The Urgency of Security Restoration

The boast of the Libyan rebels that they would welcome NATO airstrikes on Moammar Gadhafi's troops battling their inexorable advances toward removing their tyrant from office, came with a partnering thrust that they would not accept foreign troops on the ground. They were determined to oust their tyrant on their own, and needed no foreign intervention beyond covering them from the air.

That was in the early, headily intoxicating days of the revolution to unseat the King of Africa, when the ragtag rebel militias made common cause with one another, and marched ill-equipped but certain of the success of their mission. It didn't take all that long before the militias got bogged down with problems inherent in facing off against a well-armed and -trained professional army.

And, despite the considerable assist from NATO bombing missions to destroy the regime's military assets: tanks, artillery and aircraft, the advance was agonizingly slow. And the retreats were most certainly sobering and no little bit humiliating. But the bombastic boasts, as is typical of such tribal societies, kept coming fast and furious from both sides.

No one in the West, nor did the rebel army and its commanders, anticipate that Moammar Gadhafi and his loyalists would hang on as tenaciously as they have. NATO members were becoming impatient with the rebels, and the rebels were defiantly critical of NATO strike crews, particularly when they were themselves inadvertently struck through mistaken identity.

The decision of NATO, against its better instincts, to throw in its lot with the rebels, despite concerns about the make-up of the rebels; the hints and rumours that among them were al-Qaeda affiliates and other Islamist groups, was initially heralded as a right and just decision, backed by the UN. There have been second, and third thoughts. Not, however, by NATO brass.

And now, as it seems the rebel army has finally routed Gadhafi and his sons and his supporters from Tripoli - with the considerable assistance of NATO bombers - British special forces, wearing Arab civilian garb, have been dispatched to assist in wiping up the remains of the loyalists, and discovering the whereabouts of the country's leader who continues to taunt his pursuers.

The rebels are triumphant, filling the air with shouts and celebratory ammunition fired at random. What remains is a mop-up operation. What remains is the need for NATO to collect weapons it distributed to the rebels. Good luck with that one; demobilization is a wonderful idea, but extracting those weapons from the rebels will not be easily accomplished.

Even if some of the weapons are handed back, there is no accounting for the plenitude of weapons seized from the regime's raided depots that ended up in the hands of al-Qaeda groups. NATO is still coordinating air strikes on key military targets, while the British SAS have been ordered to hunt down Col. Gadhafi. Foreign troops with their boots on the ground? Yes indeed.

This would be the very same British PM, now ordering his troops to discover Gadhafi's whereabouts, who had given his consent/order to Scottish authorities to effect the return to Libya of the Lockerbie bomber, Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, because a BP/Libya oil contract was so irresistibly appealing and enriching to Britain.

Al-Megrahi has joined his benefactor in escaping the potential of recapture and penalty.