Lincoln Didn't Mean Qadhaffi when He Said Tie a Knot and Hang On

The French and British sent helicopters into the area around Brega last night to strike at Qadhaffi forces imbedded among civilians.

The attacks hit armed pick-up trucks and other military targets. Qadhaffi forces returned fire but the helicopters returned to their carriers offshore without being hit.

The UN commander said that the sortie proves that helicopters will work against imbedded Qadhaffi forces where planes cannot operate.

It was mid-February when the uprising in Libya began. We seem somewhat closer to forcing Qadhaffi out of Libya, but his military power is still much greater than that of the insurgents.

Amid this, Russia and others are lamenting the possibility that ground force intervention will soon be used, in violation of UN Resolution 1973 that authorized air attack only and specifically forbids UN ground forces to enter Libyan territory.

In principle, if not in fact, the resolution is, however, already badly bent because of British and French military advisors on the ground in Benghazi for training and advisory purposes. Add to that the American advisors and CIA operatives on the ground and we can see that UN Resolution 1973 is no longer the operative command document.

But, this is what makes Libya so different from the rest of the Arab Spring insurrections. The UN actually voted to intervene in Libya and provided the military forces to undertake the action. No other country - not Yemen or Syria or Egypt or Tunisia - has been the subject of a UN resolution. Truth to tell, these dictators were or are equally in breach of their citizens’ human rights. But, Qadhaffi is different.

First, Libya is not in the Middle East triangle where so many international interests have stakes making it difficult for the UN to attack. Second, Qadhaffi has for 30 years provoked and made fools of western countries with his terrorist activities outside his own country - Lockerbie, Berlin, Bulgarian and Swiss hostages, for example, and so he is widely detested.

Qadhaffi seems to be the present-day reverse embodiment of Abraham Lincoln’s thought : "When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on."

That is certainly what Qadhaffi is doing and it will take more guns and troops to untie the knot and make him fall.