Libya

I have a very bad feeling about what's happening (stalemate at best) and about what isn't happening (the fall of the prophet)  in Libya. Apparently NATO is caught with its pants down, and has made a huge miscalculation about the strength of the madman-dictator and his followers.

But what's new ? It happens "all the time".

"Mission creep is an unpleasant condition brought on by a surfeit of military ambition and lack of self-knowledge. Symptoms include fantasy-like delusions such as the highly contagious belief, known as Sarkozy-itis, that the sufferer alone knows what's best for the world. This is typically followed by cold sweats and hot flushes when political reality proves otherwise. Mission creep is not treatable and hindsight is the only cure. It usually ends in disaster."

Read : http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/apr/19/libya-mission-military-advisory-team.

Of course the author, a Brit,  focuses on the French president. But the condition might be described as Cameron-itis (Libya), Blair-itis (Iraq), Bush-itis (various theatres) a.s.o.

What strikes me most is the total hypocrisy of these interventions. Most of the fights are not about freedom and democracy, but about oil, and they are very good for the profitability of the armament industries ; but that is about the only "positive" aspect of these disasters.