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Britain to Send Advisers to Libya Amid Rebel Disarray

Critics in UK already warning of 'mission creep'

By John Johnson,  Newser Staff

Posted Apr 19, 2011 8:00 PM CDT

(Newser) – With anti-Ghadafi rebels still bickering over who's actually their leader, Britain plans to dispatch a team of miitary advisers to Benghazi to help them get their act together. London insists the advisers won't arm or train rebels or go beyond the UN mandate, reports al-Jazeera. Their biggest order of business may simply be figuring out which of two rival commanding officers to deal with, notes the New York Times.

The British decision immediately drew criticism at home, reports the Guardian. "However much one despises the brutality of the Gaddafi clan which rules Libya, the fact remains that there is a danger of mission creep," said a Labour MP. "There is a civil war in Libya and this is a big escalation of Britain's involvement." On that note, the Libyan government denounced the move as well as a proposal to send in EU troops to guard aid deliveries, reports the Washington Post. It vowed to fight any foreign troops on its soil.

A Libyan rebel fighter waits for deployment orders along the western gate of Ajdabiya.
A Libyan rebel fighter waits for deployment orders along the western gate of Ajdabiya.   (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)
Libyan rebel fighters ride at the back of a pickup truck along the western gate of Ajdabiya.
Libyan rebel fighters ride at the back of a pickup truck along the western gate of Ajdabiya.   (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)
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COMMENTS
Showing 3 of 6 comments
BDLS
Apr 20, 2011 9:20 AM CDT
I recall that the US involvement in Vietnam all began with the quiet insertion of a few 'advisors" around the early 1960s. I was on USS CORAL SEA off the coast there in the mid and late 1960s not long after to so-called attacks had happened on the USS MADDOX and USS TURNER JOY. I visited the JOY for three days, and officers told me that not much--if anything--had taken place in that "attack." We all know now that it was used to convince that Vietnam was dangerous to the ships of the Seventh Fleet and the US. President Johnson used that incident to get us more fully involved in that country. Clearly, as we see now, that was a huge miscalculation that eventually destroyed Johnson's presidency, led eventually to years of undeclared "war" and the lives of more than 58,000 Americans, and far, far more in Vietnam and surrounding countries. Is just a chain-reaction going to happen this time too--in North Africa and the Middle East this time? If so, the UK (and the US, NATO, and others) will likely be sooorrry before too long. I do not know a "solution" for this issue, but hope that we have learned SOMETHING from that fiasco of half a century ago (many if not most of us and have been born AFTER the war and have no direct memories of it). I hope that we do not fall into such a costly trap as before, but do not feel very optimistic about it.
finkster
Apr 19, 2011 10:44 PM CDT
Yes keep fighting a civil war U.K.that's none of your business. And when will the people of this country realize the Obama Administration is just as wrong as the Bush Administration?
brawne
Apr 19, 2011 10:26 PM CDT
Oh--the British in BP. How can we forget them? WWII was about them and their need to screw Japan out of the oil in the Pacific--think New Guinai. Yeah, this is an age old story and you'd think we'd know it by now. The Japanese blew up Pearl Harbor cause of BP restricting their oil. It's always about oil--ALWAYS. If it were about giving a shit maybe someone would have stepped in in Rwanda when a million people were hacked to death in a hundred days.

 
NATO • Libya • Moammar Gadhafi • Britain • Libyan rebels

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