Like all conflicts in which the West is nowadays involved, the war in Libya is asymmetric. At the weekend, French, US and UK forces began to hit Muammar Gaddafi's air defences. And the Libyan dictator is fighting back, not with his own planes and missiles, but with propaganda.
The regime in Tripoli is claiming that 48 civilians were killed and a further 150 wounded by the initial Western strikes. Those figures have not been verified and the Gaddafi regime is likely to be exaggerating the numbers killed. Something similar took place in the 1999 Kosovo war, when Nato planes, enforcing a no-fly zone, were accused of killing a large number of Serbian civilians in the process... The purpose of these inflated totals was to rally the Serbian people against an external aggressor and also to demoralise the West, which justified the operation as a means of saving lives.
Reports of civilian casualties (verified or not) could be even more toxic in the Arab world than they were in Kosovo, because of the history of Western interference in the region. The Arab League's sharp criticism of the air strikes yesterday was a serious blow for the Western military coalition. The League's support for a no-fly zone was important in getting UN resolution 1973 through the Security Council. This apparent change of heart inevitably undermines the legitimacy of the intervention. And yesterday's critical words from Russia, China and the African Union are a setback for a similar reason.
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/leading-articles/leading-article-the-west-must-be-careful-not-to-lose-the-propaganda-war-2247792.html#
**
REPORTAGE - Sans le dire, Kadhafi et ses partisans ont recours à des «boucliers humains».
Les échos qui proviennent de Misrata, située à 150 kilomètres à l'est de Tripoli, ne sont pas plus rassurants. Là-bas, dans la troisième ville du pays, où des combats continuent à opposer des forces pro et anti-Khadafi - en dépit du cessez-le-feu -, «les hommes du régime empêchent certains habitants de sortir de la ville afin de former un bouclier humain contre les frappes de la coalition», confie un médecin contacté par téléphone, qui préfère garder l'anonymat par crainte d'être inquiété. Selon lui, «ils forcent les gens à crier leur soutien à Kadhafi et ont également mobilisé de jeunes orphelins».
http://www.lefigaro.fr/international/2011/03/21/01003-20110321ARTFIG00792-le-regime-libyen-se-cache-derriere-les-civils.php
Aussi peu confiance dans les informations fournies par la coalition et par notre gouvernement que dans celles données par Khadafi; j'ai la totale impression que l'on cherche à nous manipuler...
*
Vous feignez d'être surpris! Et Kadhafi qui a été mis devant le fait accompli: la guerre déclenché par Sarkozy seul et en personne (ne l'oublions jamais!), se comporte comme normalement comme quiconque attaqué le ferait! vis à vis de son agresseur!
(форум на Le Figaro)
Няма коментари:
Публикуване на коментар