Russia says ground military intervention in Libya may trigger war

[News_Editor]

Russia says ground military intervention in Libya may trigger war

2011-03-17 01:07:55 GMT+7 (ICT)

MOSCOW (BNO NEWS) -- Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said on Wednesday that any military intervention in Libya may trigger a war, RIA Novosti reported.

"We realize what a ground military operation is. Ground intervention is likely to mark the start of war. Not a civil war, but a war with the international troops," Medvedev said, adding that such a serious issue should be thoroughly considered by the UN Security Council.

His statement comes after the G8 agreed to implement further measures against the Libyan leadership, including possible military actions, RIA Novosti reported.

The UN Security Council held a closed-door debate on Wednesday on a draft resolution seeking to impose a no-fly zone over Libya, after the Arab League voted on Saturday in favor of it.

NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen has repeatedly said that the alliance was considering various options against Libya, including possible military action, but said any intervention in Libya would be strictly in line with UN Security Council decisions.

The UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has urged all parties in this conflict to accept an immediate cease fire and to abide by Security Council Resolution 1970, which was adopted on February 26 by the UN Security Council. The resolution imposed an arms embargo and other arms restrictions on Libya, as well as a travel ban on sixteen loyalists to Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi and Gaddafi himself, who are also subject to a freeze of their assets.

The Secretary-General's Special Envoy, Abdul Ilah Khatib, departed Libya on Wednesday with his delegation after two days of discussions in which he conveyed to senior Libyan officials the strong calls by the international community to cease the fighting and the violence, to ensure humanitarian access and to work toward a peaceful solution of the crisis.  

On Tuesday, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees requested a safe passage for people needing to flee combat areas in conflict-ridden Libya, as the number of refugees nears 300,000.

Sub-Saharan nationals living in Libya's eastern and western parts have been trapped by the fighting and have appealed for help to leave the country. To date 280,614 people have fled the violence, including over 150,000 to Tunisia and another 118,000 people have fled to Egypt.

-- © BNO News All rights reserved 2011-03-17

[Steely Dan]

Well if you say so Russia perhaps it's best to do nothing at all and see if Gaddafi can rack up a death toll greater than Syria managed in 1982, which was 40,000 by some estimates. Even the Arab league are giving suppport and the French of all Countries have been quick in recognising the rebels.

Here is Christopher Hitchens' view, forthright as ever.

http://www.slate.com/id/2286522/

Is Barack Obama Secretly Swiss?

The administration's pathetic, dithering response to the Arab uprisings has been both cynical and naive.

By Christopher Hitchens

Posted Friday, Feb. 25, 2011, at 11:41 AM ET

President Obama makes a statement on Libya, Feb. 23, 2011However meanly and grudgingly, even the new Republican speaker has now conceded that the president is Hawaiian-born and some kind of Christian. So let's hope that's the end of all that. A more pressing question now obtrudes itself: Is Barack Obama secretly Swiss?

PRINT

DISCUSS

E-MAIL

RSS

RECOMMEND...

REPRINTS

SINGLE PAGE

FacebookDiggRedditStumbleUponCLOSELet me explain what I mean. A Middle Eastern despot now knows for sure when his time in power is well and truly up. He knows it when his bankers in Zurich or Geneva cease accepting his transfers and responding to his confidential communications and instead begin the process of "freezing" his assets and disclosing their extent and their whereabouts to investigators in his long-exploited country. And, at precisely that moment, the U.S. government also announces that it no longer recognizes the said depositor as the duly constituted head of state. Occasionally, there is a little bit of "raggedness" in the coordination. CIA Director Leon Panetta testified to Congress that Hosni Mubarak would "step down" a day before he actually did so. But the whole charm of the CIA is that its intelligence-gathering is always a few beats off when compared with widespread general knowledge. Generally, though, the White House and the State Department have their timepieces and reactions set to Swiss coordinates.

This is not merely a matter of the synchronizing of announcements. The Obama administration also behaves as if the weight of the United States in world affairs is approximately the same as that of Switzerland. We await developments. We urge caution, even restraint. We hope for the formation of an international consensus. And, just as there is something despicable about the way in which Swiss bankers change horses, so there is something contemptible about the way in which Washington has been affecting—and perhaps helping to bring about—American impotence. Except that, whereas at least the Swiss have the excuse of cynicism, American policy manages to be both cynical and naive.

This has been especially evident in the case of Libya. For weeks, the administration dithered over Egypt and calibrated its actions to the lowest and slowest common denominators, on the grounds that it was difficult to deal with a rancid old friend and ally who had outlived his usefulness. But then it became the turn of Muammar Qaddafi—an all-round stinking nuisance and moreover a long-term enemy—and the dithering began all over again. Until Wednesday Feb. 23, when the president made a few anodyne remarks that condemned "violence" in general but failed to cite Qaddafi in particular—every important statesman and stateswoman in the world had been heard from, with the exception of Obama. And his silence was hardly worth breaking. Echoing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who had managed a few words of her own, he stressed only that the need was for a unanimous international opinion, as if in the absence of complete unity nothing could be done, or even attempted. This would hand an automatic veto to any of Qaddafi's remaining allies. It also underscored the impression that the opinion of the United States was no more worth hearing than that of, say, Switzerland. Secretary Clinton was then dispatched to no other destination than Geneva, where she will meet with the U.N. Human Rights Council—an absurd body that is already hopelessly tainted with Qaddafi's membership.

Advertisement

By the time of Obama's empty speech, even the notoriously lenient Arab League had suspended Libya's participation, and several of Qaddafi's senior diplomatic envoys had bravely defected. One of them, based in New York, had warned of the use of warplanes against civilians and called for a "no-fly zone." Others have pointed out the planes that are bringing fresh mercenaries to Qaddafi's side. In the Mediterranean, the United States maintains its Sixth Fleet, which could ground Qaddafi's air force without breaking a sweat. But wait! We have not yet heard from the Swiss admiralty, without whose input it would surely be imprudent to proceed.

Evidently a little sensitive to the related charges of being a) taken yet again completely by surprise, apparently without a policy of its own, and c) morally neuter, the Obama administration contrived to come up with an argument that maximized every form of feebleness. Were we to have taken a more robust or discernible position, it was argued, our diplomatic staff in Libya might have been endangered. In other words, we decided to behave as if they were already hostages! The governments of much less powerful nations, many with large expatriate populations as well as embassies in Libya, had already condemned Qaddafi's criminal behavior, and the European Union had considered sanctions, but the United States (which didn't even charter a boat for the removal of staff until Tuesday) felt obliged to act as if it were the colonel's unwilling prisoner. I can't immediately think of any precedent for this pathetic "doctrine," but I can easily see what a useful precedent it sets for any future rogue regime attempting to buy time. Leave us alone—don't even raise your voice against us—or we cannot guarantee the security of your embassy. (It wouldn't be too soon, even now, for the NATO alliance to make it plain to Qaddafi that if he even tried such a thing, he would lose his throne, and his ramshackle armed forces, and perhaps his worthless life, all in the course of one afternoon.)

Unless the administration seriously envisages a future that includes the continued private ownership of Libya and its people by Qaddafi and his terrible offspring, it's a sheer matter of prudence and realpolitik, to say nothing of principle, to adopt a policy that makes the opposite assumption. Libya is—in point of population and geography—mainly a coastline. The United States, with or without allies, has unchallengeable power in the air and on the adjacent waters. It can produce great air lifts and sea lifts of humanitarian and medical aid, which will soon be needed anyway along the Egyptian and Tunisian borders, and which would purchase undreamed-of goodwill. It has the chance to make up for its pointless, discredited tardiness with respect to events in Cairo and Tunis. It also has a president who has shown at least the capacity to deliver great speeches on grand themes. Instead, and in the crucial and formative days in which revolutions are decided, we have had to endure the futile squawkings of a cuckoo clock.

[kuffki]

I actually have to agree with Russian position.

Of course doing nothing is not ideal but ground intervention is very possible to spark war.

Perhaps UN Peace keeping troops would be ideal, however i do not think they can send any unless Rebels ask for it and again while many countries talk about it, They have not offered to send any troops and US is tied up already elsewhere.

Arab league forces would of been great, but considering the problem all over other nations i do not think they will, also Saudi military is already tied up in Bahrain. Egypt is too busy with their own problems, so as Tunisia.

So i think situation is a real problem and this is why International community is so slow and rather indecisive.

I believe Italy has already ruled itself out from any action.

Watching interviews from analysts they all seem to agree that its little too late to do something, unless rebels can hold up in Bengazzi, but even then they do not know what is best way.

No fly zone is now proven useless, according to them, because air force is not widely used by Gadaffi, so it will not make that much of a difference