Success against Gaddafi must lead to even greater co-operation among our allies, says Gen Sir David Richards.
The death of Muammar Gaddafi and yesterday’s formal declaration of Libya’s liberation brings to a close one of the most successful operations Nato has conducted in its 62-year history. The Libyan people had just cause in rising up against a dictator who had murdered his citizens and would have done so again given the chance. Our action, too, was just: defending the people against his brutal regime.
While their courage was never in doubt, the people needed help. They appealed to the international community; and the resolve and determination of the Arab League, the United Nations and the Nato alliance and its coalition members in responding to their calls does all three organisations much credit. Neighbouring states and the wider world rightly responded to a dictator whose actions have destabilised the region. He not only threatened his own people but spread his terror around the globe.
Nor should we forget that Gaddafi was a latent threat to the UK and our citizens. He was responsible for arming the IRA, murdering WPc Yvonne Fletcher and hundreds of others in terrorist attacks – most infamously, at Lockerbie – and developing chemical weapons. Throughout the four decades of his dictatorship, he brought misery to thousands of homes and families. I will not mourn his death.
Our Armed Forces were able to play a key role in a great team effort orchestrated by the National Security Council and with essential work by the Foreign Office and Department for International Development (DfID). I am proud of our actions in combat but also of the military support to the diplomatic effort which the UK, alongside our allies in France, deployed to bring together a coalition in response to the calls of the international community.
In Libya, the RAF’s Tornados again demonstrated their worth while Typhoons flew their first combat missions. The Navy’s ships were more active than at any time since the Falklands conflict. And the Army launched Apache operations from the sea for the first time. This was a truly joint operation by the Armed Forces at the peak of their form. We should not underestimate the risks that our pilots and ships took to reduce risk of collateral damage.
Categories: UK
Right! Now that the dictator has been humiliated, killed along with his son and alike and Libya and Libyan people have been freed from the cruel regime of Gaddafi. We should be sure that these liberators and well wishers of Libyans will make sure that there will be a better life for each and every individual of Libya then the time they were oppressed.
The people that consider themselves the most civilized and just, and give value and respect to an animal or the worst criminal, in their home land, should have given human end to a man who had been a hero to many.
The way he was humiliated kicked knocked and killed in did not look like a punishment but shear revenge.
Moreover what about civilian innocent people of Iraq that died miserable deaths. The survivors have been thrown into stone age in the process of this liberation from a tyrant? Have they been provided what they lost in the war?
Where are their liberators and their allies in their difficult times?
Wher do they go from here? What is the future of Libya?
I spent the last two months in Benghazi. I witnessed their ‘liberty celebrations’ after Gaddafi was killed. There was a great sense of ‘liberation’, yes. And great expectations for a better future. Can these expectations be fulfilled? It will be difficult. Just judging from the fact that they did take 5 days (?) to decide how and where to bury Gaddafi how can we think that they will take the thousands of small and large decisions needed to improve the country. And the way they treated Gaddafi and the way they are treating for instance the sub-saharan Africans now does it not have too much in common with how Gaddafi treated those he did not approve of? – But all that would not improve with involvement from those who assisted in the ‘liberation’. They are flocking into Libya not to bring Human Rights but to collect as many business contacts and contracts that they can manage. The main challenge the new Government of Libya will have is to keep the ‘liberators’ at bay!