The West Must Not Stand Idly By And Watch A Libyan Humanitarian Catastrophe

The wild-eyed rant by Gaddafi on Tuesday afternoon was crazed and demotic.  It would have been comic if this wasn’t a bloody handed dictator, capable of doing anything to keep his hands on power.  We know that he has no moral limits to his behaviour and he has no qualms about using oppression to maintain power and suppress his own people.  His language during the speech on Tuesday was that of using whatever means necessary to flush out opposition.

Whilst the news coverage in the past 24 hours has focused on the attempts to get foreign nationals out of Libya, we must also consider how the international community should act to remove the potential of humanitarian catastrophe brought about by a bloodthirsty tyrant.  The West should not stand on the sidelines and watch Gaddafi use escalating force against his own people.

The situation in Libya is moving quickly and Gaddafi is growing increasingly desperate to use whatever means necessary to preserve his dwindling powerbase, even if that includes getting foreign mercenaries to shoot at his own people.  The West has stood by before as tyrants use force against their own people.  In the past, as the talking has gone on and on, we have repeatedly (such as in Yugoslavia) seen humanitarian catastrophes unfold.  We must not allow the same situation to happen in Libya.  A Libyan bloodbath with the West standing on the sidelines would be morally indefensible.

Lord Owen was right when he argued for a ‘no-fly zone’ to prevent Gaddafi using conventional bombs or chemical weapons against his own people in a desperate attempt to cling on to power.  NATO has many bases close to Libya and clearly has the infrastructure to enforce a no-fly zone.

The international community should act quickly and decisively to ensure that the despot does not use force against the people of Libya as his regime crumbles into the ground.  The West must not stand idly by as the potential of a Libyan bloodbath grows larger.

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