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15 March 2011 By Rick Rozoff March 7 was a pivotal moment in plans by Western
powers to launch military operations against Libya. After meeting with Australian Prime Minister Julia
Gillard in Washington, President Barack Obama stated
"we've got NATO, as we speak, consulting in Brussels
around a wide range of potential options, including
potential military options, in response to the
violence that continues to take place inside of
Libya." In an interview she gave to The Australian
newspaper immediately before her departure for the
U.S., Gillard stated that she supported the "US
placing more military forces on Australian soil if it
believes this is necessary in the light of the growing
might of China and India." Her government is also on
record as backing military action in Libya. On the same day North Atlantic Treaty Organization
Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen held a press
conference at the military bloc's headquarters in
Brussels and while formally disavowing plans to
intervene in the North African nation said that "as a
defence Alliance and a security organisation, it is
our job to conduct prudent planning for any
eventuality." He revealed his true intentions with further
statements like: "We can see a strong wind of change blowing across
the region – and it is blowing in the direction of
freedom and democracy." "This is a humanitarian crisis on our door-step
that concerns us all. The civilian population in Libya
is the target of systematic attacks by the regime. So
we must remain vigilant. The whole world is watching
events in Libya and the wider Middle East. Many of our
Allies have been evacuating their nationals and
helping other people in need. We strongly condemn the
use of force against the Libyan people. The violation
of human rights and international humanitarian law is
outrageous." Rasmussen also announced that the defense ministers
of NATO's 28 member states, including American
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, will meet at NATO
Headquarters on March 10-11 to "discuss the situation
in Libya, and the longer term prospects for the
region" and to "consider how NATO can do more to help
partner countries in North Africa and the wider Middle
East." [1] NATO partnership nations include Libya's
neighbors to the east and west, Egypt and Tunisia,
members of the Alliance's Mediterranean Dialogue. Almost simultaneously, the U.S. permanent
representative to NATO, Netherlands-born Ivo Daalder,
informed reporters that on the same day NATO military
planners had completed an assessment for enforcing a
no-fly zone over Libya in time for the defense chiefs
meeting three days later and had decided to conduct
around-the-clock air surveillance of the country using
AWACS aircraft. The no-fly operation assessment had
been presented to the ambassadors of NATO's 28
members, who planned to meet again on March 8 and 9 to
deliberate on the issue. Daalder also stated that "In coming days, military
assessments should be completed into a no-fly zone and
how to enforce an arms embargo." [2] The U.S. envoy was the National Security Council
director for European Affairs in charge of Bosnia
policy in the mid-1990s in which capacity he assisted
in overseeing the last days of NATO no-fly operations
conducted over Bosnia, which is to say largely over
the Republika Srpska (the Bosnian Serb Republic), from
1992-1995, Operation Sky Monitor and Operation Deny
Flight. In 1995 Operation Deny Flight gave way to Operation
Deliberate Force, directed against the Republika
Srpska with 400 aircraft flying 3,515 missions against
338 targets. Daalder also supported the U.S. and
British no-fly zone over Iraq in the 1990s and in 2006
co-authored an article for Foreign Affairs, journal of
the Council on Foreign Relations, entitled "Global
NATO" in which he applauded the military alliance's
role in the Balkans, Afghanistan, Iraq and the Darfur
region of western Sudan. [3] At the time the article
appeared many in the U.S. were calling for a
replication of the no-fly operations employed over
Iraq, Bosnia and later Yugoslavia for Sudan. Daalder criticized his then-former chief President
Bill Clinton in 1999 for not introducing ground troops
into Kosovo in conjunction with the 78-air war the
U.S. and NATO mercilessly prosecuted against the
nation. Susan Rice, like Ivo Daalder a Senior Fellow at the
Brookings Institution currently on leave, in her case
as American ambassador to the United Nations, demanded
in 2007 that the U.S. and NATO enforce a no-fly zone
over the Darfur region of Sudan and "signal its
readiness to strike Sudanese military and intelligence
assets, including aircraft and airfields, if
necessary." She also called for the deployment of NATO
Response Force troops to western Sudan. Rice will vote
on a no-fly resolution for Libya when it is introduced
in the UN Security Council. [4] On March 6 Senator John Kerry, chairman of the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told the
television news program Meet the Nation "that Libya's
air force could be disabled without the kind of
expense and commitment required to maintain previous
no-fly zones in Iraq and the Balkans," [5] and instead
"One could crater the airports and the runways and
leave them incapable of using them for a period of
time." His position on grounding Libya's air force was
echoed by two of the Senate's top Republicans, John
McCain and Mitch McConnell. Kerry also called for turning an unspecified amount
of the $30 billion in Libyan assets seized by the
American government over to rebel groups in the
country, adding, "I assume that a lot of weapons are
going to find their way there from one means or
another over the course of the next weeks." Former U.S. ambassador to the United Nation Bill
Richards, too, advocated a plan to "covertly arm the
rebels" (as did White House spokesman Jay Carney) and
enforce a no-fly zone over Libya. George W. Bush administration national security
advisor Stephen Hadley chimed in, telling CNN:
"Obviously, if there is a way to get weapons into the
hands of the rebels, if we can get anti-aircraft
systems so that they can enforce a no-fly zone over
their own territory, that would be helpful." Reports have circulated about Washington enlisting
Saudi Arabia to airlift weapons to rebels in Benghazi. Pentagon spokesman Colonel David Lapan told Agence
France-Presse that in regard to U.S. plans for Libya,
"all options are being considered." The New York Times on March 6 listed what those
options are. They include the deployment of the USS
Kearsarge amphibious assault ship, on which the 26th
Marine Expeditionary Unit is embarked and which took
on board 400 more Marines in addition to the
1,200-2,000 it arrived with on the Greek island of
Crete and with the USS Ponce amphibious warfare ship
is now heading for the Libyan coast in a deployment
ordered by Pentagon chief Gates. USS Kearsarge is
equipped to carry V-22 Osprey vertical takeoff and
landing aircraft and MH-53E Super Stallion
helicopters, the largest and heaviest helicopters in
the U.S. military arsenal. "The flotilla can be seen as a modern-day example
of ‘gunboat diplomacy,' intended to embolden rebels
and shake the confidence of loyalist forces and
mercenaries, perhaps even inspiring a palace coup."
[6] Gunboat diplomacy is the proper term, reminiscent
as it is of the dispatching of four American warships
to Tripoli in 1801 where they enforced a blockade of
the harbor and where the USS Enterprise defeated the
privateer ship Tripoli in a naval battle off what is
now Libya's capital. The current USS Enterprise, the world's first
nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, is positioned in the
Red Sea with a carrier strike group attached to it
which includes the guided missile cruiser USS Leyte
Gulf, guided-missile destroyers USS Bulkeley, USS
Barry and USS Mason, and the fast combat support ship
USNS Arctic. On February 16 Enterprise and Kearsarge, the
Enterprise Carrier Strike Group and Expeditionary
Strike Group 5, met up in the Red Sea leading to the
Suez Canal which USS Kearsarge and USS Ponce passed
through on March 1 to the Mediterranean Sea and the
American naval base in Souda Bay, Crete. The New York Times laid out further options in
addition to the stationing of American warships off
the shores of Libya. They include several offered by
planners on the Pentagon's Joint Chiefs of Staff and
its field commands: Signal jamming "aircraft operating in international
air space," thus disabling "Libyan government
communications with its military units." "Administration officials said Sunday [March 6]
that preparations for such an operation were under
way." The aforementioned use of the Kearsarge and the
Ponce amphibious assault ships, "Known as a Marine
Air-Ground Task Force," which "provides a complete
air, sea and land force that can project its power
quickly and across hundreds of miles, either from
flat-decked ships in the Mediterranean Sea or onto a
small beachhead on land." "In this task force are Harrier jump-jet warplanes,
which not only can bomb, strafe and engage in
dogfights, but can also carry surveillance pods for
monitoring military action on the ground in Libya;
attack helicopters; transport aircraft – both cargo
helicopters and the fast, long-range Osprey, whose
rotors let it lift straight up, then tilt forward like
propellers to ferry Marines…across the desert; landing
craft that can cross the surf anywhere along Libyas'
long coastline – and about 400 ground combat troops of
the 1st Battalion, 2nd Marines." Other operations being planned are air-dropping
weapons to insurgents in the country and "inserting
small Special Operations teams…to assist the rebels,
as was done in Afghanistan to topple the Taliban." Another option is to launch a "handful of strikes
on valued government or military targets…as was done
in the Gulf of Sidra raids in 1986," by the Ronald
Reagan administration. "There are ample planes based in Europe and on the
aircraft carrier Enterprise and its strike group, now
in the Red Sea, for missions over Libya. "Pentagon officials said Sunday that those vessels
were carefully sailing in the direction of the Suez
Canal, gateway to the Mediterranean." USS Enterprise, should it join other U.S. and NATO
nations' warships in the Mediterranean, will provide
as many as 85 aircraft. The newspaper account also detailed these actions: "The destruction of Libyan air-defense radars and
missile batteries would be required, perhaps using
missiles launched from submarines or warships. A vast
fleet of tankers would be needed to refuel warplanes.
Search-and-rescue teams trained in land and sea
operations would be on hand in case a plane went down.
"The fleet of aircraft needed for such a mission
would easily reach into the hundreds. Given the size
of such a mission, it would be expected that American
and NATO bases in Europe would be used, and that an
American aircraft carrier would be positioned off
Libya." [7] On March 1 the Wall Street Journal quoted an
unnamed senior U.S. official recommending another
expedient: "The best outcome for those Libyan leaders
who are defecting will be (to put) two bullets into
the heads of Gadhafi and his son." NATO's Aviano Air Base In Italy, across the
Mediterranean from Libya, hosts 42 U.S. F-16 jet
fighters. Aviano is the base from which U.S. F-15s and
F-16s and NATO warplanes took off for the bombing of
the Bosnian Serb Republic in 1995 and Yugoslavia in
1999. In the second case over 38,000 air missions were
conducted. A Russian analyst recently wrote of the parallels
between NATO's first full-scale war in 1999 and the
impending campaign against Libya: "The old term used to describe such actions,
‘gunboat diplomacy,' is no longer politically correct.
Now ‘liberal intervention' is preferred. But while the
name may have changed, the methods have not. Libya
appears to be maneuvered down the same path of action
that culminated in the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia,
which started on March 24, 1999, after a no-fly zone
was announced. "The quest for UN approval is an essentially
meaningless but nevertheless indispensable political
ritual that always precedes violations of
international law. The same thing happened before
NATO's Operation Allied Force (Noble Anvil) in
Yugoslavia." "The military preparations underway in the
Mediterranean go beyond the simple redeployment of
U.S. warships ‘just in case.' These preparations
always have a critical mass – the line beyond which
war becomes unavoidable. "USS Kearsarge is one of the world's largest
assault vessels of its kind. It has dozens of
helicopters on board, missiles, landing craft, and
over 2,000 Marines. The ship was used in the
Yugoslavian operation in 1999 to deploy Marines,
reconnaissance groups and special forces." [8] Associated Press reported on March 4 that "Some
NATO countries are drawing up contingency plans
modeled on the no-fly zones over the Balkans in the
1990s." The news agency cited a senior European Union
official stating that "taking control of the airspace
over Libya would more likely be modeled on Operation
Deny Flight, a 1993-95 NATO mission in which its
warplanes patrolled the skies over Bosnia as a civil
war raged between government forces and Serb
secessionists." "During Deny Flight's 33-month duration, NATO flew
more than 100,000 sorties. Roughly half were carried
out by fighters and attack jets, and the others by
transports, reconnaissance planes and aerial tankers.
Four Serbian fighter-bombers were shot down during the
operation." "NATO planes mostly operated from air bases in
Italy and from carriers in the Adriatic Sea and the
Mediterranean. Many of those bases, and those in
Spain, Crete and Cyprus, could be used for a potential
air mission over Libya." [9] On the first of the month the European Union
scheduled a crisis summit of its 27 heads of state
requested by British Prime Minister David Cameron and
French President Nicolas Sarkozy for March 11, which
will be the second day of the NATO defense ministers'
meeting also occurring in Brussels. Earlier in the
same week the EU imposed its most stringent sanctions
to date against Libya and adopted an embargo on arms
and equipment to the nation. On March 5 the Daily Telegraph revealed that the
Black Watch (3rd Battalion, Royal Regiment of
Scotland) has been placed on heightened alert,
"prepared to deploy to North Africa at 24 hours'
notice." The 600-troop infantry unit returned from
Afghanistan in late 2009 where it fought in Operation
Panchai Palang (Panther's Claw) and before that
participated in the first attack on Basra, Iraq in
2003. The British newspaper added: "Nato members yesterday agreed to draw up
contingency plans for how their armed forces could
intervene. Britain is also preparing to send diplomats
and specialist advisers to the eastern city of
Benghazi, where the disparate Libyan opposition is
based." The advisers were Special Air Service (SAS)
and Military Intelligence (MI6) operatives "carrying
espionage equipment, reconnaissance equipment,
multiple passports and weapons" who were captured by
Libyan rebel forces in Benghazi at the time the
above-cited report appeared. The Guardian reported that Britain was also
deploying Typhoon multirole combat aircraft to its
base at Akrotiri in Cyprus. On March 1 Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper
announced in the House of Commons that he was ordering
the frigate HMCS Charlottetown with 240 military
personnel "to the waters off Libya to enhance its
military presence in the region in response to the
escalating unrest in the Northern African country."
Defense Minister Peter MacKay said it would take six
days for the warship to arrive. Canada also has C-17
Globemaster and two C-130J Hercules military
transportation planes as well as a military
reconnaissance team of 13 soldiers based in Malta, 300
kilometers north of Libya. The amassing of military assets – warships,
warplanes, assault troops and special forces – near
and in Libya means more than brinkmanship,
demonstrates more than a show of strength, more than
simply "sending a message." So does the enforcement of a no-fly zone over the
country, which is not a substitute for but a prelude
to war. Last week Defense Secretary Gates acknowledged
that "A no-fly zone begins with an attack on Libya to
destroy the air defenses." It in fact demands the grounding of a targeted
nation's aircraft and the neutralization if not
destruction of its surveillance systems and
anti-aircraft batteries. A no-fly regime is succeeded by war as day is
followed by night. In Bosnia from 1992-1995 it led to
a bombing campaign and the deployment of 60,000 NATO
troops. In Yugoslavia in 1999 it was the opening move
in an air war which resulted in 50,000 U.S. and NATO
troops occupying part of the country's territory. In
Iraq from 1991-2003 it was the lead-up to an invasion
and ongoing military occupation that will soon be
eight years old. Britain and France, in close consultation with the
U.S. and Germany (collectively the NATO Quad), are
jointly writing a draft resolution for a no-fly zone
over Libya to be presented to the Security Council. If
the resolution is supported by nine or more of the
fifteen nations on the Security Council and if
permanent members China and Russia don't veto it, the
stage will be set for a series of further military
actions by the U.S. and NATO against Libya, which will
be presented by the West as UN-sanctioned, in a manner
alarmingly evocative of the process used to prepare
the attack on Iraq in 2003. 1) NATO Defence Ministers will discuss situation
in Libya and longer term http://www.brookings.edu/views/articles/daalder/2006sept_oct.pdf 4) Susan E. Rice, The Genocide in Darfur:
America Must Do More to Fulfill http://www.brookings.edu/papers/2007/1024darfur_rice_Opp08.aspx 5) Washington Post, March 6, 2011 http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20110304/162866224.html 9) NATO weighing Libyan no-fly zone |
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