Libya

Peter Wu

9 August 2011

The Sovereign debt crisis in the Eurozones and the down-grading of the US credit worthiness has overshadowed the failure of the war launched in early March to unseat Colonel Gadafi. I would have thought that with the combined military might of Nato, they would have got rid of the dear Colonel him a long time ago. It isn’t happening at all. Why, you may ask?

I have the answer and it is plain for all to see – a lack of money.

Fighting a war incurs huge costs – bullets and bombs cost money, jet and other fuels cost money, supplies and logistics cost money, soldiers’ need to be paid. Refugees need to be looked after. The economy and the infra-structure of the vanquished needs to be rebuilt. The list goes on.

President Obama knew it from day one so he took a stand-offish attitude right from the start. The US’s participation is limited to firing off a token number of cruise missiles at the beginning. The rest of Nato was told to take over. But Nato hasn’t got the money either so it’s developed into a stalemate. The last thing Nato wants is to spend money in getting rid of a dictator of inconsequential influence when there are far more pressing things to attend to.

What do we learn from this? Don’t go to war, and don’t pass a threat to get rid of somebody when you don’t have the money to do so. Otherwise you become the laughing stock of the world.