Hardening Off Young Plants

Tripoli port notes

This observer’s tentative appraisal of Tuesday’s events along the North Tripoli port area as of late afternoon Aug. 23 is that the “65,000 well trained and well armed troops” hyped Sunday by the Qaddafi government don’t in fact exist and that the pockets of government troops here in Tripoli and across Libya that do will continue to resist what it views as NATO aggression – designed to usurp the country’s oil and add Libya to Africom.

NATO is widely viewed as having violated the three main terms of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1973 (UNSCR 1973), to wit, NATO did engage in regime change, it did take sides in a civil war, it did arm one side and it did refuse to allow a negotiated diplomatic settlement which many here and internationally believe could have been achieved by early April, thus saving hundreds of Libyan lives. NATO’s more than 160 days of bombing are seen as egregious violations of UNSCR 1973, Article 2 (7) of the U.N. Charter and numerous provisions of international law – all part of its campaign to secure Libyan oil and this rich countries geopolitical cooperation for the U.S., U.K., France, Italy and their NATO allies.

I am advised that some Qaddafi loyalists are headed to the colonel’s hometown of Serte to prepare to defend it. Some of my reasons for these tentative conclusions include the no-show government troops, the intensifying NATO bombings of Tripoli – which is the only reason the rebels have not negotiated an end to this conflict last April – and my tentative conclusion that there is no reason for massive numbers of government troops, if they existed, not to challenge the increasing numbers of NATO rebels who appear to be sitting ducks as they tool around Tripoli’s troops.

According to journalists who arrived at this hotel yesterday from the west, south and east, there appear to be no government forces moving toward Tripoli to join in an Alamo type last stand battle. Obviously, I could be very mistaken but subject to correction, I expect a “rebel victory” – without defining that term – late this week.

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