Gen Museveni’s Suggestion Of fighting Man-To-Man Against The NATO Forces To Save Libya’s Col Muamar Ghadafi was Laughably Unfeasible

 

Gen Museveni’s Suggestion Of fighting Man-To-Man Against The NATO Forces To Save Libya’s Col Muamar Ghadafi was Laughably Unfeasible  And Would Have Ended In Tears

During his swearing-in speech at Kololo airstrip, President Yoweri Museveni revealed that when the western powers started attacking Libya’s Col Muamar Ghadafi, he called South African president Jacob Zuma with suggestions of defending the Libyan leader.

The Ugandan president who was in absolute jovial mood said that he felt that it was easier to fight back against the western powers by countering them man-to-man on the battle field

The controversial Libyan leader was pushed out of power by combined western powers under the command of NATO forces which used the air-force to bomb Tripoli to pieces until Ghadafi capitulated and fled to his other town of Sitre where he was eventually captured by rebel forces and killed.

But president Museveni ‘let the cat out of the bag’ when he said that he had nursed the idea of fighting back man-to-man with the NATO forces  but was let down by Col Ghadafi who hurriedly fled Tripoli without putting up a more formidable fight against the western powers.

Although president Museveni’s suggestions were appealing to the ears of the pan African audience-who clapped endlessly, they were militarily infeasible.

In fact his, was more of rhetoric than a realistic possibility. It was more of a chest thumping speech than a military revelation.

Those of us who listened knew that he was merely exaggerating his own military capacity. Deep inside he knows what would result from that course of action.

The reality  

For starters, the African union under the aegis of Jean Ping tried its best to engage the western powers to spare Col Ghadafi to no avail. He engaged the principal protagonists of the war against Ghadafi that were mostly led by the then American secretary of state Hilary Clinton , French president Nicolas Sarkozy , Italian prime minister Silvio Burluscroni, with American president barrack Obama as the cheer leader watching enthusiastically about the proceedings.

To cover up their evil intentions , the western powers decided to hide under the NATO command on the pretext of ‘stopping Ghadafi from killing his own people’ who had risen up to protest against his regime.

The Libyan people, mostly from the eastern town of Benghazi had sprung up when a Tunisian graduate called Bouaziz set himself on fire when the city authorities seized the goods he was selling in Tunis.

The Tunisians then rose to protest which culminated into the much-talked-about Arab spring that had resulted into the fall of several regimes in northern Africa including the 33 year reign of Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, 24 year old reign of Tunisian president Ben Ali, amongst others.

The revolutions also spread to Yemen and Syria where President Bashar Assad has since fought on to maintain his grip on power while the Yemen conflict is even getting more worse.

Actually, initially, the western powers were badly interested in the immediate fall of the Syrian leader Bashar Assad, as postulated by American secretary of state Hilary Clinton who lambasted Assad at every opportunity. But Russia intervened and managed to maintain Assad in power to-date.

 

American president Barrack Obama personally stepped on the presidential podium and told Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak to step down while the Tunisian leader Ben Ali fled to exile.

When the western powers refused to relent on the regime change project, Jean Ping travelled to almost all the African capitals to seek guidance from the African leaders on how to save the Libyan leader.

It’s on record that Ghadafi sponsored the African union with around100 million Euros per year.

It was therefore in the direct interest of the African union to save Ghadafi from collapsing.  As war was dragging on Ghadafi tried to put his case to the world through constant broadcasts where he spoke for hours sometimes bragging , using threats and at other times lamenting.

It was at that time that South African president Jacob Zuma travelled to Libya and met Ghadafi, possibly the last African leader to meet Ghadafi before his death, and beseeched him to leave the country.

But the relentless Libyan leader insisted that ‘’he was born in Libya, has lived in Libya all his life, and will therefore die in Libya” 

He stubbornly chose to die fighting and he indeed died on the frontline of his motherland in the cave of his own mother town of Sitre, a town where he was born and had loved so much during his lifetime.

How realistic was Gen M7’s idea?

Meanwhile, getting back to president Museveni’s suggestion of digging in the fight back at NATO, one might be tempted to ask , where was Museveni all that time?

If he had indeed considered an African military intervention why did he have to wait all that long for Ghadafi to flee from Tripoli?

Gen Museveni suggests that Ghadafi quit Tripoli so soon and let them down but the period during which Ghadafi was at siege was long enough for him to deploy and save his friend.

Secondly, and most importantly, even if Museveni and the African union had deployed and countered the NATO forces, its highly unlikely that they would have coped with the NATO fire power.

Why?

Because if the NATO forces were using aerial bombardment to strike Tripoli how does Museveni’s idea of fighting man-to-man arise or even survive?.

The NATO jet fighters and drones would have bombed Gen Museveni and his group out of the open caves of Tripoli.

Another thing that puts Museveni’s man-to-man idea to the dust bin is about the Libyan terrain. Was the Libyan terrain feasible for man-to-man warfare?

 

Flat and desertic as it is in Libya, how do you fight man to man against forces that are using drones and planes to carpet bomb you out of position?

You may presume that Gen Museveni was perhaps suggesting that the AU forces would dig in and fight urban warfare.

But Gen Museveni must be told that Saddam Hussein employed that urban warfare strategy against the Americans but was badly destroyed. You all recall how Sadam Hussein’s two sons Uday and Qusay Hussein were killed in the buildings by the US forces.

Therefore and in conclusion, Gen Museveni’s suggestion of fighting the western forces in defense of Col Ghadafi Was just for laughs and only generated applause from sycophants who have low appreciation of military strategy.

Tomorrow we shall delve into president Museveni’s lamentations about Africa’s lack of locus or gravitational force

The author Fred Daka Kamwada is a journalist, a blogger and an enthusiast of military science.

kamwadafred@gmail.com

kamwadafred@gmail.com