Libya

So, The UK, along with the USA, France and a slew of other countries have begun to bomb Libya. Brilliant. David Cameron has said 'what we are doing is necessary, legal and right.'

Necessary - Yes, Colonel Gaddafi is a ruthless dictator and it does appear that he is committing atrocities to his own people. However, the main necessity, as always, seems to lie with oil. Recently, Libyan oil has been welled at a much quicker pace, opening new markets, contracts and exports. Much like the actions of the US in Iraq, it seems now Britain wants to secure it's main contracts in Libya and removing Gaddafi is a sure fire way to deal with this issue. Also, why is it ever necessary to start launching million-quid-a-pop missiles at a few strategically important schools and hospitals?

Legal - Wow, how noble of you all to actually have UN backing before attacking a country. Well the last time the UN and NATO commenced a bombing raid they almost flattened half of Yugoslavia, yielding very low military success and killing thousands of innocent civilians. Crucially though, we also have the support of the Arab League, most notably, the bastions of morality and democracy, Bahrain, Yemen and Saudi Arabia. Well, the last I heard, Bahrain had rolled a few tanks over the protesters there, Yemen security forces opened fire on unarmed protesters and the less said about Saudi Arabia's attitudes to free-speech, democracy and human rights, the better.

Right - Again, while it is 'right' to stop a dictator murdering his people, I haven't seen Britain so ready to make a stand against the events is Darfur, Myanmar (Burma), Zimbabwe, North Korea, Sri Lanka... this list goes on.

Bombing raids will lead eventually lead to an invasion of Libya, adding even more to taxpayers pockets back home and putting British service men and woman back on the front-line of fire. So after deposing Gaddafi, then what? Add a puppet leader who will buckle under every request from the UK and USA? Libya is very similar to Afghanistan insofar as that outside of Tripoli and other major cities, Gaddafi's influence gives way to different Warlords and Tribes. This will just leave Libya in a similar state to Afghanistan and Hamid Karzai who just acts as a puppet for the West, while civil war is on his doorstep, as these people quarrel for power.

This is obviously an enormous subject with hundreds of different reasons and outcomes, it was simply my intention to reply to Cameron's less than empowering speech. But as they have the final say, it appears that the very expensive missiles will continue to crash down, at best, on military outposts consisting of one man with his machine gun or at worst, on built up civilian areas.