it won't.. it will ignore the fact that NATO's entire involvement is supposedly to protect civilians even as it provides air support to an attack on a civilian enclave.
i actually believe that some concern about "protecting libyan civilians" was one of the original motivations for the NATO campaign. i don't believe such concerns played no role as more cynical people seem to believe. it's just that the humanitarian motivation wasn't the only motivation. the other one was to get rid of a dictator who gave the world plenty of reasons to hate and who had managed to burn his bridges with every state that matters when it comes to these kinds of decisions. (qadhafi was still popular with sub-sahara african leaders, but like i said, every state that matters...)
the initial bombing prevented bengazi from falling probably did prevent a massacre. but then when that city was out of danger, the seige of misurata provided a new threatened civilian massacre that allowed the alliance to continue to work on regime change under the guise of its original mandate. once the misurata seige was broken, the protect civilians mandate was even more openly ignored. if the fall of sirte goes the way i fear it might, then it wouldn't take much for someone to point out the contradiction and give NATO a serious black eye. i just don't think NATO will recognize that in time to do anything differently.
i actually believe that some concern about "protecting libyan civilians" was one of the original motivations for the NATO campaign. i don't believe such concerns played no role as more cynical people seem to believe. it's just that the humanitarian motivation wasn't the only motivation. the other one was to get rid of a dictator who gave the world plenty of reasons to hate and who had managed to burn his bridges with every state that matters when it comes to these kinds of decisions. (qadhafi was still popular with sub-sahara african leaders, but like i said, every state that matters...)
the initial bombing prevented bengazi from falling probably did prevent a massacre. but then when that city was out of danger, the seige of misurata provided a new threatened civilian massacre that allowed the alliance to continue to work on regime change under the guise of its original mandate. once the misurata seige was broken, the protect civilians mandate was even more openly ignored. if the fall of sirte goes the way i fear it might, then it wouldn't take much for someone to point out the contradiction and give NATO a serious black eye. i just don't think NATO will recognize that in time to do anything differently.
