Fair play to John Baron MP, astonishingly the only one out of 306 Conservative MPs in the House of Commons who understands the difference between imposing a No Fly Zone to protect civilians and bombing a sovereign nation into submission in order to steal its natural resources:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-13091693
It seems clear to me that Cameron and Hague simply assumed that Parliament, and the United Nations, either wouldn't notice when the terms of the original UN resolution were being flagrantly violated, or would turn a blind eye. But unfortunately for these two utterly deceitful and contemptible excuses for human beings it would appear there are some who care for the rule of law, and for truth.
Anybody who has been involved in politics for any length of time will confirm that the very biggest mistake anyone can make is to believe one's own propaganda. Cameron, Hague and the national media have invested a lot of time and effort into selling the conflict in Libya as being one between an entire, unarmed population that spontaneously rose up against oppression in the selfless, lofty pursuit of some high principle and a universally despised dictatorship that suppresses them by force, shooting and killing them indiscriminately for fun.
The reality of course is that whilst Gaddafi's regime certainly is a ruthless dictatorship in a great many respects it also enjoys the support of a signicant proportion, quite possibly a majority, of its population, particularly in the west of the country.
It looks increasingly likely too that the insurgents, far from being unarmed innocents (with a tank division and an air force), represent in fact an unholy alliance of militant Islamists and Western lackeys who were misled into believing that the nature of Gaddafi's regime and its lack of a conventional army of any consequence left it vulnerable to any sudden attack from within, especially when fortified by Western air power.
In their lust to bring about regime change by deception in a country that was threatening to become just a bit too possessive about its own natural resources Cameron, Hague and Sarkozy misjudged an awful lot of people. They overestimated the capablities of their "rebels", misunderstood the structure of Gaddafi's power base in the west of Libya, and probably assumed too that Barack Obama would be keener than he apparently is to out-macho his chimpoid predecessor.
They seem too to have reckoned without the courage and decency of a solitary backbench MP, whose potential to expose them and their agenda is almost limitless should that be his desire.
I want to see more democracy and improved human rights in Libya, but this can only come about by honest pressure and courageous political engagement. Not by deceit, military bombardment and pillage.
The amusing irony is that as everything that can go wrong does go wrong in their increasingly wobbly North African crusade there is one law that Cameron, Hague and Sarkozy are going to find themselves increasingly compelled to acknowledge, and that is the Law of Unintended Consequences.
Whatever humiliations and repercussions they suffer they will only have themselves to blame.
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