NO FLY?

David Cameron, the Con Dem PM, says that Britain is working with its allies on a plan to establish a military no-fly zone over Libya, because of the threat of  "further appalling steps" being taken by Col Muammar Gaddafi to oppress his own people. This seems a sensible solution (but for historical reasons without US involvement if possible), which is one step away from having to put boots on the ground and direct military intervention.

Perhaps Western leaders may have finally learned the lesson that its relatively easy to commit troops on the ground, but, a much more difficult and often costly in human terms to get them back out again. By way of coincidence Cameron's predecessor Conservative PM John Major went along with the establishment of 'No
Fly' zones in Iraq in 1990 / 1991.

Lets hope that this solution is decidedly more effective than the farcical and selectively effective 'no fly zones' that were established to protect the Kurds and the Marsh Arabs from Saddam. This time lets make sure that ground attack helicopters are covered by the 'no fly' rules - they weren't last time. At least for the Libyans (unlike the Kurds) they will not be periodically subjected to ground attack by Turkish planes operating from the same airfields as the NATO aircraft that were protecting the Kurds from Iraqi attacks.

Heaven forbid that the Libyan crisis drags on and Gaddafi ends up clinging to power (in and around Tripoli) for that will mean that there will be an arms embargo which would harm any prospects of an outright opposition success as with Bosnia. I mean like Gaddafi does not have enough stock piled already, no doubt previously sold to him at cost by British Arms dealers (under New Labour and the Con Dems)...oops...