

"I don't think I want to be led by politicians who plot murder"

I take your point but we're not dealing with the domestic politics of a civilized country here: this is realpolitik: this is what occurs in the world: this is why we elect politicians to (occasionally) do or decide on our behalf that dirty work must occur. I'm not convinced that bumping off Gaddafi or Saddam could be classed as murder. Stalin - who knew something about murder - is quoted as saying that "A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic." However, a single death which saves thousands - or millions - of innocent lives is not murder; it's a blessing.

As to your point about Trot-lot glory seekers: those politicians who are prepared to take real responsibility and make (and live with) difficult decisions are just the ones that could see off them and their whole nonsense constructs.

[Lawrence Duff]

"This stand off', pull your punches, one hand behind your back, sort of warfare is stupid beyond belief."

But I thought only a couple of years ago you were an advocate of the "trash-and-dash" approach to warfare, in contrast to putting boots on the ground?

Son of Duff

[David Duff]

Now look here, SoD, what happened to all that respect, not to say, fawning adulation, I taught you at my knee? Anyway, yes, I am in favour of 'trash 'n' dash', as opposed to 'conquer and rule', but I did not preclude the use of soldiers on the ground provided they were in and out quickly. God and/or Allah knows how long this Libyan fiasco is going to drag on but sooner or later it will dawn on our glorious leaders that either they must arm the rebels with the latest kit which they might well turn on us one of these days, or, they will have to send in our troops to finish the job.