to stand together on this, then Britain should be involved.
That's what the UN is for, and Britain is a part of it.

Gaddafi loyalists go apostrophe crazy as punctuation anarchy breaks out in Libya

but I would say the cost is only minimally more than what it costs to have all of the people and equipment in standby anyway. The planes still have to be maintained, the people trained, fed etc.

as the Navy can't until 2020.

with Kelvin McKenzie.

But I'm with him all the way when he says "Libya is not worth an ounce of British blood".

The UK are fundamental to the operation of the UN. I'm not convinced doing nothing would be better and the issue is more long term. If dictators think that the UN won't do anything when they start killing hundreds, maybe thousands, of the people they purport to represent, then, perhaps, more of them would behave in this appalling way.

Zimbabwe, China and the DRC. We'll have a happy planet by the weekend.

Don't be so quick to dismiss any moral or ethical component to the action - I genuinely believe politicians do have a morale dimension, even if it is not top of the list of priorities.
In this case I think it is trying to learn a lesson from the first Gulf war - if there is an opportunity to get rid of a nutter, take it.
Of course regime change is illegal, so they are not going to say that, but Gadaffi has been madder than a box of rabid frogs for a long time now and I think a lot of people see this as the only chance to a true wild card out of the picture. The West, and many in the middle east, have already burnt their bridges and he will not forgive and forget - he will seek revenge.

He would have been in a better position to survive if he had not already aggravated other Islamic leaders - such as a rumour he sponsored an assasination attempt on King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. They don't forgive and forget that sort of thing.

Incidentally, my GLW's family lived in Zawiya for about a decade, and many in Libya apparently thought Gadaffi was a good thing for the first decade or so.

Somebody is bound to point out that Libya has lots of very lovely oil ("sweeter" than anywhere apparently), so I might as well. It is also remarkably close to the European Union. In this case, unlike Iraq, I personally think that there is an interest in securing oil supplies, along with a desire to increase political stability on the EU's southern border.

My view, I'm happy to see Gadaffi go, and don't think the rebels can do it themselves. So the west has to make a choice - let them fail or get involved. I'd rather we didn't, but I think it is a tough choice.

....says it's all too conveniently timed for the US, France and the UK with monumental domestic budgetary issues due to be addressed in the next 7 days.

The non cynic in me says it's probably the correct thing to do to prevent an unbalanced dictator with known terrorist leanings preventing slaughtering his own people. It sits uncomfortably that no similar action is enforced on the despot Mugabe.

no, we wouldn't want our thinking swayed by such tired old rubbish would we? Old hat, that stuff.

Instead of jets, maybe we should deploy a strategic sarcastic response, to the same devastating effect as I have just achieved.

It's hard to oppose "going in" if doing so could save civilian lives, without looking like a heel at best. One problem I have with it, though, is that there is a potential here to change foreign policy for good, in both senses. Obviously The West has been arming Gaddafi for some time now (as it did Saddam Hussein before that), and throwing up its hands in horror when the crazed despot does crazed, despotic things. "Clearly, we don't condone the use of the weapons of destruction we've sold him if they're used in ways we don't like (other than that, we're relaxed about how he uses them)," says The West. After all, if it all goes pear-shaped, we can just go in and bomb the place to buggery.

I can't help thinking that it might take an appalling humanitarian catastrophe to make The West reconsider its selling of arms to tyrants. It would be ghastly in the short term, but maybe, just maybe, if we knew we couldn't go in all guns blazing and destroy the country's infrastructure in the name of freeing its citizens, we might think twice about enabling these tyrants to perpetuate their despicable rule in the first place. And maybe a few years down the line, hundreds, thousands of civilian lives would be spared because there would be fewer omnipotent despots ruling them.

I fear we'll never learn.

Money raised by Comic Relief = £75m
Missiles fired in first 24 hours = £100m

I give up.

Or perhaps we want our guns and ammo back?

I was thinking about this on the ride home as NPR dedicated coverage to it.

Gadaffi has been in power for a number of years, and has been legitimized by how the West, and other States, have interacted with him.
Now there has been an uprising, which he has been trying to quash. Yes, brutally. Yes, with a disproportionate use of force. But, nonetheless, an uprising.

I asked myself what would happen if the Michigan Militia did the same and took over Ann Arbor? Or some other ridiculous point of comparison.

and then it struck me. I was looking for logic and reason in a morass of hypocrisy and idiocy. He's, well, he's Gadaffi. He's one of THOSE leaders, so it's OK for us to interfere there. Unlike Yemen. Or Bahrain.
I'm not sure that we DO have the right to do this - UN be buggered - or that we should at all. However, there's oil at stake, so I guess you don't want to be the major world power who didn't join in - that way you lose access to the sweet stuff after he's deposed.

...a mate of mind was idly musing on the recent relationship between agencies of HMG and Libya and wondering whether there might be a bunch of incriminating files lying around somewhere under a camel that HMG would much rather not have handed over to Wikileaks ... "If it all kicks off properly, you'd imagine they'd send in the SAS with an industrial document shredder," he said.
Then in early March, a "British diplomatic team" (ahem) was captured by baffled Libyan rebels ... Now of course, the RAF will be flying over Libyan government buildings so it would be quite easy to destroy the Ministry of Embarrassment by accident.
Not a comment on the OP really, more just a tangential observation.

$755,851.27

UK's stock of cruise missiles purchased from the USA some years ago, so exchange rates were different ...

but current value per missile: £465,569.00, or let's be approximate and call it half a million quid ... unless there was discount for COD or bulk delivery

..It's not like they can be used for any other purpose.

Of course things are done for political reasons. Of course there are many other countries whose rulers are no better than Gadaffi that we choose to support. Of course there are other popular uprisings that we ignore. Of course there's a huge reek of hypocrisy about the whole thing.

But if, and I know it's a big if, particularly given our track record, the end result is a better, fairer, safer country for the average Libyan to live in and one less mad dictator, then that for me is a good thing.

Gadaffi was bought. Whatever is being said now, he was actually a crucial, and heavily supported (armed) ally of the West. What's really frightening us is that the next government there, won't be so easy to buy. Indeed regardless of economic debt, our Governments will spend any amount of our money to make sure that they still have some control over the situation.

Crucial but often ignored fact: Our economies are completely oil dependent. And although the countries like Libya have this enormously valuable resource, they are still poor relative to us. The genuine reason for actions like the one we are about to take in Libya, nearly always have this as a motivator.

Dictatorships in the oil rich countries of the world are useful to us. Democracies on the the other hand are much more unreliable.

Another more or less unreported fact in our media, and disgracefully also the BBC: What really caused the Libyan people to revolt against Gadaffi? Remembering that Libya is a 95% Islamic culture … 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/816...

Long live Wikileaks, and a free internet, thats all I can say.

As someone else has said - it'll be about securing oil. Gadaffi going all rogue state again after big oil had secured nice juicy deals is not what your BP and the usual suspects want to hear. I know I shouldn't look for conspiracy theories in all these things - and admire moral courage in politics instead (wha?) - but you can't help but feel its the usual Iraq stuff all over again.

Regional stability in the long-term. It's easier to intervene at this stage than after it's been allowed to escalate, both geographically and in intensity and complexity, with other interested parties getting involved. And it's in our interest not to let it escalate, not least because of -

Oil. If the region was to be de-stabilized by large-scale war, a diminished oil supply would have severely adverse effects on all oil-dependent societies (pretty much everybody, then). We've already passed what's called "Peak Oil" - the point at which we're able to extract maximum resources. Political scientists will tell you it's no coincidence that oil production conferences are increasingly attended by some very nasty upcoming far-right politicians, who would know how to benefit from the chaotic and fearful society that would result if oil supplies were sharply diminished. It's also about -

Concern for one's fellow human being. Of course it's not the primary motivation, more like a side-effect that results from ensuring stability. But I think it's a factor, unless you believe that all of the world's leading politicians, all their advisors and everyone at the UN has a blank where their conscience should be - which I don't. Yes, supporting these psychopathic dictators is reprehensible, but they're sitting on the oil that we need, and removing them without the will of the people doesn't work, as leading US neo-Conservatives are now openly reflecting on. Interestingly, GW Bush in opposition was a vehement supporter of intervention in Kosovo, when he could have scored a cheap political point by opposing Clinton on the issue. It was an expensive campaign with no guaranteed outcome, and Kosovo has no exploitable resources, so the idea that UN intervention is only ever motivated by protection/acquisition of resources, doesn't stand up.

In this instance, I doubt the average Libyan is dumb enough to imagine that we're intervening entirely out of concern for his/her welfare, but then I doubt they give a shit if it means that they're not getting slaughtered.

The UN resolution specifically does not approve military action to bring about regime change. Therefore, the supposed aim of the current action is to create a fair playing field for the rebels to exploit, assuming they are capable. Therefore, the supposed aim of the UN is to probably create a stalemate situation which will help noone. However, all the rhetoric from Cameroon, Sarkozy etc is about getting rid of Ghadaffi which, on the face of it, is not what has been approved. Am I missing something?

Why is it the RAF? Why is it always us? Think it's time the lingering Imperialist posturing of the public school political class faced facts and spent the money elsewhere.

(i) this situation isn't directly comparable to Saudi Arabia, zimbabwe or the vast majority of other vile despotisms - there are large numbers of people I'm the street, a tyrant holding onto power in the face of massed protests (and turning his guns, albeit guns we sold him, on civilians) and a sense that with a bit of a nudge the protesters could win the day and the will of the public could be asserted. We're not invading here, whatever the rhetoric, we're simply giving the rebels, whom we believe to represent the majority, a fighting chance.

(ii) the presence of oil - isn't Libya responsible for only 2% of the UK supply? And isn't this an extremely costly action to take, as noted above? Is the extension of this argument that we should never intervene in any territory that has a precious natural resource, in any quantity?

(iii) the fact of non-intervention in Rwanda and so on is surely not in and of itself an argument not to intervene here. It can't possibly be the case that we intervene everywhere or nowhere, with no in between. We pick our battles (ideally those closest to home and where the least ground support will be required), but is that really wrong?

Don't get me wrong, no-one likes to see cruise missiles being launched (and the cost is the least of it) but I can't help but see some of the same cynicism here that was so evident on the comic relief thread the other night - the presumption that an act cannot be "good" if the motives behind it are not 100% altruistic and those involved have previous of any kind.

What's the alternative? To sit and watch from our armchairs as chaos unfolds?

is it just me, or have we just spent several years listening to the then Opposition blather on about how disgraceful it was that we went into Iraq without a clear legal basis for doing so, resulting in years of (expensive to the taxpayer) inquiry's, recriminations and back-stabbing instead of governing and let's not forget, the hundreds of lives lost from this country and thousands in the war-torn, 'several decades running just to stand still and maybe reach the point they were at ten years ago' countries we put our stupid, unnecessary size nines into... (deep breath), only to have the self-same prats now wielding power and DOING EXACTLY THE SAME THING as the then Government?

Isn't the definition of insanity repeating the same action over and over again in the hope of a different result?

And don't talk to me about it 'only being a no-fly zone' - if anyone on here thinks that's all this is going to be, it's back to school for you.

This is yet another war engineered to assist failing Western politicians in diverting their constituencies from the problems faced at home (however those problems emerged - I'm not being left or right prescriptive here), at a financial cost to us, a human cost to all and a longer-term cost to the fabric of democracy which, torn to shreds as it already is, is shortly to be seen waving pathetically limp in the winds of hypocrisy we hear gusting out of Westminster on a daily basis. I swear to God that Cameron's speech to Parliament at the end of this week could have been Blair ten years ago; same rhetoric, same suit, different party, same bullshit. I'm about as disillusioned with this and the smug career-politician set as it's possible to get.

What are we saying? That should enough people become angry enough at our Government, angry enough to bypass democracy and take to the streets in the forlorn hope of actually being listened to, that another country with a stake in our economy might think 'Hang on, this might upset our plans for Utopia, I think I'll ask the UN for a resolution and if they ignore it, well blow me if I'm not going to patrol their skies with armed fighters? Can someone on here tell me what the difference is, other than we have become a nation of smug, xenophobic bullies supported by a Superpower, who believe we're best at everything and therefore have the right to dictate to other nations of the world how we think they should run their lives? A civil war in this country would not be met with the same posturing in Iran (though I'm beginning to think it might be a good idea if we had a taste of our own medicine). Who made us God exactly?

It's absolute rubbish to say that these dictators are endangering our lives and livelihoods. We sold them arms for Christ's sake, and were more than happy to take their oil when it suited us. And the hypocrisy of selective memory - today Ghadaffi, yesterday, Saddam, but Mugabe? Oh no, he can slaughter innocent people for as long as he likes but still we stand by and do nothing. No oil, I guess? Sudan, Darfur anyone? It makes me sick.

We need a reality check but we won't get one. We need politicians who become politicians to govern, not to see out thirty years of their lives on expenses and then top their pension off with a memoir. We need someone brave enough to say we've been wrong on all this since WWII and start turning the tanker of hypocrisy around. We need to be collaborative not combative. We need soul. I fear it's already too late. Instead, let's watch in 3D whilst another pointless few years of land-mines, road bombs and retaliatory terrorist actions extrapolate from yet another 'mission to help innocent people' become a democracy, (read: there's a really depressing budget this week lads, so let's bury it in waves of union jacks and boorish Sun headlines about 'our lads' fighting for freedom).

Yeah, right, 'cos democracy's working really well over here, isn't it?

the oldest trick in the book - use a convenient conflict abroad to distract attention from disasterous domestic policies.

will we be using similar tactics against Bahrain - Bargepole suggests not!

meanwhile as always the poor buggers on the ground are the ones that suffer most, and their already grim lives are made even worse.

these things are easy to start, not so easy to stop. what is the exit strategy?

one was in tears in my office on Friday morning. They told me their hometown, their friends, their family, were literally being besieged by government forces. Electricity, food and water had been cut off for five days - friends had died in the streets they grew up in. Thanks to the BBC, I found out later that bombings were talking place as we we spoke. This person was at their wits end as all communication into the town were intermittent at best. Twenty mins before they talked to me they managed to get a 2 minute call into their parents. Their dad told them that the situation in the town was very very grim, but there was some hope because the UN had declared a no-fly zone.

I know this means my thoughts are completely shaded by personal feelings and are not politically objective, but for the first time in two weeks I felt I could talk to my colleague without feeling uncomfortable and not a little ashamed.

but why stop at Libya? Bloody things!

...It's interesting to see how, whenever this kind of military action kicks off, the TV news channels unfailingly click into jingoistic "I counted them all out..." mode.

They puff out their chests and speak in glowing, Clarkson-esque terms of the bombing missions, the hardware involved, the missiles fired and the damage done.

It's almost like no one is being killed.

..I think war is atrocious, but people were being killed anyway, and potentially many more were about to be.
The U.N. have done the right thing.
The tabloid TV and press will always act inappropriately. That's their brief.

Libya has an estimated population of just 6.4 million, although it has a huge land area (bigger than the UK, Ireland, France, Spain and Portugal combined) ...
Most folk live along the 1,770km Med coast; the big hinterland to the south is largely empty - the Sahara Desert...
All the anti-Gaddafi firepower at the moment is being focused on the the military infrastructure and armed forces of a very small, divided state - so if there was an uprising in Serbia (7.3m) or Denmark (5.6m) and NATO decided to provide "air support" to the revolutionaries, that's about the size of it... (Scotland or Ireland also have roughly comparable populations for that matter.)
Libya has also seen the first deployment in anger of the RAF's Typhoon combat aircraft, formerly known as the Eurofighter ... First thought about in the 1980s, this was initially estimated to cost the UK taxpayer £7bn, then £13bn, then the money spiralled way out of control, thanks to the politics of a trans-Euro aircraft project being built all over the continent ... The MoD stopped giving cost estimates around eight years ago, allegedly on grounds of commercial sensitivity but mostly because they were plain embarrassing ... the first Typhoon aircraft were delivered to the RAF in 2003 (four-and-a-half years late) while the National Audit Office recently estimated the cost of the programme to the UK taxpayer at £37bn...
Nice they're getting a wee run out finally.

That's what troubles me. It simply HAS to become an Iraq situation - troops on the ground, factions within the country vying for power, pro-Gaddafi folk recruited by Al Qaida, anti-UK feelings within the UK, insecurity, defence billions spent, civilian casualties, our boys back in body bags etc...

I think we need to be careful who we are backing here. As far as we know the rebels are not necessarily pro democracy - the only thing we know is they are anti Gadaffi. I seem to recall backing in an earlier age for Bin Laden in his fight with the Soviets. This could very easily come back to bite us on the arse like most things that are Middle East related.
The only given in this region is that without exception none of the leaders can be trusted. The Arab league gave support to the no fly zone and are now having second thoughts. They must have known the consequences before lending their support.

For me the biggest surprise is that France is leading this - they must have an agenda not apparent to the rest of us as they are usually at the back of the queue for military action.

If it is done in the name of protecting innocent civilians when do we march on Damascus? Sorry I forgot, that one would be too dangerous.