SAS trains Libyan troops - Can stranger bedfellows be found?

[PJABBER]

The British Special Air Service holds a certain mystique, even amongst professional soldiers. Working mostly covertly, they take on missions that are both specialized and hazardous.

The SAS has a history of fighting terrorism that goes all the way back to Malaya in the 1950s. Their collective memory of campaigns fought and won includes Borneo, Aden, Dohfar, Northern Ireland, Bosnia, Iraq and, of course, Afghanistan.

But political accommodations make for very strange bedfellows and the SAS is now training Col. Muammar al-Qaddafi's soldiers in Libya, a country that for years was the main supplier of arms meant to kill SAS troopers in Northern Ireland and to bomb places like Aldershot, Birmingham, Guildford, Warrington, Warren Point, Hyde Park and Knightsbridge.

Britain’s relationship with Libya has been under the spotlight since former Libyan intelligence officer and mastermind of the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 Abdelbaset al Megrahi was freed August 20, 2009 from a Scottish jail on compassionate grounds following reports that he had terminal prostate cancer and had less than three months to live. He is apparently still alive in Libya and doing as well as can be expected.

The 270 souls that lost their lives in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland on December 21, 1988 are rolling over in their graves.

And I imagine so too are the 1,800 or so dead in Great Britain and Northern Ireland as a consequence of Libyan arms.

Here in the United States, 2,976 victims still lie uneasy, awaiting the fate of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

********************************

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/onthefrontline/6176808/SAS-trains-Libyan-troops.html

SAS trains Libyan troops

The SAS has been ordered by the Government to train Libyan special forces despite the country having armed the IRA, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.

By Thomas Harding, Defence Correspondent
Published: 10:35PM BST 11 Sep 2009

For the past six months Britain’s elite troops have been schooling soldiers working for Col Muammar Gaddafi’s regime, which for years provided (Irish) Republican terrorists with the Semtex explosive, machine-guns and anti-aircraft missiles used against British troops during the Troubles in Northern Ireland.

Sources within the SAS have expressed distaste at the agreement, which they believe could be connected to the release of the Lockerbie bomber.

Britain’s relationship with Libya has been under the spotlight since Abdelbaset al Megrahi was freed from a Scottish jail on compassionate grounds last month after being diagnosed as suffering from terminal prostate cancer and given three months to live.

Gordon Brown has faced claims that his Government helped engineer Megrahi’s release to promote Britain’s commercial interests, particularly energy, in Libya.

Downing Street has denied the allegations, but Jack Straw, the Justice Minister, has admitted that trade was a factor in deciding to include Megrahi in an earlier prisoner transfer agreement with Libya. Megrahi was the only person convicted for the murder of 270 people killed in the bombing in 1988 of Pan Am flight 103.

The disclosure that members of the SAS are training their Libyan counterparts will further raise suspicions about exactly what has been agreed behind the scenes between Tripoli and Britain.

It will also infuriate families of the Lockerbie victims and further sour relations with America. Earlier this week, President Barack Obama told the Prime Minister of his “disappointment” over Megrahi’s release.

Defence sources said the training arrangement must have been given high-level political approval.

Members of Britain’s elite regiment are angry at having to help train soldiers from a country that for years armed terrorists they fought against.

An SAS source said: “A small SAS training team have been doing it for the last six months as part of this cosy deal with the Libyans.

“From our perspective we cannot see it as part of anything else other than the Megrahi deal.” Another SAS soldier said: “The IRA was our greatest adversary now we are training their backers. There was a weary rolling of the eyes when we were told about this.”

The Ministry of Defence refuses to comment on special forces activities, but sources have admitted that SAS reserves have bolstered the team that has been training “Libyan infantry in basic skills”.

A senior defence source admitted: “This is a huge political embarrassment.’’

The first moves towards setting up the training agreement are believed to have begun after Tony Blair visited Libya as Prime Minister in 2004. However, the deal was only finalised and “signed off” by Mr Brown earlier this year.

Robin Horsfall, a former SAS soldier who took part in the Iranian Embassy siege in 1980 and fought the IRA in Northern Ireland, said:

“There is a long list of British soldiers who have died because of Gaddafi funding terrorists."

“The SAS is being ordered to do something it knows is morally wrong.’’

The team – a troop of between four and 14 men – is training the Libyans in counter-terrorism techniques, including covert surveillance.

However, the “full spectrum of techniques” learned from fighting Islamic terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan is not expected to be passed on.

Once an international pariah, Col Gaddafi agreed in 2003 to give up Libya’s weapons of mass destruction and has since enjoyed steadily improving relations with the West.

 

[Fear No Evil]

JOIN UP OR SHUT UP! THE UK WAS ON THE GROUND FIRST! ARRRRRRRRRGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(Regains composure.. Sorry.. was I just channeling JoS?)

 

[Red Dawn]

I hope this doesn't come back to bite them in the ass like our training of the Muhjadeen in Afghanistan did.

 

[cubeless]

JOIN UP OR SHUT UP! THE UK WAS ON THE GROUND FIRST! ARRRRRRRRRGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(Regains composure.. Sorry.. was I just channeling JoS?)

tick tick tick... waiting for JoS explosion...

but i thought libya was all buddy buddy with our side now... don't we trust them?

 

[Sinsear]

In before the lunatic rantings of JoS.

 

[0marTheZealot]

Money > All, just follow it and it'll tell its own story.

For example, Bush's dad made a fortune dealing with the Nazis. If Hitler didn't declare war on the US on December 8th, 1941, Prescott would have continued dealing with them. You can find this theme throughout history. Arms dealers are one of the most lucrative professions in the world. Why do you think we supply weapons and training to some of the most despot dictators in the world? It's all about the money. If it blows up in our face, it's worth it because the defense industry gets even more money to fight our former allies. Lives don't matter, they are just another column in a short list of "cons" vs a whole litany of "pros".

 

[PJABBER]

Money > All, just follow it and it'll tell its own story.

For example, Bush's dad made a fortune dealing with the Nazis. If Hitler didn't declare war on the US on December 8th, 1941, Prescott would have continued dealing with them. You can find this theme throughout history. Arms dealers are one of the most lucrative professions in the world. Why do you think we supply weapons and training to some of the most despot dictators in the world? It's all about the money. If it blows up in our face, it's worth it because the defense industry gets even more money to fight our former allies. Lives don't matter, they are just another column in a short list of "cons" vs a whole litany of "pros".

Well, MOST of it is about the money. Certainly the largest players like the U.S. and the Russians get some big bucks out of the process. North Korea seems to get most of its hard currency through arms dealing and they seem to be peddling the really dangerous stuff, including nuclear technology and delivery systems.

I wouldn't discount the ideological component entirely, though it is often a matter of "an enemy of my enemy is my friend" kind of thing.

Proffering up the training services of the SAS to Libya, though, is kind of a right smart kick in the pants to those who saw the Troubles up close. Kind of makes me wonder if there is something personal with that one.

 

[cubeless]

Well, MOST of it is about the money. Certainly the largest players like the U.S. and the Russians get some big bucks out of the process. North Korea seems to get most of its hard currency through arms dealing and they seem to be peddling the really dangerous stuff, including nuclear technology and delivery systems.

I wouldn't discount the ideological component entirely, though it is often a matter of "an enemy of my enemy is my friend" kind of thing.

Proffering up the training services of the SAS to Libya, though, is kind of a right smart kick in the pants to those who saw the Troubles up close. Kind of makes me wonder if there is something personal with that one.

never seen it up close, but i thought the troubles are a lot less troubling these days... sometimes things move on and your ex enemy becomes someone you start working with?

 

[PJABBER]

never seen it up close, but i thought the troubles are a lot less troubling these days... sometimes things move on and your ex enemy becomes someone you start working with?

The IRA military campaign officially ended in July, 2005. I was working in Europe, and extensively in London and other parts of the UK, for at least the prior 20 years before that, so maybe I am a bit more sensitive to the nuance. I still work there once in a while and the Libya training, once it was exposed, remains a very sore point, while offering a lesson as to how far political accommodation can also go here.

Qadhafi, and by extension Libya, is very strange. He was part of the whole Soviet Union surrogate warfare thing, vied for some kind of leadership of the Middle East Arab and Palestinian causes with his contemporaries, really very opportunistic in using the trappings of state power to become an icon in the Third World. Delusion of grandeur is an understatement when applied to Qadhafi. Still, he made sure the baddest European terrorists were supplied with he latest and best Soviet small arms and equipment and a lot of people, civilian and military, died as a result.

Ever the survivor, I think Qadhafi literally shit his pants when Bush attacked Baghdad. He had already missed getting killed by a US airstrike on his compound but family members were killed and that was his first wake-up call that he wasn't going to be left out. He communicated as much to Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi. There is speculation that his ultimate motivation to come clean on his nuclear weapons development program was that he wanted his son to take over Libya when he dies or retires and he was worried that not only he but his kid would be killed if he kept going the terrorism sponsor/nuclear proliferation route.

He was never really punished for being his bad self, so a lot of people that died because of his involvement are still kind of wishing him a bad end. To have the SAS there now is, like I said, highly insulting to the memories of the many dead who died in an ugly terrorist war.

On a side note, and only rely on some interesting conversations to back this up, the Provisional IRA gave up bombing as a tactic when the Islamic jihadi terrorists started adopting it wholesale. As Catholics and even as political strategists, the Provos did not want to be tarred with the same brush, so to speak. The strange thing in this case is that the rise of al-Qaeda and the violence of the Palestinian terrorists may have directly led to the choice by the IRA to give up on an armed struggle and go for a purely political strategy.

 

[Lemon law]

PJABBER may have been half way on a roll in his anti Libya rant until, "Here in the United States, 2,976 victims still lie uneasy, awaiting the fate of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed."

And 404 error linkage to Libya not found.

Of course PJABBER also conveniently fails to mention all those dead Americans killed by Japs and Germans during WW2. They must be spinning in their graves at a few thousand RPM now that we have converted Germany and Japan from enemies to now allies.

Yet PJABBER denies that possible conversion to Libya who may be able to use the SAS training and their strategic location to aid in the fight against terrorism. As for me, I don't have much use for someone a former acquaintance of mine called Kad goofey, but he is getting on in years and therefore can't last all that much longer. And I would therefore prefer increasing the probability the next Libyan leader be be more pro West. And when PJABBER type thinking reduces that probability, we have to wonder about the wisdom of holding grudges forever.

 

[CanOWorms]

It's interesting that the OP brings up the British in Malaysia in the 1950s as fighting terrorism when they themselves put hundreds of thousands of people into concentration camps during the same period.

A lot of this probably has to do with fighting the flow of refugees from Africa to Europe. European governments are giving all sorts of military assistance to Libya so that they can continue to bomb, torture, and kill internationally-recognized refugees.

 

[PJABBER]

It's interesting that the OP brings up the British in Malaysia in the 1950s as fighting terrorism when they themselves put hundreds of thousands of people into concentration camps during the same period.

A lot of this probably has to do with fighting the flow of refugees from Africa to Europe. European governments are giving all sorts of military assistance to Libya so that they can continue to bomb, torture, and kill internationally-recognized refugees.

Far be it for me to defend the Brits or any of the colonial powers.

Are you talking about the "New Villages" to which a lot of the Malay population was relocated? They weren't concentration camps, but of course there was an initial resistance to relocation. It did not take long for the people who wound up living there to realize that they actually were much better off. The Brits actually gave them the land to own and paid them to get through the re-settlement. Effectively this cut off the guerrillas off from their base and the resources needed to continue an effective resistance campaign. From a strictly professional perspective the Brits did a bang-up job of counterinsurgency in Malaysia and the lessons learned are still absolutely worth examining today.

To keep a bit on topic, the guerrilla warfare there was the impetus for the re-formation of the Special Air Service in 1950 and their subsequent mission effectiveness built on the experience they got there.

I have no idea what you are talking about in your last paragraph.

Libya has no human rights, they can't change their government, etc. It is a one man authoritarian regime. But what "internationally-recognized refugees" are you talking about?

Italy is paying $5 billion to them to stop sending Libyans or allowing Libyans to leave to go to Europe. Are you saying the Libyans are doing this through a torture and execution regime? I mean, beyond the "normal" abuses of a dictatorship.

 

[CanOWorms]

Far be it for me to defend the Brits or any of the colonial powers.

Are you talking about the "New Villages" to which a lot of the Malay population was relocated? They weren't concentration camps, but of course there was an initial resistance to relocation. It did not take long for the people who wound up living there to realize that they actually were much better off. The Brits actually gave them the land to own and paid them to get through the re-settlement. Effectively this cut off the guerrillas off from their base and the resources needed to continue an effective resistance campaign. From a strictly professional perspective the Brits did a bang-up job of counterinsurgency in Malaysia and the lessons learned are still absolutely worth examining today.

To keep a bit on topic, the guerrilla warfare there was the impetus for the re-formation of the Special Air Service in 1950 and their subsequent mission effectiveness built on the experience they got there.

You sound like the people who try to justify Nazis putting those they deemed to be undesirables into camps or those people who try to justify slavery by saying that the slaves were better off.

You're claiming forced resettlement to fortified, guarded camps was a blessing? The British engaged in mass scale war crimes.

I have no idea what you are talking about in your last paragraph.

Libya has no human rights, they can't change their government, etc. It is a one man authoritarian regime. But what "internationally-recognized refugees" are you talking about?

Italy is paying $5 billion to them to stop sending Libyans or allowing Libyans to leave to go to Europe. Are you saying the Libyans are doing this through a torture and execution regime? I mean, beyond the "normal" abuses of a dictatorship.

Most European relations with Libya is to stem the tide of refugees from Africa from entering Europe. It's a major political issue in Europe. Libya is the point where much of the refugee traffic to Europe flows from.

Italy isn't spending $5 billions to stop Libyans from leaving to go to Europe - it's primarily non-Libyan refugees. It's providing military assistance to Libya, a country which is outside of international standards and treaties under the United Nations governing refugees, to stop the flow of refugees. That is why Italy is spending billions for Libya, why many European countries wanted to set up concentration camps in the Libyan desert against international law, etc.

And now the British are providing special forces training which will be further applied against refugees.