Libya-Venezuela etc

 Qaddaffi has massacred his people for decades now: the Abu Salim prison, the killing of wounded in hospitals and so on. I linked already to Amnesty International's information on Libya.

Now: if the international community is going to go after him, I think it should use a more accurate set of reasons and be more specific about the scope. It seems the scope is changing all too fast.

The international community should also be able to debate openly if it is good to be selling weapons to dictators who "haven't massacred their people just yet". Should China and Russia not explain on a world debate why they deliver weapons to Burma's regime? To Venezuela's? Why the US is doing the same to Arabia's?

Am I being naive? Very probably yes.

Some people will say: well, if we don't sell them weapons, China will. OK. No comments.

At the beginning I was wondering about Angela Merkel's and Westerwelle's position not to vote for the resolution: was it because of election time only? Does the government want to out-Green the Green not just in the nuclear thing? Is the government trying to find out energy alternative to the nuclear reactors it has to close down now? Is it that the government is haunted by the German past? Nothing made  sense. Blogger Daniel had other reasons

I believe the Germans have seen intelligence that is opposed to what the US and France are saying and above all they want a better plan, specially about what is coming now.

Gaddafi supporters are of course completely wrong. Gaddafi has been massacring his people for a long time, not just now but also when the international sanctions against him were firstly put in place many years ago and then later when Blair and  Berlusconi were kissing him, when the Germans were training his police forces and when the French selling him their weapons. 

And Gaddafi has been delivering all the oil the West needs for many years now…just like our compatriot, the comandantepresidente and heroe of the Museo de Historia has been providing oil to the US Americans.

Are the Russians and Chinese afraid to lose contracts for oil and weapons? Probably they are. Still, it seems the Germans and the Russians and the Chinese understand there is no real plan, the situation can escalate. What if Gaddafi does use civilians on a "Green march" in order to provoke more civilian casualties? How can the international community prevent this? I don't think they have a plan.

Here you see a German video (in German, of course) with some of the best informed Middle East specialists Germany has. This is the second part, the whole programme was very good and quite some food for thought.