Quote:
Originally Posted by joeysteele
It does seem every govt wants to be seen as a strong one in that it gets involved in conflicts.
Margaret Thatcher had the Falklands and the early part of the first gulf war over Kuwait which was handed over to John Major in 1991.
Then Blair had his Iraq war and also involvement in Afghanistan,so whether Cameron is a mark 11 Blair or not,it seems he is also an interventionist, wanting to try for his glory time too.
I feel this one if we go in in any form, the moment any loss of life occurs then this could be this coalition govts Iraq and it will bring negatives for them as Iraq did for Blair.
History will be kinder to Blair for the fact such an evil dictator like Saddam Hussein was got rid of,he should have been got rid of in the first Gulf war.
Maybe Cameron thinks he can succeed where Blair failed,however I don't think the massive majority of people of the UK support intervention in Libya at all,whereas roughly half did support the Iraq conflict until the doubts came about later with hindsight.
|
Just one point. The UN directive only gives authorisation to set up a no fly zone, however it also allows the use of ground pounders to use against anything that may threaten the aircraft enforcing the no fly zone.
The idea is to even the playing field and prevent what is a rebellion turning into a one sided massacre.
Cameron knows this, he only asked for UN backing to a No Fly Zone. We dont have enough trrops left to put men on the ground in any significant numbers for any length of time.
He is possibly hoping to do something Blair could never have achieved: Allowing a democratic movement to achieve the removal of the current regime and hopefully the installation of a more democratic regime without the use of ground forces.
The UN probably wont give further mandates to allow an invasion, they will allow the occasional incursion into Libya for example CSAR(Combat Search and Rescue) missions to recover downed aircrew within a predetermined time of ditching, close protection for diplomatic liaison teams( think those blades that were held by rebels the other week) but thats about it.